Talk by Hadia Akhtar Khan (Global Labor & Work, ILR School, Cornell University)

Anthropologists of Pukhtuns have written extensively about the Pukhtuns as an acephalous segmentary lineage group, whose honor “code” or Pukhtunwali differentiates them from neighboring ethnicities. In particular, they glorify Pukhtuns for their egalitarian ethic, which abhors hierarchies within and between tribes and between men. Colonial authorities held a similar view of Pukhtuns as a proud people reluctant to subordinate themselves to the state. This view has continued to inform how imperialist forces and their local allies, like the Pakistani army, understood and navigated the complex map of power relations in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the War on Terror. In contrast to these views, this talk historicizes the code of Pukhtunwali as a product of an alliance between colonial settlement officers and male elites from dominant lineages in the late 19th century. I argue that anthropologists have exaggerated the egalitarian ethic by downplaying the centrality of caste hierarchies, which makes the “egalitarian” ethic between upper-caste Pukhtun men possible.

Hadia Akhtar Khan is a socio-cultural anthropologist. Khan's research is on how migration is changing family, class, caste, and gender relations in rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Her research interests include political economy, gender and sexuality, and the anthropology of kinship, with a focus on South Asia. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Centre for Ethnography (UTSC). She is also an editor for Jamhoor.org.

Talk by Violeta Moreno-Lax (Professor of Law, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Barcelona)

This paper takes issue with the exclusionary understanding of solidarity underpinning the European Union (EU)’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Through a detailed examination of the Temporary Protection scheme deployed since the beginning of the Russian invasion and its surrounding context, including the EU’s response to non-Ukrainian forced migrants fleeing the conflict, I will show how solidarity has been employed as an ‘othering’ device to discriminate or, at least, stratify access to international protection. Whereas up to 6 million (white/Christian) Ukrainian refugees have been granted access to asylum in the EU since the beginning of the war, benefiting from a series of facilitation mechanisms built on the basis of (proclamations of) ‘solidarity with Ukraine’, other (brown/predominantly Muslim) forcibly displaced populations fleeing the conflict have been met with suspicion, containment, and rejection at the border. What this comparison will unveil is, therefore, the lack of a unified approach to the understanding of solidarity in this domain that has had the (indirect/unintended?) effect of institutionalizing Islamophobia – or at least a highly securitized understanding of Islam – vis-à-vis those in need (and entitled to) international protection in the EU. In this situation, reliance on a conceptualization of solidarity as an exclusion/othering tool that impedes, rather than facilitates, access to international protection for the vast majority of (non-white/non-Christian) refugees is not only at odds with the 1951 Refugee Convention, but is also contrary to the general principle of non-discrimination on grounds of race, making the whole scheme deeply problematic and incompatible with key international legal standards.

Co-sponsored with the Institute for European Studies

Talk by Till Mostowlansky (Research Professor in Anthropology, Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland)

The establishment of Soviet rule in the southern parts of Central Asia bordering the British Empire has largely been researched through the lens of geopolitical competition. Virtually nothing is known about how the region’s Muslim populations experienced this period of revolution and war leading up to the 1947 partition of India. Using Persian, Russian and Urdu sources, this talk explores the Muslim networks that linked Central Asia with South Asia at the time. It further discusses how the study of these trans-imperial connections contributes to a nuanced understanding of attempts at re-engagement, as well as persistent disconnection, in the present.

Talk by Ali Houissa, (Curator, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Cornell University Library)

Our CMS seminar today will be led by the curator of the Middle Eastern Collection in Olin Library, who will be hosting us to see precious objects in the library's collection about Islam. We have many world-class books, some of them centuries old, which show the history and evolution of Islam over a long period, and across many cultures. This is a wonderful opportunity to see some of the treasures of Cornell’s collection that are rarely seen, and which span centuries of time and thousands of miles of geography in Islamic lands, from Morocco to Indonesia.

Talk by Dilip Menon (Department of International Relations, Director, Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of Witwatersrand)

This is a preliminary paper on the remarkable figure of Vakkom Mohd. Maulavi (1873-1932) of Travancore, on the south-western coast of India, through his writings in the journal Deepika, that he edited. The articles spoke to the reforms of Islamic modernism that were ongoing in Egypt (reported in the widely circulated Al Manar), and imagined a space of Indian Ocean Islam. Vakkom Maulavi was also concerned with the question of people’s rights under the rule of the autocratic Maharaja of Travancore. As publisher of the newspaper Svadeshabhimani edited by the redoubtable and intemperate journalist Ramakrishna Pillai, the duo waged a war of words on the questions of ethical governance and popular representation. There has been a tendency in South Asia to study the history of Muslims separately from their conjoined lives with Hindus and those of other religions. This paper thus speaks to the emerging literature on Indian Ocean Islam (Nile Green, Wilson Chacko Jacob, Seema Alavi, Mahmood Kooria et al) while at the same time arguing for the role of Muslim intellectuals in defining a democratic and secular public sphere.

