HOLDING ON TO KINSHIP IN A GLOBAL NEOLIBERAL WORLD; PERSONHOOD, PLACE, AND AFFECT IN EVERYDAY LIFE IN LAHORE, PAKISTAN By Sara Tahir A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Anthropology – Doctor of Philosophy 2025 ABSTRACT Scholars agree that improvements in communica(cid:415)on and transporta(cid:415)on technologies, and the integra(cid:415)on of na(cid:415)onal economies into a global market in new ways, characterize the dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)ve era of globaliza(cid:415)on. The changing scale, volume, and velocity of global connec(cid:415)ons have transformed even the minu(cid:415)ae of everyday local life, so that the global and local are embedded in the ways people live out their daily lives and make decisions pertaining to it. In trying to map out how the global mobility of people in urban Pakistan, in both physical and virtual ways, affects their sense of place and personhood, this disserta(cid:415)on conducts an ethnographic inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)on of the transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons and narra(cid:415)ves of people living in Lahore. Speaking with varying demographics in Lahore, it explores the aspira(cid:415)ons and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons of people in urban Pakistan that shape their desire to go abroad or stay in Pakistan, and the effects on people in Pakistan of the migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad. By delinea(cid:415)ng these aspira(cid:415)ons, mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons, and effects, this disserta(cid:415)on brings to light the fric(cid:415)on between global and local ways of being and how that tension is experienced differen(cid:415)ally in line with factors such as gender, class, and genera(cid:415)on. This disserta(cid:415)on studies transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons, material exchange, and digital communica(cid:415)on among people in Lahore and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad to understand how these prac(cid:415)ces enable them to maintain a sense of place and personhood, even as they simultaneously also shape a poli(cid:415)cs of place and belonging, in an imperial global neoliberal order. It takes inspira(cid:415)on from anthropological, sociological, philosophical, and cultural studies theore(cid:415)cal frameworks of place, personhood, and affect, and builds upon scholarship in transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on, globaliza(cid:415)on, and kinship studies. It illustrates the opera(cid:415)on of kinship and affect as people in Pakistan, and some of their diasporic counterparts, try to hold onto a sense of place and personhood in a globalizing world. Copyright by SARA TAHIR 2025 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this dissertation would have been impossible without the generosity of all the respondents who took time to sit with me and share their stories. I hope that you can see yourself in this work, and that it does justice to what you expected of it. To my co-Chairs, Dr. Chantal Tetreault and Dr. Andrea Louie, thank you for your guidance, contribution, and support in shaping my graduate career. Dr. Tetreault’s kind words, honest advice, and resolve have often held space for me to collect myself and keep moving forward, while Dr. Louie’s thoughtful engagement with my work and capacity to provide feedback with the utmost sensitivity have made the experience of graduate school smoother than it usually is. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Najib Hourani and Dr. Junaid Rana, for their contributions to this project. Dr. Hourani’s detailed track changes and insightful comments on earlier drafts of the dissertation, and Dr. Rana’s indispensable feedback and guidance during committee meetings are deeply appreciated. Pursuing a doctorate degree in the United States would have been a lonely process without good friends to share in the day to day of things. I consider myself fortunate to have received the friendship of Madiha Ghous, Kiana Sakimehr, Dakshaini Ravinder, Vivek Vellanki, Udita Sanga, John Boyd, Juan Carlos, Grace Gerloff, and Brian Geyer for making my time at MSU a cherished one. With Kiana Sakimehr, my friendship has expanded over the years to become a relationship between confidantes, and for that I am grateful. I am indebted to Madiha Ghous for her intellect, wit, generosity of spirit, and humor. Her guidance, that is somehow as expansive as it is precise, has been invaluable in helping me push through till the end. I am also thankful for the friendship of Fatima Bilquis, my confidante in the home(field). Thank you for your honesty, v razor-sharp clarity, unshakeable determination through which you reinvigorate others, and for your capacity to show up for your friends in substantive ways. To the Muslim Studies department at MSU, and Dr. Muhammad Khalil, I owe the flow of constant funding opportunities which enabled me to pursue my graduate studies for many years. Thank you for your vital support. To the Asian Pacific American Studies Program (APAS) and the Transregional Studies group at MSU, I owe the provision of productive spaces to workshop my dissertation proposal and chapters. A word of thanks to Dr. Sitara Thobani, Dr. Kent Weber, and Dr. Mara Leichtman for their engagement with my work at various stages. To Qaisra Zubair and Zubair Ahmad, I owe gratitude for the continued support that helped me complete my graduate education. From welcoming me into their house to keeping a watchful eye on my well-being as I navigated my life in America, they have embodied practical solidarity as a central potentiality of kinship in its truest sense. I also thank my maternal first cousins, Amna Anwar, Isma Begg, Rehan Ahmad, Fareeha Rehman, and Khurram Rehman for animating family gatherings and being ready to extend a helping hand whenever it was needed. To my parents, Tahir Anis and Nadira Tahir, I will remain indebted for life for their resourcefulness, adaptability, and courage to pursue a progressive vision for the lives of their daughters. Their guidance, love, and support is a reservoir of strength that I can always rely upon in times of distress. I also thank my sisters, Saman Tahir and Rosheen Tahir, and niece, Meesha Imran, for always being there to shore up my support system. To Asad, who has had to live with the writing of this dissertation, I am grateful for the patience, kindness, and love these past three years. Thank you for the vibrancy you bring to our day-to-day life, it has made the process of completing this project much more endurable. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: POSITIONALITY AND METHODOLOGY ....................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 3: GOING ABROAD AND THE QUEST FOR PERSONHOOD .............................................. 61 CHAPTER 4: PAKISTAN AS THE PLACE OF KINSHIP ......................................................................... 92 CHAPTER 5: MAINTAINING KINSHIP VIA DIGITAL COMMUNICATION.......................................... 127 CHAPTER 6: MAINTAINING KINSHIP VIA CONSUMPTION AND MATERIAL EXCHANGE ............... 153 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 181 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................................. 191 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Arfa So(cid:332)ware Technology Park that houses ITU, US Lincoln Corner, tech start-ups, and HEC office is an important symbol of globaliza(cid:415)on in Lahore ...................................................... 