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The ‘Truth’ About Pakistan: Knowledge Production and Circulation in Area Studies

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Constructing 'Pakistan' through Knowledge Production in International Relations and Area Studies
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Abstract

This chapter begins by exploring the development of the Area Studies enterprise beginning in the Cold War. The chapter argues that during the Cold War, Pakistan caught the attention of western policy-makers for primarily security reasons and continues to do so, for this reason most of the scholarship on Pakistan is largely focused on Pakistan’s security and Pakistan’s relationship with ‘international’ security. The chapter further explores Area Studies centers for their potential in producing knowledge on Pakistan. The data on Area Studies centers unveils two distinct patterns. First, it has unveiled the endemic lack of interest on the part of western knowledge producers in knowing Pakistan and the other states that make up the South Asian region. Secondly, while true to their proposed research ambit, South Asian area study centers across the West have intellectually explored India across the depths and breadths of various disciplines, so that the study of India has become a truly multidisciplinary enterprise, in the case of Pakistan, most of the research, however marginal, remains centered on matters of its security and international affairs. Finally the chapter analyzes the contributions on Pakistan in Area Studies journals to observe how Pakistan’s representational identity is discursively constructed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The reason for my over emphasis on US Area Study Centers is that which is clearly different from area studies in Europe, or elsewhere, but because of certain common Cold War developments, the American version of area studies development has garnered worldwide influence that needs to be analyzed as the leading social science project in the Western world.

  2. 2.

    See Manuela Boatcã, “Catching Up with the (New) West: The German ‘Excellence Initiative,’ Area Studies, and the Re-production of Inequality,” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 10, no. 1 (2012): 17–30; Katja Mielke and Anna-Katharina Hornidge, eds., Area Studies at the Crossroads: Knowledge Production After the Mobility Turn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

  3. 3.

    In this vein the work of Arturo Escobar stands out as a critique of knowledge production on the field of ‘development’ and the Third World. For reference, see Arturo Escobar, “Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and Management of the Third World,” Cultural Anthropology (Wiley American Anthropological Association, n.d.), https://doi.org/10.2307/656487; Arturo Escobar, “Anthropology and the Development Encounter: The Making and Marketing of Development Anthropology,” American Ethnologist 18, no. 4 (1991): 658–82; Arturo Escobar, “Imagining a Post-development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements,” Social Text, no. 31/32 (1992): 20–56, https://doi.org/10.2307/466217; Arturo Escobar, “Beyond the Third World: Imperial Globality, Global Coloniality and Anti-Globalisation Social Movements,” Third World Quarterly 25, no. 1 (2004): 207–30.

  4. 4.

    Vicente L. Rafael, “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States,” Social Text, no. 41 (1994): 91, https://doi.org/10.2307/466834.

  5. 5.

    France created the Mission Scientifique au Maroc (1904) which published the Revue du Monde Musulman (1906), and the Société d’Economie Politique in Cairo (1909) which published L’Egypte Contemporaine. The School of Oriental and African Studies in London, was established in 1916. The Royal Society of Asian Affairs was founded in 1901 and continues to publish a journal Asian Affairs since 1914.

  6. 6.

    J.K. Gibson-Graham, “Area Studies After Poststructuralism,” Environment and Planning A 36, no. 3 (March 1, 2004): 405–19, https://doi.org/10.1068/a3652.

  7. 7.

    For a detailed understanding of how Area Studies became a Cold War project, see Rafael, “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States”; Vicente L. Rafael, “Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency,” The American Historical Review 104, no. 4 (October 1999): 1208–20, https://doi.org/10.2307/2649568; Malini J. Schueller, “Area Studies and Multicultural Imperialism: The Project of Decolonizing Knowledge,” Social Text 25, no. 1 90 (March 1, 2007): 41–62, https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2006-016; David Ludden, “Area Studies in the Age of Globalization,” Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad 6 (2000): 1–22; Peter J. Katzenstein, “Area and Regional Studies in the United States,” PS: Political Science and Politics 34, no. 4 (2001): 789–91, https://doi.org/10.2307/1350268.

  8. 8.

    Rafael, “Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency”, 1209.

