Kamran Asdar Ali
Biographic Data
| ID | 161961 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kamran Asdar Ali |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kamran Asdar |
| FAMILY NAME | Ali |
| SIGNATURE | ALI K A |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Partition Violence and National Unity
This article analyzes two Pakistani films from the 1960s that deal with the trauma of the partition (1947) and the dispersal of the family. The films raise the question of how certain histories are erased from national memory in Pakistan. In the absence of formal archives, the article seeks to address the silences through a close reading of fiction or other forms of representation (film). The article also brings forward a reading that delves into…
Analysis of “A Haunted House” By Virginia Woolf through the Lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics
Systemic Functional Linguistics is a widely used approach for text analysis. It can also be used in teaching and translation studies. Recently, there has been a growing popularity of this approach in literary stylistics. “A Haunted House” by Virginia Wolf is a master piece which allows literary analysts to be entangled with whether it falls into the genre of love or supernatural. The paper aims to examine the theme selection and transitivity to d…
Between history and memory
Introduction: Partition — 75 Years On
Unfinished stories of the Partition: Across 75 years
This conversation between two second cousins born and brought up on different sides of the India/Pakistan border and now, as academics and writers, engaged in examining the Partition, looks at what the tumultuous and tragic events of 1947 have meant for families most obviously impacted by them, and how their impact has unfolded over the past 75 years. Educated, Muslim, Urdu-speaking middle-class families ( ashráf) from North India were sundered b…
Who Is a Muslim: Orientalism and Literary Populisms, written by Khan, Maryam Wasif
Dostī kā Safar: Asif, Karachi, and I
Kashmir Struggle for Freedom: Proposed Solutions
The central cause of incessant tensions and consecutive wars between two nuclear nations i.e., Pakistan and India in South Asia is the Kashmir dispute for the last seventy-three years. Numerous efforts inclusive of multiple dialogues and negotiations were made, but in vain chiefly because of India’s stubborn agenda, and its inflexible policies and approach towards the stance of Kashmir and also unshaken trust deficits between two hostile enemy ne…
Progressives, Punjab and Pakistan: The early years
At the moment of Pakistan's independence, the areas that constituted the territories of the new state were economically underdeveloped and lacked industrialization. Nonetheless, the Karachi dock and port workers were organized and so were the workers in the largest industrial enterprise in the country, the Moghalpura Railway Workshop in Lahore, which was in the public sector. In the Punjab and in Sind, there were some peasant-based organizations …
Women, Work and Public Spaces: Conflict and Coexistence in Karachi's Poor Neighborhoods
This article focuses on how working-class women encounter and negotiate economic uncertainty, social vulnerability and sexually threatening public spaces in contemporary Karachi, showcasing women's everyday experiences of social and physical violence as a microcosm of the city's life in order to explore the possibilities of a future politics for cities like Karachi that are haunted by the possibility of violent eruptions. By concentrating on peop…
Communists in a Muslim Land: Cultural Debates in Pakistan's Early Years
This paper will introduce intellectual debates from Pakistan's early years to show how the country's future culture was being discussed, deliberated and reshaped in these circles at the moment of its own inception as an independent state. By focussing on the communist perspective on Pakistan's independence, it will seek to illuminate some of those historical moments in Pakistan's history that have not received much attention either from historian…
"Progressives and "Perverts: Partition Stories and Pakistan's Future
In contrast to various dominant representational themes through which Pakistan's history is rendered intelligible to many (Islam, Muslim nationalism), this essay particularly focuses on a debate surrounding the question of morality (“pure or perverse literature”) connected to short stories on the 1947 partition of British India by Sa'adat Hasan Manto. By concentrating on Manto's writings, this essay revisits Pakistan's early history to demonstrat…
Voicing Difference: Gender and Civic Engagement among Karachi’s Poor
This article addresses the challenges in our work as social critics and engaged anthropologists. Within this context, it will show how academically trained anthropologists respond to the tensions between cultural specificities and universal values that they encounter in their research. To develop the argument, the article relies on ethnographic research among women workers in Karachi's ready-to-wear export garment industry to show how lower-class…
Lost in space: Population growth in the American hinterlands and small cities
The sources of urban agglomeration and the development of the urban system have been studied extensively. Despite the pivotal role of the hinterlands in theories of the development of the urban system, little attention has been paid to the effect of urban agglomeration in a developed, mature economy on growth in the hinterlands. Therefore, this study examines how proximity to urban agglomeration affects contemporary population growth (PopGr) in h…
