"Reviewing Identity and Nation-Building in Pakistan"

From 15th to 16th of March 2013 an international workshop, funded by the German Hanns-Seidel-Foundation, will be organized by Prof. Dr. Azam Chaudhary and Prof. Dr. Andrea Fleschenberg dos Ramos Pinéu from the National Institute of Pakistan Studies together with Prof. Dr. Ilhan Niaz from the Department of History at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. This international workshop is the first of a series of events conducted under a three-year research cooperation titled "Ideas, Issues and Questions of Nation-Building in Pakistan", focussing in 2012-2013 particularly on questions of identity and nation-building.

Rationale

Throughout the world processes of and debates about nation-building are marked by a set of characteristic ideas, issues, questions, discourses and challenges to societies engaging in such endeavors throughout their history. Among others, a particular focus lies on questions of and contestations about identity. Which identities and subsequent narratives and ideas are taken into account? What are their sources and which legacies are shaping them? How are they balanced, negotiated or instrumentalized in everyday private life, societal interactions and in politics? What could and should be modes to address and negotiate different identity-related aspirations within and for the state, at the local, regional, national and transnational as well as international levels?

Pakistan is an exemplary case in this regard, in the sense that there have been repeated ruptures as well as reform processes in its nation-building process. This has been accompanied by continuous debates and ideas uttered by multiple actors drawing on different agendas and interests when it comes to questions such as collective-individual relations, state-society relations, questions of reform/ change, preservation, historical and cultural legacies and documenting and discussing existing practices, discourses and ideas.

Call for Papers for Panels and/or Individual Presentations

Contributions are invited to the following topic clusters and issues:

· Shaping ideas of 'I', 'We', 'Us and them' – contemporary discourses of 'identities' and their ethno-political and religio-political 'purposes'

· The past is the past? - civilizational legacies and influences on contemporary society and politics

· Imagining 'identity' and the idea of a 'nation-state' – nationalist movements at subnational levels and challenges of identity-formation(s) and nation-building

· Who are we, when, where and why? - multiplicity of identities and questions of divisions, balancing and negotiation across spaces and levels

· 'National identity - whose part of it?' - marginalized and silenced identities and hegemonic discourses and practices / policies

· Identity upside-down and forth-and-back? - identify-formation, contestations and influences in situations of migration (internal / international) and diaspora

· Primordial, fluid or hybrid? - transnational identity configurations and organizations (e.g. madrassas, Sufi orders)

· Tales of socialization, or: It's all in a book... - Educational contents and practices of school curricula and textbooks in Pakistan's segmented education system

Academics and practitioners interested to participate are asked to submit abstracts for individual workshop presentations or panels along with a short CV. Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words, outlining title, research question, method(s) as well as potential theoretical framework employed along with major ideas to be covered. The short biographical info of maximum 150 words should include full name and contact details (email, postal address, phone) along with institutional affiliation and milestones in terms of career and publications. Travel costs have to be covered by participants themselves.

Submitted workshop papers will be considered for a special issue of our academic journal SCRUTINY as well as for the project's final book publication, both subject to peer review processes. A first author's meeting will be held during the workshop proceedings to discuss details with those selected.

The abstract should be submitted by 10th January 2013 via email to andrea.fleschenberg@yahoo.de. Those selected for presentation will be invited by 31st January 2013 and are asked to submit their paper by 28th February 2013.