Humanitarianism Across Mountain Valleys: “Shia Aid” and Development Encounters in Northern Pakistan and Eastern Tajikistan

Mostowlansky, Till (2016). Humanitarianism Across Mountain Valleys: “Shia Aid” and Development Encounters in Northern Pakistan and Eastern Tajikistan. In: Kreutzmann, Hermann; Watanabe, Teiji (eds.) Mapping Transition in the Pamirs. Changing Human-Environmental Landscapes. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research (pp. 229-244). Cham: Springer 10.1007/978-3-319-23198-3_15

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This chapter focuses on development encounters involving organisations with particular Shia genealogies in Pakistan’s Hunza-Nagar district and Tajikistan’s region of Gorno-Badakhshan. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2013, I argue for an ethnographically grounded exploration of the two regions as contact zones which these organisations have entered. I furthermore maintain that as a result of dynamics within these contact zones, the analysed organisations, while promoting a humanitarian approach to development, also become part of specific sectarian imaginaries. Thus this chapter attempts to show that these organisations have not only left their imprints on physical landscapes and improved people’s lives. In the course of their involvement, development interventions also become part of how society imagines society, and they engage with local constructions of sectarian difference.

Item Type:	Book Section (Book Chapter)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute for the Science of Religion
UniBE Contributor:	Mostowlansky, Till
Subjects:	200 Religion 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
ISSN:	1879-7180
ISBN:	978-3-319-23198-3
Series:	Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research
Publisher:	Springer
Language:	English
Submitter:	Till Mostowlansky
Date Deposited:	07 Jun 2017 16:37
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 15:03
Publisher DOI:	10.1007/978-3-319-23198-3_15
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Development; Shia; Ismaili; Pakistan; Tajikistan; Social imaginaries
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/96557