Date of Award

Spring 5-12-2024

Author's School

College of Arts & Sciences

Author's Program

International and Area Studies

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)

Restricted/Unrestricted

Unrestricted

Abstract

Expressions of Pakistani identity are presently being flattened out by both the state and global West, dominantly being explored through religion. This project argues that gender is used domestically and internationally to present a multifaceted resistance to the state’s idea of the national identity. This project interrogates the creation of global Pakistani identity through examining the historical antecedents in imagining Pakistan, resistance to the state’s identity- construction process demonstrated in performing Pakistan, and transnational expressions of identity. This project argues that gender, while leveraged by the state in a top-down construction of national identity, has been used bottom-up to reconfigure national identity.

To demonstrate this, this project offers historical developments in the Pakistani state and nation, analyses of two performances of Pakistani identity: “Hum Dekhenge,” performed against the backdrop of the Zia regime, and “Joyland,” a film released in 2022, banned-and-unbanned by the state, and an exploration into how gender is expressed in Pakistani identity. To support this argument, this project utilizes publicly available secondary and primary sources and independently conducted oral histories from London and Lahore. Overall, this project shows how gender, from the bottom-up, complicates an otherwise simplistic national identity.

Mentor

Dr. Shefali Chandra

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