37 Figure 2. Genera(cid:415)ng ads for the call for research par(cid:415)cipants to be circulated on Facebook via the crea(cid:415)on of a Facebook page (cid:415)tled 'Migra(cid:415)on and its Effects: Project Pakistan'.................... 45 Figure 3. Details of target audience and payment for running ads on Facebook for 4 days ........ 46 Figure 4. Sta(cid:415)s(cid:415)cs for the first trial ad run on Facebook .............................................................. 47 Figure 5. Comments on Facebook showing public responses to an ad designed as an image of the globe asking 'Are you from Pakistan?’ .................................................................................... 48 Figure 6. Conversa(cid:415)on on WhatsApp Business with a poten(cid:415)al research par(cid:415)cipant in a mix of English and Roman Urdu ............................................................................................................... 49 Figure 7. Conversa(cid:415)on on WhatsApp Business in English and failure to recruit a research par(cid:415)cipant ..................................................................................................................................... 57 Figure 8. A huge billboard at Liberty Chowk adver(cid:415)sing data packages for a telecommunica(cid:415)on company Zong (cid:415)tled 'Lets get Digital' ......................................................................................... 134 Figure 9. Memes in circula(cid:415)on comparing culture in the US and Pakistan ................................ 143 Figure 10. Meme depic(cid:415)ng the US Presiden(cid:415)al race with candidate Donlad Trump's twi(cid:425)er handle twee(cid:415)ng a popular Quranic verse in Arabic that prays for victory ................................. 144 Figure 11. Tweet in Roman Urdu expressing frustra(cid:415)on at the difficul(cid:415)es of entering into an arranged marriage or falling into a love marriage, for young people in South Asia ................... 147 Figure 12. A screenshot of a Facebook post from an infotainment news agency in which a respondent's cousin had tagged her ........................................................................................... 150 Figure 13. Respondent showing me her valued Blue Samsonite vanity box gi(cid:332)ed to her from her daughter in America .................................................................................................................... 162 Figure 14. The vanity box gi(cid:332)ed to respondent by her daughter as the same Samsonite model and color the respondent had been gi(cid:332)ed decades ago in her dowry....................................... 163 Figure 15. Respondent showing me the ar(cid:415)ficial jewelry and other ornamental trinkets she bought from the Sunday Bazaar for her granddaughter abroad ................................................ 168 Figure 16. A table, under the stairs of the respondent's house, displaying pictures of her daughters who were abroad ....................................................................................................... 170 viii Figure 17. Corner of respondent's house displaying an an(cid:415)que chair, and gigan(cid:415)c pain(cid:415)ng, that used to decorate her daughter's room when she lived at home................................................ 171 Figure 18. Bird statues gi(cid:332)ed by respondent's daughter from the Dollar Store in Canada adorning the respondent's house garden ................................................................................... 172 Figure 19. A giant Happy Mother's Day card and the pink envelope in which it was delivered to respondent from her daughters abroad ..................................................................................... 174 Figure 20. My mother, who had accompanied me to this interview, holding the card so that I can take pictures of the respondent’s daughters’ handwri(cid:425)en messages of affec(cid:415)on inside the card.............................................................................................................. 174 Figure 21. Taking a picture of the DKNY sandals gi(cid:332)ed to respondent by her daughter abroad ......................................................................................................................................... 175 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IMF WTO ICT US International Monetary Fund World Trade Organization Information and communications technology United States USAID United States Agency for International Development BSS CIS Beaconhouse School System Colombo International School LUMS Lahore University of Management Sciences UAE PhD United Arab Emirates Doctor of Philosophy MSU Michigan State University ITU FCU GOP HEC ISM IHE UK Information Technology University Forman Christian University Government of Pakistan Higher Education Commission International Student Mobility International Higher Education United Kingdom DHA Defence Housing Authority TCS LDF The City School LUMS Discussion Forum x NGO KFC QAU Non-Governmental Organization Kentucky Fried Chicken Quaid-e-Azam University UNDP United Nations Development Program GDP AIT Gross Domestic Product Asian Institute of Technology MPhil Master of Philosophy PBUH Peace Be Upon Him USCIS United States Citizenship and Immigration Services BBDO Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn CEO VPN Chief Executive Officer Virtual Private Network K-pop Korean popular music FBR Federal Board of Revenue DKNY Donna Karan New York Covid-19 Coronavirus Disease O-Level General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level A-Level General Certificate of Education Advanced Level FAST/NUCES Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology/National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Naveen: “Let’s talk about Pakistan for a minute. Pakistan as a brand. How would you build that?” A(cid:415)ya (looking (cid:415)red and overworked but speaking asser(cid:415)vely): “Oh the resilient people, people who keep showing up, no ma(cid:425)er what, and I’m not talking about poli(cid:415)cal acumen or anything like that. People. Who. Just. Show. Up. Imagine the problems the common man or woman has to go through- [Naveen nods in agreement with a serious expression, like a therapist listening to a pa(cid:415)ent with absolute a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on] - Infrastructure, poverty, infla(cid:415)on. Umm cost of living isn’t- its not even a “First World term.” She gives a knowing smile as she con(cid:415)nues, “for us, it is very very real. S(cid:415)ll, they get up and they smile, and they show up every day.” Naveen (with an expression of awe and wonder, shakes her head in disbelief): “I know, how do they do it?” A(cid:415)ya: “Where do you get that? I mean, you know, the First World countries, they take more an(cid:415)depressants, or maybe we can’t afford them, otherwise we would’ve been taking them (laughs cynically). But the point is that there are these people, our people (puts hand on chest), the Pakistani people- are…they will invite you in their home and they will make you sit down and they will not let you leave un(cid:415)l you eat or drink something from there. You have to have that chai, you have to have that food with them- [Naveen nods empha(cid:415)cally in agreement] -no ma(cid:425)er if they don’t have enough to share, they will not close the door on you, and that’s what – you know there was another book, I