Rounding Off Our Space on Anthropologists and the Middle East
Inviting Dialogue on Anthropologists' Roles in the Middle East
The Strength of the Street Meets the Strength of the State: The 1972 Labor Struggle in Karachi
Why did they kill us? We wanted our rights—bonus, wages, health benefits, why did they kill us? To be honest we all cried, I cried too. —Textile worker remembering June 1972
Pakistani Islamists Gamble on the General
Pulp Fictions
Research Article| March 01 2004 "Pulp Fictions": READING PAKISTANI DOMESTICITY Kamran Asdar Ali Kamran Asdar Ali Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Social Text (2004) 22 (1 (78)): 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-22-1_78-123 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Searc…
Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt
Research Article| August 01 2003 Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt KAMRAN ASDAR ALI KAMRAN ASDAR ALI Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2003) 23 (1-2): 321–334. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-23-1-2-321 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation KAMRAN ASDAR ALI; Myths, Lies, and Impotence:…
Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves
Faulty Deployments: Persuading Women and Constructing Choice in Egypt
The aim of this paper is to discuss how in the wider context of capital expansion and accumulation in the late twentieth century development initiatives in general, and family planning in particular, have helped to train and produce new bodies and selves. Using the Egyptian case as an example, I argue that family planning programs do not just reduce the number of children and regulate reproduction; they also introduce or foster notions of individ…
Labor in Pakistan
Pakistan, at its independence in 1947, inherited only nine percent of the total industrial establishment of British India. The fragmented and low concentration of industrial capital was mirrored by the weakness of organized labor. The nascent Pakistan government followed an import substitution model to rapidly industrialize the economy. Within these policy parameters, labor was continuously asked to play its “proper and subordinate” role in relat…
Global Processes and the Nation State
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi. OSKAR VERKAAIK. Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1994. 89 pp., references, notes
Lost in space: Population growth in the American hinterlands and small cities
The sources of urban agglomeration and the development of the urban system have been studied extensively. Despite the pivotal role of the hinterlands in theories of the development of the urban system, little attention has been paid to the effect of urban agglomeration in a developed, mature economy on growth in the hinterlands. Therefore, this study examines how proximity to urban agglomeration affects contemporary population growth (PopGr) in h…
Communists in a Muslim Land: Cultural Debates in Pakistan's Early Years
This paper will introduce intellectual debates from Pakistan's early years to show how the country's future culture was being discussed, deliberated and reshaped in these circles at the moment of its own inception as an independent state. By focussing on the communist perspective on Pakistan's independence, it will seek to illuminate some of those historical moments in Pakistan's history that have not received much attention either from historian…
The Strength of the Street Meets the Strength of the State: The 1972 Labor Struggle in Karachi
Why did they kill us? We wanted our rights—bonus, wages, health benefits, why did they kill us? To be honest we all cried, I cried too. —Textile worker remembering June 1972
Pulp Fictions
Research Article| March 01 2004 "Pulp Fictions": READING PAKISTANI DOMESTICITY Kamran Asdar Ali Kamran Asdar Ali Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Social Text (2004) 22 (1 (78)): 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-22-1_78-123 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Searc…
"Progressives and "Perverts: Partition Stories and Pakistan's Future
In contrast to various dominant representational themes through which Pakistan's history is rendered intelligible to many (Islam, Muslim nationalism), this essay particularly focuses on a debate surrounding the question of morality (“pure or perverse literature”) connected to short stories on the 1947 partition of British India by Sa'adat Hasan Manto. By concentrating on Manto's writings, this essay revisits Pakistan's early history to demonstrat…
Voicing Difference: Gender and Civic Engagement among Karachi’s Poor
This article addresses the challenges in our work as social critics and engaged anthropologists. Within this context, it will show how academically trained anthropologists respond to the tensions between cultural specificities and universal values that they encounter in their research. To develop the argument, the article relies on ethnographic research among women workers in Karachi's ready-to-wear export garment industry to show how lower-class…
Progressives, Punjab and Pakistan: The early years
