Remoteness and Modernity: Transformation and Continuity in Northern Pakistan

Description

This groundbreaking book is the first sustained anthropological inquiry into the idea of remote areas. Shafqat Hussain examines the surprisingly diverse ways the people of Hunza, a remote independent state in Pakistan, have been viewed by outsiders over the past century. He also explores how the Hunza people perceived British colonialists, Pakistani state officials, modern-day Westerners, and others, and how the local people used their remote status strategically, ensuring their own interests were served as they engaged with the outside world. Contents Acknowledgments Mirs of Hunza Chronology of the Hunza State and Its Relationships with Surrounding Polities Introduction chapter 1 Lifting the Veil The Sacred and Political Geography of Hunza chapter 2 The Friction and Rhetoric of Distance and the Alterity of Hunza chapter 3 Frontier Matters Irrelevance, Romanticism, and Transformation of Hunza Society chapter 4 Rural Romance and Refuge from Civilization chapter 5 The Origin of a Nation Hunza and Postcolonial Identity chapter 6 On the Edge of the World chapter 7 Strange Strangers in the Land of Paradise chapter 8 Romanticism, Environmentalism, and Articulation of an Ecological Identity Epilogue Notes References Index