think, which is called Pakistan; A Hard Country, I think I have men(cid:415)oned it before, it says the reason that Pakistan con(cid:415)nues to exist is kinship, that we have this sense of bonding with each other that, okay, fine I’ll help you (speaking in a tone of resigna(cid:415)on masked as endurance).” (Zaidi 2024) VCast, the channel, page, and/or account (depending on whether you view it on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram) on which this video clip was posted describes itself as ‘a modern media company giving visibility to Pakistan's business and thought leaders’. The company has 22.7 thousand subscribers on YouTube, 30.1 thousand followers on Instagram, and 236 thousand followers on Facebook. The video clip transcribed above has received the most engagement on Instagram with 4831 likes, 142 comments, and 2455 shares. The video clip 1 involves two protagonists, Naveen Naqvi and A(cid:415)ya Zaidi. Naveen Naqvi is a female journalist who once worked for the US-based Na(cid:415)onal Broadcas(cid:415)ng Company in Islamabad as well as for Dawn News, Pakistan’s first English-language news channel. A(cid:415)ya Zaidi is the Chief Execu(cid:415)ve Officer (CEO) and crea(cid:415)ve director for the Barton, Durs(cid:415)ne & Osborn (BBDO) branch in Pakistan. BBDO Worldwide is a global marke(cid:415)ng agency that has garnered global acclaim and won interna(cid:415)onal awards. The clip begins with Naveen Naqvi posing a ques(cid:415)on for A(cid:415)ya Zaidi, i.e. How would you build Pakistan as a brand? Having thus framed a country in business terms as a product, service, or company whose iden(cid:415)ty as a brand needed to be defined, Naveen looks at A(cid:415)ya earnestly as the la(cid:425)er responds with serious asser(cid:415)veness. A(cid:415)ya defines Pakistan in terms of the resilient Pakistani people, taking her inspira(cid:415)on from the book, Pakistan: A Hard Country, making me recall that I had o(cid:332)en heard this book discussed in literary circles in Lahore when I visited Pakistan in 2018. A(cid:415)ya describes the everyday troubles of the common man (conscien(cid:415)ously adding the word woman, as well), such as poverty, infla(cid:415)on, and lack of infrastructure, and lauds their capacity to show up despite these obstacles in everyday life. Unlike the first world, she states as she passes a knowing smile to Naveen as if acknowledging a public secret, the cost of living was a very real phenomenon for people in Pakistan (poin(cid:415)ng to the difference in the consequen(cid:415)al effects of fluctua(cid:415)ons in the Pakistani rupee as compared to the US dollar). As Naveen shakes her head in awe and wonderment as to how the Pakistani people have the capacity to show up despite these constraints, A(cid:415)ya places her hand on her chest in a gesture of incorpora(cid:415)ng the Pakistani people into herself and Naveen, thereby linking both their selves to the Pakistani public as ‘our 2 people’. A(cid:415)ya employs the term kinship to refer to the rela(cid:415)onal sociality that she recognizes as the founda(cid:415)on of the brand iden(cid:415)ty of Pakistan and its people. Scrolling through the comments underneath the post on Instagram, I saw that while some people praised A(cid:415)ya for her eleva(cid:415)on of Pakistan and the Pakistani people, others were more skep(cid:415)cal of her narra(cid:415)ve. Some comments figura(cid:415)vely rolled their eyes at the naïve celebra(cid:415)on of resilience, and giving hardships faced by people in Pakistan a posi(cid:415)ve spin, almost like a cruel op(cid:415)mism of sorts. Other comments a(cid:425)acked A(cid:415)ya and Naveen as ‘liberal aun(cid:415)es’ par(cid:415)cularly distant from the reali(cid:415)es of contemporary Pakistan. S(cid:415)ll others lambasted the Pakistani people and Pakistan as a country, poin(cid:415)ng out the nega(cid:415)ve characteris(cid:415)cs of both place and people, cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ng an affect that worked in opposi(cid:415)on to the one produced in the video clip. This video clip posted by VCast on 27th November 2024 draws our a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the fraught rela(cid:415)on between place, personhood, kinship, and affect, as cons(cid:415)tuted in a globalizing South Asia. This disserta(cid:415)on draws upon ethnographic methods to understand how people make meaning of place in a world where mobility is increasingly important to how we live our everyday lives. It explores the transforma(cid:415)on of how people understand a world in transi(cid:415)on, the place of Pakistan in that world, and their own posi(cid:415)onality in rela(cid:415)on to both. tries to understand how people’s understanding of the world has transformed to thinking about it as a global place and how that is juxtaposed to newer understandings of Pakistan as place. It looks at how people maintain their sense of place even when they are not physically on the move but the coordinates that make up their sense of place seem to be rapidly shi(cid:332)ing. How people make sense of place is closely (cid:415)ed to their personhood. This disserta(cid:415)on excavates the parameters of 3 personhood in a globalizing Pakistan that shape the aspira(cid:415)ons and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons of people func(cid:415)oning simultaneously as part of a local society and a global economy. It asks what are the culturally salient aspects of being a person in Pakistan? Similarly, what are the aspects of global personhood that people in Pakistan desire to a(cid:425)ain? How do these parameters converge and where do they come into fric(cid:415)on? In centering how people make sense of place, this study ques(cid:415)ons the privileging of the na(cid:415)on-state as the frame for both scholarly – and popular – discussions of place, iden(cid:415)ty, and ci(cid:415)zenship. In moving away from the framing of places as territorially bound na(cid:415)on-states, it brackets the focus on ci(cid:415)zenship as the founda(cid:415)on of modern personhood and instead centers everyday cultural prac(cid:415)ces and ways of being. It asks how does the opera(cid:415)on of kinship as a prac(cid:415)ce in everyday life enable people in Pakistan to make meaning of place and navigate personhood in more complicated ways, beyond the ossifica(cid:415)on imposed by the discursive regimes of kinship at the level of the na(cid:415)on-state and the global neoliberal economy? This disserta(cid:415)on centers transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons and asks how did the migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad affect people in Pakistan? How did global migra(cid:415)on strain exis(cid:415)ng and produce new social rela(cid:415)ons? How did new forms of communica(cid:415)on and material exchange, result from and contribute to such rela(cid:415)ons? In inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)ng these ques(cid:415)ons, this disserta(cid:415)on tries to understand how globaliza(cid:415)on is working in Pakistan via migra(cid:415)on, commodi(cid:415)es, and digital technologies. It asks how changing material reali(cid:415)es have been incorporated into, and influenced, the prac(cid:415)ce of kinship in everyday life? Lastly, in trying to understand globaliza(cid:415)on in Pakistan, this disserta(cid:415)on tries to understand the role of affect at both global and local levels. It looks at how affect works in the 4 global neoliberal economy to produce par(cid:415)cular kinds of subjects. It