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In Political Kinship in Pakistan, Stephen M. Lyon illustrates how contemporary politics in Pakistan are built on complex kinship networks created through marriage and descent relations. Lyon points to kinship as a critical mechanism for understanding both Pakistan’s continued inability to develop strong and stable governments, and its incredible durability in the face of pressures that have led to the collapse and failure of other states around the world.
Asymmetrical power relationships are found throughout Pakistan's Punjabi and Pukhtun communities. These relationships must be examined as manifestations of cultural continuity rather than as separate structures. The various cultures of Pakistan display certain common cultural features which suggest a re-examination of past analytical divisions of tribe and peasant societies. This book looks at the ways power is expressed, accumulated and maintained in three social contexts: kinship, caste, and political relationships. These are embedded within a collection of 'hybridising' cultures. Socialisation within kin groups provides the building blocks for Pakistani asymmetrical relationships, which may be understood as a form of patronage. As these social building blocks are transferred to non-kin contexts, the patron/client aspects are more easily identified and studied. State politics and religion are examined for the ways in which these patron/client roles are enacted on much larger scales but remain embedded within the cultural values underpinning those roles.
As ethnographic fieldwork blurs the boundaries between ›private‹ and ›professional‹ life, ethnographers always appear to be on duty, looking out for valuable encounters and waiting for the next moment of disclosure. Yet what lies in the gaps and pauses of fieldwork? The contributions in this volume dedicated to anthropologist Martin Sökefeld explore methodological and ethical dimensions of multi-sided ethnographic research. Based on diverse cases ranging from hobbies over kinship ties to political activism, the contributors show how personal relationships, passions and commitments drive ethnographers in and beyond research, shaping the knowledge they create together with others.
A realistic assessment of the evolution of contemporary Pakistan, one that eschews lurid headlines for sober analysis.
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Politics of Socio-Spatial Transformation in Pakistan analyses the relationship between socio-spatial transformation, styles of leadership and nature of constituents in Pakistan. It examines the way social change influences politics and leadership in its most populated province. Offering a unique viewpoint to study the relationship between politics and social change by examining the nature of relationship between leaders and their constituents, the author introduces the concept of Gradients of Engagements. The book describes the way values of engagement (Talluq) and styles of leadership mediate engagements among politicians, citizens and state bureaucracy in villages and small towns of Pakist...
"The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hidden ...