Category Archives: Books

Book: Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan by Suneela Ahmed

Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan  book coverSuneela Ahmed, 2023, Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan, Routledge.

This book is set in Karachi, Pakistan and investigates the possibility of achieving localness through identifying urban process and their impact on built form, addressing how locals associate with the urban spaces and how they value it. Thus, the investigation, using the local terminology maqamiat, goes beyond the physicality of space and develops a framework that helps to understand the social, ethnic, economic, ecological and other the non-physical aspects of space, which are of value to the locals. The Continue reading Book: Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan by Suneela Ahmed

Book: Le capitalisme à main armée. Caïds et patrons à Karachi

Laurent Gayer, 2022, Le capitalisme à main armée. Caïds et patrons à Karachi, CNRS Edition, Paris, 416 pages.

“Le 11 septembre 2012, 255 ouvriers et ouvrières des Ali Enterprises, fabriquant des jeans pour le compte du groupe allemand KiK, périssent dans l’incendie de leur usine à Karachi. Accident ou attentat ? La tragédie suscite des interprétations contradictoires. Faut-il incriminer les logiques prédatrices de la fast-fashion ou les méthodes mafieuses des partis politiques qui ont mis la ville en coupe réglée ? Continue reading Book: Le capitalisme à main armée. Caïds et patrons à Karachi

Book: Sindh under the Mughals

Humera Naz, 2022, Sindh under the Mughals, Origin and Development of Historiography (1591–1737 CE), Oxford University Press, Karachi, 280 pages.

“[This] book is a major contribution to the history of Sindh, and consequently to that of Pakistan and South Asia. Beyond the excellence of the research, it must be emphasized that, if the reign of the Mughal rulers has been studied in detail, it is mainly in the imperial context, namely from the centres of power they had created and developed in northern India … Dr Naz has shifted the focus, producing an innovative perspective on how the Mughals exercised power in territories relatively far from the imperial centres, but above all she reveals the leading role they played in developing historiography through the spread of several literary genres. Thus, Dr Naz’s work renews the field of Mughal studies, but at the same time, it is much more than that.”

Book: Consolidating Empire. Power and Elites in Jahangir’s India

Corinne Lefèvre, a historian at the Centre for South Asian Studies (CEIAS) in Paris, just published in 2022 her latest book entitled Consolidating Empire: Power and Elites in Jahangir’s India 1605–1627, Permanent Black, 644 p.

“What happened in Mughal India in the quarter century after Akbar’s death? Nothing that really mattered – according to received wisdom. Through a complete re-examination of the reign of the fourth Mughal emperor Jahangir, this book upends that traditional view. Continue reading Book: Consolidating Empire. Power and Elites in Jahangir’s India

Book: Family to Police Force: Security and Belongign on A South Asian Border, by Ibrahim Farhana

From Family to Police Force: Security and Belonging on a South Asian Border (Police/Worlds: Studies in Security, Crime, and Governance): Ibrahim, Farhana: 9781501759536: Amazon.com: BooksIbrahim Farhana, Family to Police Force: Security and Belongign on A South Asian Border, NewYork, Cornell University Press, 2021.

From Family to Police Force illuminates the production and contestation of social, familial, and national order on a South Asian borderland. In the borderland that divides Kutch, a district in the western Indian state of Gujarat, from Sindh, a southern province in Pakistan, there are many forces at work: civil and border police, the air wing of the armed forces, paramilitary forces, and various Continue reading Book: Family to Police Force: Security and Belongign on A South Asian Border, by Ibrahim Farhana

Book: Ethnographie filmée des musiciens du desert du thar en Inde, by Fabienne Le Houérou

Ethnographie filmée des musiciens du desert du thar en inde : princes et vagabonds, poussière d'exilsLe Houerou Fabienne,  Ethnographie filmée des musiciens du désert du Thar en Inde: Princes et Vagabonds, poussière d’exils, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2021.

L’auteur s’appuie sur une heuristique des images et, en particulier, un long métrage : Princes et Vagabonds, afin d’élaborer une ethnographie filmée des musiciens itinérants dans le désert du Thar (Rajasthan, Inde). Par le prisme du film et des images animées, elle montre l’existence d’une poussière d’exils induite par le système des castes, les exils intérieurs, les exils sociaux, les exils religieux, les seuils/exils de ces musiciens qui tentent de se réinventer en migrant dans des ailleurs aux multiples ouvertures. Fabienne le Houérou s’attèle ainsi à saisir le caractère « rhizomorphe » d’une théorie des exils pluriels en insistant sur les correspondances entre exils forcés et volontaires.