also looks at what role affect plays in kinship as a cultural prac(cid:415)ce. It tries to map out what the genera(cid:415)on and circula(cid:415)on of affect at mul(cid:415)ple levels means for how people nego(cid:415)ate the global and the local. From the global to the local and back again; building the conceptual landscape for an anthropology of global migration and transnational South Asia Globalization, transnational migration, and US Empire The populariza(cid:415)on of the term globaliza(cid:415)on is credited to the German American economist, Theodore Levi(cid:425), in his 1983 ar(cid:415)cle in the Harvard Business Review on ‘The Globaliza(cid:415)on of Markets’ (Steger 2017). Levi(cid:425)’s ar(cid:415)cle calling for the mul(cid:415)na(cid:415)onal corpora(cid:415)on to orient itself as a global corpora(cid:415)on by changing its focus on cultural difference to a focus on global standardiza(cid:415)on foreshadowed the changing condi(cid:415)ons of the world that would shape the dynamics of late capitalism. The call for a change in the orienta(cid:415)on of markets built on the idea that the economic realm was separate from the cultural and religious realm, and that despite cultural differences, people everywhere desired modernity in the form of access to the same products (Levi(cid:425) 1983; Steger 2017). The period of late capitalism, therefore, that was signaled by Levi(cid:425)’s ar(cid:415)cle, is associated with the resurgence of classical liberal ideas about how economy and society should work. However, the term neoliberalism that is given to the ideology associated with late capitalism, encompasses a set of ideas that speak to a very different context than the context within which the free market principles of classical liberalism were born (Steger 2017). The geopoli(cid:415)cal context for neoliberal ideas can be traced to the Washington Consensus, a set of economic policy recommenda(cid:415)ons made by Washington-based ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons such as the 5 Interna(cid:415)onal Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organiza(cid:415)on (WTO). Known as structural adjustment, these policy programs sought to align na(cid:415)onal economies, and global trade with free market principles that, according to supporters, would produce for op(cid:415)mal func(cid:415)oning of a global economy. The consolida(cid:415)on of the global economy, was bu(cid:425)ressed with the informa(cid:415)on and communica(cid:415)on technology (ICT) revolu(cid:415)on in the 1990s which enabled the integra(cid:415)on and financializa(cid:415)on of global markets. In his short introduc(cid:415)on to globaliza(cid:415)on, the sociologist Manfred Steger points to the ICT revolu(cid:415)on and the deregula(cid:415)on of na(cid:415)onal economies as the signifying features of the beginning of a dis(cid:415)nct era in the 1990s (Steger 2017). Thus, scholars are, by and large, in agreement that globaliza(cid:415)on represents a step change in the state of the world today (Appadurai 1990; Castles 2010). Interac(cid:415)ons in the past were restricted by (cid:415)me, distance, and the limita(cid:415)ons of technology but advancements in transporta(cid:415)on and communica(cid:415)on technologies redefined the spa(cid:415)al and temporal coordinates of the world, a world that at the same (cid:415)me became more intensely and extensively connected. Globaliza(cid:415)on theorists claim that the change in the volume, velocity, and scale of such connec(cid:415)ons is what makes this era unique (Appadurai 1990; Castells 2010; Steger 2017). They outline the qualita(cid:415)vely different character of social and cultural life in the era of globaliza(cid:415)on where all the characteris(cid:415)c features of local life are differen(cid:415)ally distributed across space, making the local a less privileged site of cultural process (Appadurai 1990; Hannerz 2001). For instance, Arjun Appadurai points out how it is not just mobile groups and persons such as tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers, etc. who increasingly cons(cid:415)tute and thereby effect the world, because even people who do not move have to deal with the reali(cid:415)es 6 of having to move, or the fantasies of wan(cid:415)ng to move. In this deterritorialized world of hyper flux, imagina(cid:415)on becomes a dominant social prac(cid:415)ce that enables the forma(cid:415)on of group iden(cid:415)(cid:415)es and subjec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es. While Appadurai coins the word ‘ethnoscapes’ to refer to the global mobility of people, he delineates four other scapes that characterize globaliza(cid:415)on and illustrate the global flows of media, technology, capital, and ideas; ‘mediascapes’, ‘technoscapes’, ‘financescapes’, and ‘ideoscapes’ (Appadurai 1990;1991). I take seriously Appadurai’s argument about the centrality of mobility to the everyday lives of migrant popula(cid:415)ons as well as people who remain in their countries of origin. However, I find that Appadurai’s theore(cid:415)cal framework does not take into account the power dynamics that structure global flows and connec(cid:415)ons and consequently set the discursive parameters for social imagina(cid:415)on and prac(cid:415)ce. While Marxist theorists of globaliza(cid:415)on have demonstrated that the processes that cons(cid:415)tute global social rela(cid:415)ons are far from neutral (Harvey 1989; Massey 1994; Wallerstein 1991), in centering migra(cid:415)on as the lens through which to inves(cid:415)gate the ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)on between the global and the local in Pakistan, I build upon scholarship on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on and globaliza(cid:415)on. Contrary to earlier approaches in transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on that pronounced the transcendence of the na(cid:415)on-state and the unmooring of na(cid:415)onal iden(cid:415)ty so that it was no longer (cid:415)ed to a specific territory or ci(cid:415)zenship (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc 1994), scholarship on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on has illustrated the reconfigura(cid:415)on of the power of na(cid:415)on-states and the reinforcement of parochial na(cid:415)onal iden(cid:415)(cid:415)es (Tsuda 2003; Mankekar 2015; Grewal 2005; Amrute 2016). In addi(cid:415)on to demonstra(cid:415)ng the reconfigura(cid:415)on of the power of na(cid:415)on-states and the iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons they engender, within studies of transna(cid:415)onal 7 migra(cid:415)on an influen(cid:415)al body of work delineates the contours of US Empire as it plays out in the global migra(cid:415)on and labor industries. These works illustrate the discursive regimes of US Empire that work via mul(cid:415)ple actors at mul(cid:415)ple levels, shedding light on imperial forma(cid:415)ons that emerge within transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons (Grewal 2005; Rana 2011; Maira 2009; Durrani 2022). Taking inspira(cid:415)on from literature on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on and US Empire, I understand an imperial global neoliberal order as a shaping of the world in accordance with a hegemonic social and cultural value system that emerges from a par(cid:415)cular place, i.e. the United States. I iden(cid:415)fy the working of the US Empire with an imperial global neoliberal order to underscore the manifold ways in which it works, whether through