  9. 9.

    Andrea Teti, “Bridging the Gap: IR, Middle East Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Area Studies Controversy,” European Journal of International Relations 13, no. 1 (March 25, 2007): 120, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066107074291.

  10. 10.

    Teti.

  11. 11.

    Here, ‘non-discursive’ is used in a qualified sense. Though nothing exists outside discourse, but the use of ‘non-discursive’ is only to make a distinction between the processes of knowledge production and the linguistic discourse which is produced as a consequence.

  12. 12.

    This excludes the articles printed earlier but published within 2006 and 2016.

  13. 13.

    Taken from the website https://my.nps.edu/web/nsa/faculty/-/asset_publisher/GvC61nDH4qso/content/robert-looney-ph-d-.

  14. 14.

    Taken from the website https://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/staff/profile/?id=11423.

  15. 15.

    Taken from the website https://www.southampton.ac.uk/politics/about/staff/ce1e16.page#teaching.

  16. 16.

    Taken from the website https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/275.

  17. 17.

    Taken from the website https://www.mei.edu/experts/marvin-g-weinbaum.

  18. 18.

    Talcott Parsons, quoted in Charles Wagley, “Area Research and Training: A Conference Report on the Study of World Areas” (New York, 1948).

  19. 19.

    David Szanton, ed., The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Discipline, vol. 3 (University of California Press, 2004): 8, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/59n2d2n1#page-1.

  20. 20.

    Szanton.

  21. 21.

    For an understanding of the debate, see Rafael, “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States”; Rafael, “Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency”; Robert H. Bates, “Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?,” PS: Political Science and Politics 30, no. 2 (1997): 166–69; Robert H. Bates, “Letter from the President: Area Studies and the Discipline,” Newsletter of the APSA Organised Section in Comparative Politics 7, no. 1 (1996): 1–16; Chalmer Johnson, “Preconception vs. Observation, or the Contributions of Rational Choice Theory and Area Studies to Contemporary Political Science,” PS: Political Science and Politics 30, no. 2 (1997): 170–74.

  22. 22.

    Peter J. Katzenstein, “Area and Regional Studies in the United States,” PS: Political Science and Politics 34, no. 4 (2001): 789, https://doi.org/10.2307/1350268.

  23. 23.

    Arjun Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination,” Public Culture 12, no. 1 (2000): 1–19; Amitav Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 4 (December 1, 2014): 647–59, https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12171; Szanton, The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Discipline.

  24. 24.

    Szanton, The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Discipline.

  25. 25.

    David Ludden, “Area Studies in the Age of Globalization,” Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 2000, 1, https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/area-studies-in-the-age-of-globalization.

  26. 26.

    Rafael, “The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States”, 91.

  27. 27.

    Stanley Hoffman, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Daedalus 106, no. 3 (1977): 43, https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/0084/Hoffman.pdf.

  28. 28.

    Peter A. Jackson, “The Neoliberal University and Global Immobilities of Theory,” in Area Studies at the Crossroads, ed. Katja Mielke and Anna-Katharina Hornidge (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2017), 34, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59834-9_1.

  29. 29.

    Jennifer Milliken, “The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of Research and Methods,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 2 (1999): 229, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066199005002003.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 237.

  31. 31.

    Stephen E. Hanson, “The Contribution of Area Studies,” in The Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics, ed. Todd Landman and Neil Robinson (Sage Publishers, 2009), 159.

  32. 32.

    Among the few works some important ones are A. Chun, “The Postcolonial Alien in Us All: Identity in the Global Division of Intellectual Labor,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 16, no. 3 (December 1, 2008): 689–710, https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-2008-018; Jackson, “The Neoliberal University and Global Immobilities of Theory.”

  33. 33.

    See website https://cisar.iar.ubc.ca/shastri-indo-canadian-institute/.

  34. 34.

    See website http://www.international.ucla.edu/cisa/about.

  35. 35.

    See website http://www.asia-studies.com/asarc.html.

  36. 36.

    Syed H.S. Soherwordi, “‘Punjabisation’ in the British Indian Army 1857–1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan,” Edinburgh Papers in South Asian Studies Number, vol. 24, 2010, www.csas.ed.ac.uk.

