Ports, Pipelines, and Pipedreams of Modernity: Ethnic Identity and the Politics of Place in Gwadar, Pakistan.

Public lecture by Hafeez Jamali on July 26, 5-6 pm, at ZEF right conference room.

Hafeez Jamali, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin.

In this presentation, Hafeez Jamali will explore the social geography of anticipation, desire, exclusion, and control being generated as a result of Baloch fishermen’s entanglement with the Pakistani government’s plans for developing a large commercial seaport in the small coastal town of Gwadar. In dialogue with Norbert Elias’ concept of figuration and the centrality of experience in generating social forms, this presentation explores how development, transnationalism, and ethnic identity are configured on the ground. It reflects on ethnographic encounters that foreground the lived experience and imaginations of fishermen from Med group who occupy a marginal position within the local social hierarchy. The promise of becoming modern citizens in a future mega city incites new desires and longings among the fishermen that facilitate their incorporation into emergent regimes of labour and entrepreneurship. However, the actual unfolding of the development process is uneven and haphazard and the promise of becoming a mega city remains elusive. In the meanwhile, what is actually produced on the ground is a set of interrupted or suspended geographies and temporalities. I suggest that interruptions, suspensions, and stasis characterize the experience of large-scale development projects as much as, if not more, than connection, speed, and movement.

Hafeez Jamali is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and a Visiting Research Fellow in the Crossroads Asia Competence Network at ZMO Berlin. His research focuses on the anthropology of globalization and development, the history of Indian Ocean Trade, and the politics of identity and place in Balochistan (Pakistan).

The lecture will take place at ZEF (right conference room, ground floor), July 26, 5-6 pm.