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Donnerstag
15
JUN

16.15 Uhr

Being Pakistani: Crafting Citizenship, Belonging, and Muslimness in the Postcolonial Moment - Dr. Ali Usman Qasmi (LUMS University)

Departmental Colloquium Summer Semester 2023 - History Department | Session 4: 15.06.2023

Dr. Ali Usman Qasmi (LUMS University)

My paper traces the transition from colonial subjecthood to citizenship in a postcolonial Muslim nation-state. Instead of reducing citizenship to a legally recognized member of the state, I analyze the complexity of the processes whereby the postcolonial state formation project is intimately tied to creatinga citizen through various discursive practices and ideological formulations. I describe citizenship-making as a state formation strategy that involves hollowing out the
qaum (nation) for its excess and semantic ambiguity to make it more amenable and abstract and stabilize its meanings. For this purpose, as I argue, the postcolonial state adopted a range of policies and performances: legislating a restrictive legal view of who qualified as a citizen, determining a definite shape, size, and color of national symbols, regulating the temporal cycle for a regimented ordering of national life through public commemorations, and forging a master narrative for writing the nation through history.

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Südasien-Institut

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69115 Heidelberg

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Südasien-Institut

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https://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/history/kolloquium/ss2023/session4.php