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.”

Ibrahim 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 →

Le 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.

Agha Nadia, Kinship, Patriarchal Structure and Women’s Bargaining with Patriarchy in Rural Sindh, Pakistan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

The book provides insights into the prevailing patriarchal system in rural Pakistan. It elaborates on the kinship system in rural Sindh and explores how young married women strategize and negotiate with patriarchy. Drawing on qualitative methodologies, the book reveals the strong relationship between poverty and the perpetuation of patriarchy. Women’s strategies help elevate their position in their families, such as attention to household tasks, producing children, and doing handicraft work for their well-being. These conditions are usually seen as evidence of women’s subordination, but these are also strategies for survival where accommodation to patriarchy wins them approval. The book concludes that women’s life-long struggle is, in fact, a technique of negotiating with patriarchy. In so doing, they internalize the culture that rests on their subordination and reproduce it in older age in exercising power by oppressing other junior women.

Pour une autre idée du Pakistan. Nationalisme et construction identitaire dans le Sindh, ResPublica, 2022

The socio-political dynamics of Pakistan are often summarised as Islamism, terrorism and military incursions into civilian life. This book offers a different vision of Pakistan’s political history through the case of ethnic nationalism in the south eastern province of Sindh. This movement and its identity discourse are unique in at least two respects: on the one hand, Sindhi nationalist discourse conceives of belonging to Sufi Continue reading Book: Pour une autre idée du Pakistan, by Julien Levesque →