At the moment of Pakistan's independence, the areas that constituted the territories of the new state were economically underdeveloped and lacked industrialization. Nonetheless, the Karachi dock and port workers were organized and so were the workers in the largest industrial enterprise in the country, the Moghalpura Railway Workshop in Lahore, which was in the public sector. In the Punjab and in Sind, there were some peasant-based organizations …
Labor in Pakistan
Pakistan, at its independence in 1947, inherited only nine percent of the total industrial establishment of British India. The fragmented and low concentration of industrial capital was mirrored by the weakness of organized labor. The nascent Pakistan government followed an import substitution model to rapidly industrialize the economy. Within these policy parameters, labor was continuously asked to play its “proper and subordinate” role in relat…
Introduction: Partition — 75 Years On
Unfinished stories of the Partition: Across 75 years
This conversation between two second cousins born and brought up on different sides of the India/Pakistan border and now, as academics and writers, engaged in examining the Partition, looks at what the tumultuous and tragic events of 1947 have meant for families most obviously impacted by them, and how their impact has unfolded over the past 75 years. Educated, Muslim, Urdu-speaking middle-class families ( ashráf) from North India were sundered b…
Women, Work and Public Spaces: Conflict and Coexistence in Karachi's Poor Neighborhoods
This article focuses on how working-class women encounter and negotiate economic uncertainty, social vulnerability and sexually threatening public spaces in contemporary Karachi, showcasing women's everyday experiences of social and physical violence as a microcosm of the city's life in order to explore the possibilities of a future politics for cities like Karachi that are haunted by the possibility of violent eruptions. By concentrating on peop…
Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt
Research Article| August 01 2003 Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt KAMRAN ASDAR ALI KAMRAN ASDAR ALI Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2003) 23 (1-2): 321–334. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-23-1-2-321 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation KAMRAN ASDAR ALI; Myths, Lies, and Impotence:…
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi. OSKAR VERKAAIK. Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1994. 89 pp., references, notes
The Politics of Family Planning in Egypt
La politique de planning familial en Egypte est critiquee non seulement par les opposants du pouvoir a savoir les groupes islamistes mais aussi par les femmes. Selon ces contestataires, le controle de la fertilite va a l'encontre de l'Islam, de la liberte de la femme, de la liberte du foyer domestique. Il menace les musulmans face a la domination occidentale
The Politics of Family Planning in Egypt
La politique de planning familial en Egypte est critiquee non seulement par les opposants du pouvoir a savoir les groupes islamistes mais aussi par les femmes. Selon ces contestataires, le controle de la fertilite va a l'encontre de l'Islam, de la liberte de la femme, de la liberte du foyer domestique. Il menace les musulmans face a la domination occidentale
Modernization and Family Planning Programs in Egypt
Demographic research deploys a notion of culture that links models of change to the acceptability of modern birth control. Unfortunately this approach adopts a narrowly construed formulation of culture as communication within the household with minimal reference to the social political and economic forces of the larger society. (excerpt)
Gender, Sickness, and Healing in Rural Egypt: Ethnography in Historical Context
Gender, Sickness, and Healing in Rural Egypt: Ethnography in Historical Context Soheir A. Morsy Boulder, CO: Westvlew Press, 1993. xiv + 237 pp. tables, notes, references
Global Processes and the Nation State
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi
A People of Migrants: Ethnicity, State and Religion in Karachi. OSKAR VERKAAIK. Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1994. 89 pp., references, notes
Labor in Pakistan
Pakistan, at its independence in 1947, inherited only nine percent of the total industrial establishment of British India. The fragmented and low concentration of industrial capital was mirrored by the weakness of organized labor. The nascent Pakistan government followed an import substitution model to rapidly industrialize the economy. Within these policy parameters, labor was continuously asked to play its “proper and subordinate” role in relat…
Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves
Faulty Deployments: Persuading Women and Constructing Choice in Egypt
The aim of this paper is to discuss how in the wider context of capital expansion and accumulation in the late twentieth century development initiatives in general, and family planning in particular, have helped to train and produce new bodies and selves. Using the Egyptian case as an example, I argue that family planning programs do not just reduce the number of children and regulate reproduction; they also introduce or foster notions of individ…
Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt
Research Article| August 01 2003 Myths, Lies, and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt KAMRAN ASDAR ALI KAMRAN ASDAR ALI Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2003) 23 (1-2): 321–334. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-23-1-2-321 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation KAMRAN ASDAR ALI; Myths, Lies, and Impotence:…