the US immigra(cid:415)on apparatus, global labor regimes, the displacement of local economies by their integra(cid:415)on into a global market system, the establishment of an interna(cid:415)onal higher educa(cid:415)on industry, media images and narra(cid:415)ves, and the many other myriad ways alongside direct military conquest in certain parts of the world. The reason for centering neoliberalism in the imperial global order in how I draw a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to US Empire is to highlight the specific concerns of this disserta(cid:415)on at the intersec(cid:415)on of interna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on and globaliza(cid:415)on in South Asia. I view the imperial global neoliberal order as a Bourdieusian social field in which each actor’s configura(cid:415)on of capitals determines their social loca(cid:415)on in a field that is structured according to the neoliberal values of a late capitalist economy and the social and cultural hierarchies upon which they operate (Bourdieu 1977). The actors that operate in this social field are not just limited to individual persons, but also groups and collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es at various scales such as the family, educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons, the na(cid:415)on-state, mul(cid:415)-na(cid:415)onal corpora(cid:415)ons, interna(cid:415)onal development 8 organiza(cid:415)ons, etc. An individual’s embodied configura(cid:415)on of capitals, and thereby an individual’s standing in the imperial global neoliberal order is linked to the individual being part of groups, collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es, and ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons that excel in opera(cid:415)ng according to neoliberal values and crea(cid:415)ng the condi(cid:415)ons for their inculca(cid:415)on in individual disposi(cid:415)ons. I turn to scholarship on globaliza(cid:415)on that charts the cultural underpinnings of neoliberalism as the ideology of a global capitalist economy (Kingfisher 2002; Makovicky 2014; Brockling 2016; Chris(cid:415)aens 2021). These works trace the shi(cid:332) from western classical liberal to neoliberal concep(cid:415)ons of the person. The former understands a person as a free individual who has autonomy over the ownership of their own body and its capacity for labor (and consequently autonomy over whether to sell their labor power to the market), while the la(cid:425)er considers the individual’s labor power in terms of human capital that needs to be nurtured and managed in line with market impera(cid:415)ves (Gershon 2011). Anthropological scholarship on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on and neoliberal personhood has brought to the fore the valua(cid:415)on of a(cid:425)ributes of flexibility, choice, and self-sufficiency in the global capitalist economy in its current forma(cid:415)on and how it builds upon western neoliberal concep(cid:415)ons of the person (Freeman 2014; Fong 2011; Ramos-Zayas 2012; Gershon 2011). However, the structuring of the social field of the global neoliberal order is not a meritocra(cid:415)c structuring according to the distribu(cid:415)on of neutral economic, social, and cultural capitals in line with neoliberal values, but is regulated via the classifica(cid:415)on of individuals, groups, and collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es along lines of race, culture, class, gender, religion, na(cid:415)onality, etc. Hence, even as the global neoliberal order sets neoliberal values as the standard against which individuals, groups, and collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es are judged, it simultaneously regulates access to the a(cid:425)ainment of those standards based on social and 9 cultural characteris(cid:415)cs such as class, race, gender, culture, etc. These social and cultural characteris(cid:415)cs are defined via an imperial logic whose understanding of these characteris(cid:415)cs emerges out of the specific social and cultural context of the United States as a colonial na(cid:415)on- state. In other words, the hegemonic ideas, standards, beliefs, and prac(cid:415)ces that structure society and culture in the United States also structure and dominate the imperial global neoliberal order (Grewal 2005; Rana 2011). However, although scholarship on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on and globaliza(cid:415)on has illustrated how US Empire and na(cid:415)on-states operate in the imperial global neoliberal order by producing new kinds of racialized, classed, gendered, and na(cid:415)onalist iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons, I look towards ethnographically grounded studies of globaliza(cid:415)on in the Global South to understand the tensions between older and newer forms of governmentality, and older and newer value systems. Both Aihwa Ong and William Mazarella elucidate the inequi(cid:415)es and specifici(cid:415)es of the ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)on between the global and the local in different contexts (Ong 1999;2006; Mazzarella 2003). They show the changing rela(cid:415)onship between states in the Global South and the people they govern as states ar(cid:415)culate with global capitalism and reconfigure their posi(cid:415)on in a global poli(cid:415)cal economy. Ong discusses the coop(cid:415)on of neoliberalism as a regula(cid:415)ng strategy by the Chinese state to govern its popula(cid:415)on alongside tracking the movements of elite Chinese business families across the globe to illustrate their quest for a flexible ci(cid:415)zenship to circumvent the strictures imposed by the Chinese state. Ong demonstrates how the financial and social capital of elite Chinese business families enables their global mobility even as they consolidate their cultural capital as a Chinese ci(cid:415)zen via their perpetua(cid:415)on of an idealized and roman(cid:415)cized no(cid:415)on of the tradi(cid:415)onal Chinese family that succeeds in business because of its adherence to 10 Confucian ethics and filial piety. Mazzarella elaborates on the commodifica(cid:415)on of Indian culture and the forma(cid:415)on of the ci(cid:415)zen-consumer in the shi(cid:332) from a state led development-oriented governing strategy to the consolida(cid:415)on of the adver(cid:415)sing industry and its power to define Indian culture and iden(cid:415)ty (Ong 2006; Mazzarella 2003). These works fall in line with Anna Tsing’s impera(cid:415)ve to study the encounter of mul(cid:415)ple actors at mul(cid:415)ple levels in order to understand the fric(cid:415)on among diverse, and at (cid:415)mes conflic(cid:415)ng, systems of value that animate the ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)on between the global and the local (Tsing 2005). In par(cid:415)cular, the work of these anthropologists proves insigh(cid:414)ul not only for thinking about the reconfigura(cid:415)on of state power to be an integral broker of the global and local, but also the involvement of other collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es and actors such as the family and adver(cid:415)sing and media professionals in shaping the global poli(cid:415)cal economy. Kinship and its entanglements in South Asia To discern the intertwinement of mul(cid:415)ple value systems and actors in the imperial global neoliberal order, it is important to understand how individuals and collec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es are also simultaneously