  37. 37.

    Katharine Charsley, Transnational Pakistani Connections Marrying ‘Back Home,’ 1st ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2017).

  38. 38.

    Chun, “The Postcolonial Alien in Us All: Identity in the Global Division of Intellectual Labor”, 699.

  39. 39.

    Chun, 692.

  40. 40.

    For a detailed overview of how the study of India became the study of ‘South Asia’, see Nicholas B. Dirks, “South Asian Studies: Futures Past,” in The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, ed. David L. Szanton (University of California Press, 2003), 341–85.

  41. 41.

    There are only three units dedicated to research on Pakistan: The Berkeley-Pakistan Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley; The Centre for the Study of Pakistan at the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Durham University. The dominant work on Pakistan within these centers revolves around Pakistan’s security and political issues.

  42. 42.

    Between the years 2002–2013, the South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London has awarded 5 Ph.D.s to Pakistani candidates out of a total 158 successful Ph.D.s; The Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh has awarded 2 Ph.D.s to Pakistani candidates out of a total of 38 between the years 2004–2015; and the Department of Political Science at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany has awarded 2 Ph.D.s to Pakistani candidates out of a total of 32 between the years 2001–2018.

  43. 43.

    Jonas Hagmann and Thomas J. Biersteker, “Beyond the Published Discipline: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of International Studies,” European Journal of International Relations 20, no. 2 (June 18, 2014): 291–315, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066112449879.

  44. 44.

    C. Christine Fair, “The Militant Challenge in Pakistan,” Asia Policy 11 (2011): 106.

  45. 45.

    Frédéric Grare, “The Evolution of Sectarian Conflicts in Pakistan and the Ever-Changing Face of Islamic Violence,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (April 30, 2007): 127, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856400701264068.

  46. 46.

    C. Christine Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection,” Asia Policy 4, no. 1 (2007): 109.

  47. 47.

    C. Christine Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection,” Asia Policy 4, no. 1 (2007): 106.

  48. 48.

    Feisal Khan, “Corruption and the Decline of the State in Pakistan,” Asian Journal of Political Science 15, no. 2 (August 2007): 219–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/02185370701511644.

  49. 49.

    Fair, “The Militant Challenge in Pakistan”, 109.

  50. 50.

    Fair, 106.

  51. 51.

    Marvin G. Weinbaum and Jonathan B. Harder, “Pakistan’s Afghan Policies and Their Consequences,” Contemporary South Asia 16, no. 1 (March 6, 2008): 27.

  52. 52.

    Christian Enemark, “Drones Over Pakistan: Secrecy, Ethics, and Counterinsurgency,” Asian Security 7, no. 3 (September 2011): 219, https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2011.615082.

  53. 53.

    Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection”, 132.

  54. 54.

    Laurent Gayer, “Guns, Slums, and ‘Yellow Devils’: A Genealogy of Urban Conflicts in Karachi, Pakistan,” Modern Asian Studies 41, no. 3 (May 11, 2007): 517, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X06002599.

  55. 55.

    Gayer, 515.

  56. 56.

    Khan, “Corruption and the Decline of the State in Pakistan”, 241

  57. 57.

    Ishaan Tharoor, “The Taliban Indoctrinates Kids with Jihadist Textbooks Paid for by the U.S.,” The Washington Post, December 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/the-taliban-indoctrinates-kids-with-jihadist-textbooks-paid-for-by-the-u-s/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fe1c2c219d73; Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Metropolitan Books, 2005).

  58. 58.

    A. Murad, “US Aid to Pakistan and Democracy,” Policy Perspectives 6, no. 2 (2009): 1–40; Ahmed Waheed, The Wrong Ally: Pakistan’s State Sovereignty Under US Dependence (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018).

  59. 59.

    Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection”, 132–33.

  60. 60.

    Weinbaum and Harder, “Pakistan’s Afghan Policies and Their Consequences”, 37.

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Waheed, A.W. (2020). The ‘Truth’ About Pakistan: Knowledge Production and Circulation in Area Studies. In: Constructing 'Pakistan' through Knowledge Production in International Relations and Area Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0742-7_3

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