Dilip M. Menon is the Mellon Chair of Indian Studies and the Director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He was educated at the Universities of Delhi, Oxford and Cambridge and earned his PhD from Cambridge. His research for the past decade has engaged with issues of caste, socialism and equality in modern India. He is the author of Caste, nationalism and communism in south India: Malabar, 1900-1948 (Cambridge 1994), The blindness of insight: Essays on caste in modern India (Navayana 2006), The cultural history of Modern India (editor, Social Sciences Press and Berghahn 2006), Capitalisms: Towards a Global History (co-editor, Oxford, 2020), and the translator of Potheri Kunhambu's 1893 Malayalam novel Saraswativijayam (Book Review Literary Trust 2002)

Cosponsored with the South Asia Program

Talk by Yunus Sozen (Political Science Department, LeMoyne College)

In the last decade, Turkey has not only become the largest refugee recipient country but also one of the major immigrant destination countries in the world. All this happened during the rule of the right-wing populist Justice and Development Party which also took the lead in the breakdown of Turkey’s defective democracy and the establishment of an electoral authoritarian regime in its place. In this paper, I critically evaluate the immigration and right-wing populism literature based on an exploration of how the right-wing populist government in Turkey conceptualizes the Turkish nation and citizenship. I argue that the conceptual frameworks utilized in this literature lead to interpretive frameworks that misunderstand the particular conception of the nation by Turkey’s right-wing authoritarian populist rulers and their pro-immigration and citizenship policies.

Co-sponsored with COPOS

Talk by Ruslan Yusupov (Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell Society for the Humanities)

Hundreds of mosques in China have since 2018 witnessed their domes and minarets amputated. The effort is part of a larger nationwide campaign to “Sinicize” Chinese Islam. This talk contextualizes the campaign within the politics of religious freedom in the totalizing state. This is because the so-called “Arabic” features of these mosques were previously approved by the very authorities that now go after them. In many cases discussed, the implementation of the campaign by the local authorities results paradoxically in architectural alterations that serve the needs of the Muslim communities. The story of how these communities adapt to the repressive policies of the state and turn them into benefits, therefore, reveals the precarious status of Islam in China.

Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Seminar Series

Due to storm-related travel delays, Pablo Abufom’s talk has been rescheduled. It will now take place in conjunction with his previously scheduled talk at Autumn Leaves (115 E. State St.) at 6pm on Wednesday, February 14. (Previously, it had been scheduled to take place at 12:20 pm in Uris G08).

This talk will attempt to explain larger political and social phenomena on a global scale from the Latin American experience, considering there was a wave of revolts between 2018 and 2020, and then a deep dive into the rise of neofascism everywhere (Argentina is the most recent case), and how to find strategic lessons out of that situation and back to a new international antifascist movement.

Pablo Abufom is a philosopher, translator, director of Alternativa, Institute for Anticapitalist Studies and member of Movimiento Solidaridad, biology student and anarcho-communist in anarcho-capitalist times.

Talk by Erik Bleich (Charles Dana Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College)

What can we see about American newspaper coverage of Muslims using a systematic, large-scale analysis? By comparing the tone and nature of coverage over time, we demonstrate how negative American newspapers have been in their treatment of Muslims across the two-decade period between 1996 and 2016, both in an absolute sense and compared to a range of other groups as diverse as Catholics, Jews, Hindus, African Americans, Latinos, Mormons, and atheists. The striking negativity also holds in countries such as Australia, Canada, and the UK. While 9/11 did not make coverage more negative in the long run, it did dramatically increase the prevalence of references to terrorism and extremism. Our comprehensive overview shows how distinctive coverage of Muslims has been in the United States and beyond.

Reading by Bushra Rehman, followed by Q&A, moderated by Prachi Patankar

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. When a family rift drives the girls apart, Razia’s heart is broken. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city. When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When their relationship is discovered by an Aunty in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her own future.

Punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved novels, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a new classic: a fiercely compassionate coming-of-age story of a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself. Roses, In The Mouth of a Lion was long listed for a Lambda Literary Ward and chosen as a Best Book and Editor’s Choice by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, Good Morning America, Goodreads, The Chicago Review, BuzzFeed, Lit Hub, Lambda Literary, BookRiot, PopSugar, The AV Club, E! News, Ms. Magazine and more.

Bushra Rehman grew up in Corona, Queens. She is co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism, and author of the poetry collection Marianna’s Beauty Salon and the dark comedy Corona, one of the New York Public Library’s favorite books about NYC.

Prachi Patankar is an anti-caste and feminist writer and activist who was born in rural Maharashtra, India. Over two decades in New York, she has been involved in social movements that link the local and the global, police brutality and war, migration and militarization, race and caste, women of color feminism, and global gender justice. Her work has been published by Al Jazeera, the Guardian, Jadaliyya, The Jacobin, and several other publications.

Books will be available for sale and signing from Buffalo Street Books after the reading.

Cosponsored by the Department of Literatures in English, Asian American Studies Program, Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and Society for the Humanities.