par(cid:415)cipants in more localized social fields that are structured according to their own discursive regimes and valua(cid:415)on of capitals, but always in rela(cid:415)on to other social fields with which they intersect. The principles and values that structure social fields and their distribu(cid:415)on of capitals also set the standards for who counts as a person in that social field. Anthropologists have long pondered the concept of the person (Appel-Warren 2014) and how it varies across cultures, poin(cid:415)ng to the specificity of the western concep(cid:415)on of the person as a sovereign, autonomous individual. By delinea(cid:415)ng how the concept of the person is understood in other socie(cid:415)es, they have illustrated how the basis of social and cultural recogni(cid:415)on varies 11 across different socie(cid:415)es and cultures (Dumont 1970; Mauss 1985; Comaroff and Comaroff 2010). If we understand actors in a global neoliberal order to be embedded within mul(cid:415)ple social fields, we need to think about the rela(cid:415)onal nature of personhood in terms of an actor’s social loca(cid:415)on in a social field and how that determines the vantage point from which they act in the social field under considera(cid:415)on, as well as in intersec(cid:415)ng social fields. In trying to understand the parameters of personhood that structured the lives of my respondents and shaped their desires and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons, I refer to Geoffrey Mead’s elabora(cid:415)on of the concept in terms of symbolic capital that enables the recogni(cid:415)on and legi(cid:415)ma(cid:415)on of the existence of an individual in the socie(cid:415)es/cultures of which they are a part of. The principles and standards of social and cultural recogni(cid:415)on are also embedded within a hierarchy of moral valua(cid:415)ons and are set by those who hold the most power in a par(cid:415)cular society and culture. In his elabora(cid:415)on of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital, Geoffrey Mead underscores the inherently rela(cid:415)onal character of personhood in that although the principles and standards for its a(cid:425)ainment are set by the dominant forces in society, it is simultaneously dependent upon the recogni(cid:415)on of those principles and standards by the less powerful. He cites the paradigm of the king, urging us to see how the presen(cid:415)ng of the king is not a neutral piece of informa(cid:415)on or sensa(cid:415)on that is passively perceived, and in linear fashion, subsequently classified as powerful king. The king is presented to the perceiver as a powerful king precisely because the perceiver is bound to the king in a specific rela(cid:415)on, in this case a rela(cid:415)on of subordina(cid:415)on (Mead 2021). Mead shows us that not only is personhood rela(cid:415)onal, but it is also embodied and thereby material. The king presents as powerful king not just through his own body and person, but via his rela(cid:415)on to, and associa(cid:415)on with, other bodies and signs (for example, the mul(cid:415)tude 12 of slaves working for him, the crown that he wears, the throne that he sits on, the subjects whom he rules over as sovereign, etc.). It is as if the king’s person expands to encompass not just his individual body, but also other bodies and material ar(cid:415)facts, permea(cid:415)ng the lifeworlds of subjects so that his power is realized even in the absence of a direct command as long as it is socially recognized (Mead 2021). Building upon Mead’s concep(cid:415)on of a rela(cid:415)onal personhood, I employ personhood to include not just the individual person who aspires to a(cid:425)ain the standards and values of the social fields in which they are embedded, but also groups and colleci(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es who strive towards the same ends in order to gain social recogni(cid:415)on. Personhood, in a social field, is therefore dependent on recogni(cid:415)on from other actors in a social field. Furthermore, personhood as social recogni(cid:415)on is not just embodied by individual and collec(cid:415)ve bodies, but is also manifested in material ar(cid:415)facts such as commodi(cid:415)es, buildings, digital ar(cid:415)facts, etc. Early anthropological literature on South Asia delineated the forma(cid:415)on of a rela(cid:415)onal person in contrast to the ‘one body, one self’ conceptualiza(cid:415)on of the person as individual in the west (Dumont 1970; Alvi 2001). This led anthropologists to theorize Indian personhood in terms of dividuals or par(cid:415)ble persons i.e. individuals were subordinated to a collec(cid:415)ve characterized by hierarchy, and it was the la(cid:425)er that had value as the basic unit of society in South Asia (Busby 1997; Marrio(cid:425) and Inden 1977). This literature was cri(cid:415)qued for its reifica(cid:415)on of the self/collec(cid:415)ve binary (read west/east) and for occluding the significance of individual experiences and flexibility in naviga(cid:415)ng personhood in a par(cid:415)cular society and culture (Mines 1988;1994; Mookherjee 2013). While I agree with the impera(cid:415)ve to dislodge orientalist no(cid:415)ons of a collec(cid:415)vist South Asian culture by demonstra(cid:415)ng the mutual imbrica(cid:415)on of the individual self and society (Mookherjee 2013; Thiranganama 2013), I see promise in the concept of 13 personhood for illumina(cid:415)ng the discursive regimes and affec(cid:415)ve orders that structure and regulate experiences of the self. Personhood therefore enables us to get at the specific ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)ons of collec(cid:415)vity and individuality that are propagated by those in power in a par(cid:415)cular social field. Personhood in South Asia is intrinsically intertwined with kinship. Speaking to David Schneider’s cri(cid:415)que of the study of kinship in anthropology, older anthropological accounts of kinship in South Asia elucidated the conjoining of nature/substance and law/moral code in a cultural understanding of kinship that served as a blueprint for the biological, social, and material ways in which people related to each other (Alavi 1972; Alvi 2007; Daniel 1984; Dube 2001; Eglar 1960; Inden and Nicholas 1977; Marriot and Inden 1977; Schneider 1984). These works outlined the cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of kinship networks and (cid:415)es via the exchange and transfer of biological substances such as blood, milk, and semen (whether from parents to children or between sexual partners), as well as through the exchange of presta(cid:415)on/gi(cid:332)s among households that create (cid:415)es of mutual dependence. While anthropological accounts of kinship in South Asia pointed to the variety of kinship systems and prac(cid:415)ces in the region, the contrast between kinship in North and South India by way of example, the patrilineal kinship system was considered as the predominant norm in South Asia (Alvi 2007; Busby 1997; Trautmann 1974). In the patrilineal kinship system, even though both the father and mother were considered par(cid:415)cipants in the process of procrea(cid:415)on, the child was thought to be of the father’s blood (the patriline). This was evident in the organic metaphors used for the process of procrea(cid:415)on in North India where the man was understood to provide the seed that was nurtured in the field of the woman’s womb, relega(cid:415)ng the la(cid:425)er to a passive role in procrea(cid:415)on (Dube 2001). The 14 confluence and interplay of ver(cid:415)cal (hierarchical) and horizontal (affec(cid:415)ve) (cid:415)es that characterized rela(cid:415)ons within the immediate patrilineal kin group composed of grandparents, parents, children, and the son’s family by marriage was mirrored in the forma(cid:415)on of differen(cid:415)al (cid:415)es with the wider kin group and with non-kin such as neighbors and friends living in the same locality (Alavi 1972; Inden and Nicholas 1977; Lambert 2000). For example, Alavi differen(cid:415)ates between the ‘biraderi of rishtedaar’ and the ‘biraderi of par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on’ among the extended kin network of villages in West Punjab in Pakistan. The former refers to the (cid:415)es of kinship with households from the same descent group while the la(cid:425)er emphasizes the (cid:415)es of kinship that are maintained among households that engage in regular and frequent exchange of gi(cid:332)s and services. The fraternal solidarity among the more restricted group of kin that form the ‘biraderi of par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on’ can be extended to neighbors and friends living in the same locality but rela(cid:415)onships with the la(cid:425)er are not circumscribed by the obligatory compulsions that structure rela(cid:415)ons with kin (Alavi 1972). Inden and Nicholas in their account of kinship in Bengali culture point to the flexibility and openness of kinship as a cultural prac(cid:415)ce which embraces all those with whom a person has a personal connec(cid:415)on within the ambit of one’s own people even if these connec(cid:415)ons are differen(cid:415)ated along lines of kin or fic(cid:415)ve kin (Inden and Nicholas 1977). The contextual flexibility of personhood and kinship in South Asia is demonstrated by Daniel Valen(cid:415)ne in his ethnography of Tamilian personhood and its rela(cid:415)on to place where a person’s very substance was thought to be cons(cid:415)tuted from the soil they lived on. He illustrates a person-centric idea of place by showing how his interlocutors used the word ‘Ur’ contextually to refer to their ancestral village, area of residence, or des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on of travel. ‘Ur’ then was an 15 indigenous term which located place in rela(cid:415)on to a person’s orienta(cid:415)on to space, which in turn was dependent upon context. Valen(cid:415)ne contrasts this with the term they used to describe the village district marked out by the government for revenue genera(cid:415)on, as well as for the country as a whole. In using the term ‘kirmamam’ to refer to both of these, his interlocutors demonstrated that they understood this term to refer to a fixed, bounded, territorial space that was iden(cid:415)fiable regardless of the context in which it was being used (Daniel 1984). The interplay among personhood, kinship, and place in anthropological accounts of South Asia illustrate the significance of kinship in how people in South Asia construct relatedness to other people that dialogically informs their percep(cid:415)on of themselves, but also how the prac(cid:415)ce of kinship is integral to how they structure their rela(cid:415)onship to space and place. This has repercussions for how people experience a changing sense of space and place in a globalizing South Asia with the emigra(cid:415)on of kin abroad, the increased circula(cid:415)on of commodi(cid:415)es, and the introduc(cid:415)on of digital technologies. In listening to their narra(cid:415)ves, observing their prac(cid:415)ces, and reflec(cid:415)ng on my own experiences, I try to understand how people in Pakistan try to maintain their sense of place even as their place-world is violently unse(cid:425)led. Here I bring in Edward Casey’s concept of place that privileges bodily percep(cid:415)on in its theoriza(cid:415)on. He states that rather than understand space as a neutral, empty ground which appears in its secondary form as place when humans a(cid:425)ach meaning to it, we might understand space and sensa(cid:415)ons as always already being emplaced. Human bodies are sensing bodies that move in a scene of sensa(cid:415)ons, sensa(cid:415)ons that are not free-floa(cid:415)ng sensory data, but which have depth and horizons and which are part of an already exis(cid:415)ng place-world. Our percep(cid:415)on of these sensa(cid:415)ons enables us to place ourselves in this place-world. Hence, just as place is not 16 secondary to space, it is also not secondary to percep(cid:415)on. Rather, place is an ingredient in percep(cid:415)on itself, implying that cultural prac(cid:415)ces and social ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons cons(cid:415)tute synesthe(cid:415)c percep(cid:415)on as much as it is cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ve of them. The dialec(cid:415)c of percep(cid:415)on and place, and both with meaning, implies that we are never without percep(cid:415)on and hence never without emplaced experiences (Casey 1996). Subsequent scholarship on personhood and kinship in South Asia has cri(cid:415)qued the closed, bounded, pris(cid:415)ne structural accounts of kinship postulated by anthropologists and called for understanding the family in South Asia as being con(cid:415)nuously shaped by historical, economic, and social forces (Uberoi 1993). The focus shi(cid:332)ed to the na(cid:415)on-state in South Asia and the incorpora(cid:415)on of kinship into a na(cid:415)onal register forming the basis for new iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons central to modern personhood (such as the person as ci(cid:415)zen of a territorially bounded na(cid:415)on- state). Partha Cha(cid:425)erjee’s argument called for understanding the emergence of na(cid:415)onalism in India within the context of coloniza(cid:415)on. Challenging Benedict Anderson’s thesis on the cultural founda(cid:415)ons of na(cid:415)onalism in Euro-centric contexts, Cha(cid:425)erjee points to the fragmented na(cid:415)onalism that emerged in colonial India. Cha(cid:425)erjee shed light on how the uniqueness of the Indian na(cid:415)on was constructed in the spiritual/cultural domain even as na(cid:415)onalist movements sought to coopt the western colonial ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)onal apparatus as the structural basis of the modern Indian na(cid:415)on-state (Anderson 2006; Cha(cid:425)erjee 1993). The community and the family (and the kinship and gender rela(cid:415)ons that cons(cid:415)tuted them) became the grounds for the enactment of an untainted tradi(cid:415)onal Indian culture, leading to the objec(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on, and thereby transforma(cid:415)on, of precolonial cultural forma(cid:415)ons. Scholarship on post-colonial na(cid:415)on-states in South Asia has thus been preoccupied with addressing the reifica(cid:415)on and essen(cid:415)aliza(cid:415)on of 17 cultural forma(cid:415)ons, such as the religious and/or ethnic community, the family, and the ideal Indian woman, as they get taken up in the cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of communitarian and na(cid:415)onal iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons (Butalia 2000; Cha(cid:425)erjee 1993; Das 1995; Khoja-Moolji 2018;2021). The rise of ethnic, religious, and militant violence in South Asia relegated tradi(cid:415)onal anthropological concerns such as kinship to the background. Only recently has the subject of kinship come to be revived in the ways in