Pakistani Islamists Gamble on the General
Pulp Fictions
Research Article| March 01 2004 "Pulp Fictions": READING PAKISTANI DOMESTICITY Kamran Asdar Ali Kamran Asdar Ali Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Social Text (2004) 22 (1 (78)): 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-22-1_78-123 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Searc…
The Strength of the Street Meets the Strength of the State: The 1972 Labor Struggle in Karachi
Why did they kill us? We wanted our rights—bonus, wages, health benefits, why did they kill us? To be honest we all cried, I cried too. —Textile worker remembering June 1972
Inviting Dialogue on Anthropologists' Roles in the Middle East
Rounding Off Our Space on Anthropologists and the Middle East
Lost in space: Population growth in the American hinterlands and small cities
The sources of urban agglomeration and the development of the urban system have been studied extensively. Despite the pivotal role of the hinterlands in theories of the development of the urban system, little attention has been paid to the effect of urban agglomeration in a developed, mature economy on growth in the hinterlands. Therefore, this study examines how proximity to urban agglomeration affects contemporary population growth (PopGr) in h…
Voicing Difference: Gender and Civic Engagement among Karachi’s Poor
This article addresses the challenges in our work as social critics and engaged anthropologists. Within this context, it will show how academically trained anthropologists respond to the tensions between cultural specificities and universal values that they encounter in their research. To develop the argument, the article relies on ethnographic research among women workers in Karachi's ready-to-wear export garment industry to show how lower-class…
Communists in a Muslim Land: Cultural Debates in Pakistan's Early Years
This paper will introduce intellectual debates from Pakistan's early years to show how the country's future culture was being discussed, deliberated and reshaped in these circles at the moment of its own inception as an independent state. By focussing on the communist perspective on Pakistan's independence, it will seek to illuminate some of those historical moments in Pakistan's history that have not received much attention either from historian…
"Progressives and "Perverts: Partition Stories and Pakistan's Future
In contrast to various dominant representational themes through which Pakistan's history is rendered intelligible to many (Islam, Muslim nationalism), this essay particularly focuses on a debate surrounding the question of morality (“pure or perverse literature”) connected to short stories on the 1947 partition of British India by Sa'adat Hasan Manto. By concentrating on Manto's writings, this essay revisits Pakistan's early history to demonstrat…
Women, Work and Public Spaces: Conflict and Coexistence in Karachi's Poor Neighborhoods
This article focuses on how working-class women encounter and negotiate economic uncertainty, social vulnerability and sexually threatening public spaces in contemporary Karachi, showcasing women's everyday experiences of social and physical violence as a microcosm of the city's life in order to explore the possibilities of a future politics for cities like Karachi that are haunted by the possibility of violent eruptions. By concentrating on peop…
Progressives, Punjab and Pakistan: The early years
At the moment of Pakistan's independence, the areas that constituted the territories of the new state were economically underdeveloped and lacked industrialization. Nonetheless, the Karachi dock and port workers were organized and so were the workers in the largest industrial enterprise in the country, the Moghalpura Railway Workshop in Lahore, which was in the public sector. In the Punjab and in Sind, there were some peasant-based organizations …
Kashmir Struggle for Freedom: Proposed Solutions
The central cause of incessant tensions and consecutive wars between two nuclear nations i.e., Pakistan and India in South Asia is the Kashmir dispute for the last seventy-three years. Numerous efforts inclusive of multiple dialogues and negotiations were made, but in vain chiefly because of India’s stubborn agenda, and its inflexible policies and approach towards the stance of Kashmir and also unshaken trust deficits between two hostile enemy ne…
Who Is a Muslim: Orientalism and Literary Populisms, written by Khan, Maryam Wasif
Dostī kā Safar: Asif, Karachi, and I
Introduction: Partition — 75 Years On
Unfinished stories of the Partition: Across 75 years
This conversation between two second cousins born and brought up on different sides of the India/Pakistan border and now, as academics and writers, engaged in examining the Partition, looks at what the tumultuous and tragic events of 1947 have meant for families most obviously impacted by them, and how their impact has unfolded over the past 75 years. Educated, Muslim, Urdu-speaking middle-class families ( ashráf) from North India were sundered b…
History (15 works) · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · History (9 works) · Economics (7 works) · Geography (7 works) · Law (7 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (7 works) · Mathematics (6 works)