The value of difference: Hindu Muslim encounters in Karachi, Pakistan

In Pakistan, official state ideology, with its insistence on sameness and unity – encapsulated in the idea of one nation, one language (Urdu) and one religion (Islam) – tries to erase difference in the name of nation-building. In everyday settings, however, relations and exchange between communities are often sustained through a maintenance rather than overcoming of difference. In this paper, I consider the centrality of the maintenance, rather than the closure of difference, in encounters between young Hindu and Muslim men and women in Karachi.

Thirty seconds at Quetta: Time and disaster on the North-West Frontier, 1935

One May morning in 1935 the garrison town of Quetta, on India’s North-Western Frontier, was sleeping. At 03:03 a.m., an earthquake shook the city. Perhaps 30,000 people were killed, and as many again evacuated over the next two weeks. Central to public debate on the earthquake was the figure of time: the idea that the earthquake had arrived suddenly and destroyed the city in less than a minute. This paper asks why that idea arose and why it endured. It argues that the figure of time was central to government narratives because it presented the earthquake as a sudden ‘natural’ disaster.

Lara Hankeln

I am pursuing a DPhil in Politics. My research interest is in climate change politics.

I hold a MPhil in Politics from the DPIR and before joining the University of Oxford, I obtained a Bachelor's degree in "Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges" from Leiden University College. I have also completed the "Studium Generale" at the Leibniz Kolleg by the University of Tübingen.

Francesca McGowan

Before joining DPIR Francesca worked for Oxford’s Department of Materials managing a flagship DESNZ/UKRI-funded project. In this role she set up and managed a £7.5m funding scheme to enable academics and students to access labs across the UK, as well as conducting web development, funder liaison and reporting, and financial/contractual management. Prior to this, Francesca worked for ten years as a Commissioning Editor in academic and educational publishing at OUP and Taylor & Francis, supporting academics to develop book proposals and successful publications.

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