Constructing 'Pakistan' through Knowledge Production in International Relations and Area Studies

Ahmed W. Waheed

ISBN 10: 9811507449 / ISBN 13: 9789811507441

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

About this Item

Paperback, xvii + 230 pages, NOT ex-library. Good+. Gentle cornerwear, else book is clean and bright throughout with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Straight spine. -- An academic study examining how Pakistan has been constructed as an object of knowledge within the disciplines of International Relations, Asian and South Asian Studies, and Pakistan Studies. Rather than offering another analysis of Pakistani politics or foreign policy in conventional terms, Waheed steps back to interrogate the frameworks themselves - asking how the scholarly communities that study Pakistan have shaped what counts as legitimate knowledge about the country, which questions get asked, and which assumptions remain unexamined. The book traces the discourse on Pakistan across these overlapping but distinct fields, exploring how each has produced its own version of 'Pakistan' through particular methodological choices, theoretical commitments and institutional pressures. Waheed draws on poststructuralist and constructivist approaches to show how these knowledge production processes are not neutral descriptions of a pre-existing reality but active participants in defining what Pakistan means in global academic and policy discourse. The analysis pays close attention to the power dynamics embedded in area studies and IR scholarship - who produces knowledge about Pakistan, from where, for whom, and with what consequences. Published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their international relations and security studies programme, the work speaks directly to broader debates about Eurocentrism in IR theory, the politics of area studies and the relationship between academic knowledge and foreign policy. It offers a valuable critical perspective for scholars and postgraduate students working on South Asian politics, postcolonial approaches to IR, or the epistemology of area studies more generally. Ahmed W. Waheed is an Assistant Professor at the Center for International Peace and Stability at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Seller Inventory # 012676

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Constructing 'Pakistan' through Knowledge Production in International Relations and Area Studies
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9811507449
• ISBN 13: 9789811507441
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

This book analyses the discourse on Pakistan by exploring the knowledge production processes through which the International Relations community, Asian and South Asian area study centres, and think-tanks construct Pakistan’s identity. This book does not attempt to trace how Pakistan has been historically defined, explained, or understood by the International Relations interpretive communities or to supplant these understandings with the author’s version of what Pakistan is. Instead, this study focuses on investigating how the identity of Pakistan is fixed or stabilized via practices of the interpretive communities. In other words, this book attempts to address the following questions: How is the knowledge on Pakistan produced discursively? How is this knowledge represented in the writings on Pakistan? What are the conditions under which it is possible to make authoritative claims about Pakistan?

About the Author

Ahmed W. Waheed is an Assistant Professor at the Center for International Peace and Stability, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the author of The Wrong Ally: Pakistan’s State Sovereignty under US Dependence (2018).