Sadia Bajwa | Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (original) (raw)
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Papers by Sadia Bajwa
South Asia Chronicle, 2019
In the following review essay, I sketch the academic engagement within two thematic fields that ... more In the following review essay, I sketch the academic engagement within two thematic fields that converge in the body of the student: "National education" and "student politics". The study of students and their relationship to the state and nation in postcolonial Pakistan is first, about "national education", a developmentalist state-project, which has historically been characterised by a higher education bias. A grounded analysis of "national education" must take into account how national education in postcolonial Pakistan was rooted in the social and discursive history of colonial education. "Student politics" presents the second thematic field. As the latter section will show, the relationship of students to politics has for the most part been studied in terms of Pakistan’s classical political history, with students being extensions of mainstream political mobilisations. Questions of cultural history—how the nation is imagined in the body of the youth or how citizenship is subject to symbolic constructions of the ideal subject-citizen—are only tangentially touched upon. These questions would allow a deconstruction of the very term "student politics" and give insight into
the postcolonial relationship of citizenship to "politics"—variously defined.
Borders and Boundaries, Dec 2015
Since 1947, the state machinery of producing myths of origin, and images of “us” and “them” has b... more Since 1947, the state machinery of producing myths of origin, and images of “us” and “them” has been chugging away, disseminating, with varying degrees of success, a fabricated,
distorted and, at times, absurd version of history which “promotes” the “Ideology of Pakistan.” This article traces both the state’s construction of an imagined Pakistan, and the critical
academic’s attempt to take this imagination apart. Pakistan Studies needs to find its place as a critical multidisciplinary field
to correct the harm that has been done by its misuse for politics and ideology.
The study asks: what can student politics tell us about the politics of and discourse on developi... more The study asks: what can student politics tell us about the politics of and discourse on developing and shaping a national culture and Pakistani citizenship? Furthermore, the study of the state’s reactions and handling of such moments of ‘crisis’ and contestation, make visible its strategies and discourses on public, political and national space, and broadly speaking, processes of postcolonial state-formation.
Book Reviews by Sadia Bajwa
South Asia Chronicle, 2019
In the following review essay, I sketch the academic engagement within two thematic fields that ... more In the following review essay, I sketch the academic engagement within two thematic fields that converge in the body of the student: "National education" and "student politics". The study of students and their relationship to the state and nation in postcolonial Pakistan is first, about "national education", a developmentalist state-project, which has historically been characterised by a higher education bias. A grounded analysis of "national education" must take into account how national education in postcolonial Pakistan was rooted in the social and discursive history of colonial education. "Student politics" presents the second thematic field. As the latter section will show, the relationship of students to politics has for the most part been studied in terms of Pakistan’s classical political history, with students being extensions of mainstream political mobilisations. Questions of cultural history—how the nation is imagined in the body of the youth or how citizenship is subject to symbolic constructions of the ideal subject-citizen—are only tangentially touched upon. These questions would allow a deconstruction of the very term "student politics" and give insight into
the postcolonial relationship of citizenship to "politics"—variously defined.
Borders and Boundaries, Dec 2015
Since 1947, the state machinery of producing myths of origin, and images of “us” and “them” has b... more Since 1947, the state machinery of producing myths of origin, and images of “us” and “them” has been chugging away, disseminating, with varying degrees of success, a fabricated,
distorted and, at times, absurd version of history which “promotes” the “Ideology of Pakistan.” This article traces both the state’s construction of an imagined Pakistan, and the critical
academic’s attempt to take this imagination apart. Pakistan Studies needs to find its place as a critical multidisciplinary field
to correct the harm that has been done by its misuse for politics and ideology.
The study asks: what can student politics tell us about the politics of and discourse on developi... more The study asks: what can student politics tell us about the politics of and discourse on developing and shaping a national culture and Pakistani citizenship? Furthermore, the study of the state’s reactions and handling of such moments of ‘crisis’ and contestation, make visible its strategies and discourses on public, political and national space, and broadly speaking, processes of postcolonial state-formation.