which it intersects with the na(cid:415)on-state in South Asia, as well as the ways in which (cid:415)es of filia(cid:415)on are reconfigured into (cid:415)es of fic(cid:415)ve kinship (Hashmi 2021, Khoja-Moolji 2021, La(cid:415)f 2017; Taguchi and Majumdar 2021; Pande 2015; Taguchi 2021). With the increase in the scale, volume, and velocity of global connec(cid:415)ons, and Pakistan’s integra(cid:415)on into a global economy, the stuff of kinship, i.e. how people relate to one another in South Asia and in South Asian diasporas, is once more undergoing transforma(cid:415)ons. While older scholarship on Pakistani migrant communi(cid:415)es in Britain has a robust history of mapping their transna(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons and maintenance of (cid:415)es with kin back home, these works reflect the contours of transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on relevant to an older period and older diasporic communi(cid:415)es (Werbner 1990; Ballard 2003; Shaw 2000). Transna(cid:415)onalizing kinship As an increasingly greater number of people from urban centers in Pakistan (and even from smaller towns and ci(cid:415)es) seek to move abroad for educa(cid:415)on and work, we see the breakup of the spa(cid:415)ally integrated family (joint or nuclear) in Pakistan, and the simultaneous emergence of the spa(cid:415)ally dispersed, but networked, global family. Moreover, digital communica(cid:415)on technologies do not just enable the maintenance of connec(cid:415)vity among people in Pakistan and their kin who move abroad in the contemporary period but also enable the 18 establishment and rekindling of (cid:415)es among older diasporic communi(cid:415)es and their kin in Pakistan. This has implica(cid:415)ons not just for the changes occurring in family structures in Pakistan via the global migra(cid:415)on and dispersal of kin members living in the same house, but also for the widening of kin networks and the increased capacity of transna(cid:415)onal kinship to incorporate ever more rela(cid:415)ves into its fold. In other words, while there seems to be a thinning of the form of the physical family in Pakistan, it is simultaneously accompanied by the thickening of the form of the virtual family that is dispersed globally. The change in the form of the family from being physically and spa(cid:415)ally integrated to being virtually integrated and spa(cid:415)ally dispersed is not to posit a binary between the real and the virtual. The virtual too has its own materiali(cid:415)es and this disserta(cid:415)on takes up the task of inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)ng how kinship is changing in a globalizing, transna(cid:415)onal world. Earlier anthropological theories of kinship have been cri(cid:415)qued for looking at the biological (substance) and cultural (code) aspects of kinship in binary terms and establishing a dichotomous view of western and non-western models of kinship as being mutually exclusive (Carsten 2003; Sahlins 2013; Schneider 1984). Carsten argues that while the separa(cid:415)on between substance and code and the a(cid:425)endant binaries between western and non-western concepts of substance, personhood, and kinship are useful analy(cid:415)cal strategies, they do not give a complete picture of how kinship works on the ground in both western and non-western contexts. She urges us to look for the poten(cid:415)als of kinship in both contexts of individua(cid:415)on and rela(cid:415)onal sociali(cid:415)es. Thinking about how kinship is constructed culturally rather than as a fact of biology (Sahlins 2013), Carsten calls for dis(cid:415)nguishing between the performa(cid:415)ve and ascrip(cid:415)ve aspects of kinship (Carsten 2003). She also differen(cid:415)ates between literal and metaphorical acts of making 19 kin, poin(cid:415)ng to the dangers inherent in the cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of metaphorical kinship iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons at the level of the na(cid:415)on-state (Carsten 2003). Carsten’s dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on between ascrip(cid:415)ve and performa(cid:415)ve kinship was echoed earlier by Pierre Bourdieu’s exposi(cid:415)on of kinship as prac(cid:415)ce and the varied social uses to which it is put (Bourdieu 1990). Bourdieu referred to the construc(cid:415)on of kinship along genealogical (cid:415)es as a strategy to order the social world and to legi(cid:415)mate its ordering by naturalizing these (cid:415)es. He called these kinship rules as ‘official kinship’ and opposed it to ‘prac(cid:415)cal kinship’. ‘Prac(cid:415)cal kinship’ encompassed the other kinds of prac(cid:415)cal uses that are made of kinship rela(cid:415)ons among kin who live in spa(cid:415)al proximity, echoing Alavi’s dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on in the ‘biraderi of rishtedaar’ and ‘biraderi of par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on’ in kinship in West Punjab in South Asia. By posi(cid:415)ng this dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on between official and prac(cid:415)cal kinship, Bourdieu reminds us that in assigning kinship the status of an objec(cid:415)ve social condi(cid:415)on, we o(cid:332)en forget that the kinship group is cons(cid:415)tuted based on the func(cid:415)on it is to serve, rather than being cons(cid:415)tuted biologically and then being harnessed to serve certain func(cid:415)ons. To reiterate, Bourdieu asks us to think about the cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of the kinship group and kinship prac(cid:415)ces in terms of their mobiliza(cid:415)on towards the sa(cid:415)sfac(cid:415)on of certain material and symbolic interests that are shaped by par(cid:415)cular economic and social condi(cid:415)ons (Bourdieu 1990). Furthermore, by adding a further dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on between kinship (official and prac(cid:415)cal) and prac(cid:415)cal rela(cid:415)onships, Bourdieu draws a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to kinship as a par(cid:415)cular type of rela(cid:415)onship that may or may not overlap with other prac(cid:415)cal rela(cid:415)onships engaged in by people living in close proximity for the purpose of the func(cid:415)oning of daily life. In this disserta(cid:415)on, I conceptualize kinship in terms of Bourdieu’s theory of prac(cid:415)ce which views prac(cid:415)ce as the media(cid:415)ng link between the individual and/or group and their social 20 environment, imbuing the individual agent’s or group’s ac(cid:415)ons with an unques(cid:415)onable logic within a universe of shared understandings and harmonized experiences. A society or culture’s ways of thinking, feeling, and ac(cid:415)ng are thus transmi(cid:425)ed through prac(cid:415)ce. Bourdieu further expands on how prac(cid:415)ce works via his study of the Kabyle people, demonstra(cid:415)ng that the transmission of culture, par(cid:415)cularly in social forma(cid:415)ons where literacy as a symbolic technique is not privileged, occurs in the ways bodies inhabit a culturally, socially, and temporally structured space and their encounter with other tangible bodies and things in that space (Bourdieu 1977). Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ as durable, transposable disposi(cid:415)ons generated by objec(cid:415)ve social condi(cid:415)ons, and ‘corporeal hexis’ as the embodiment of these disposi(cid:415)ons in schemes of thought, percep(cid:415)on, and ac(cid:415)on, demonstrate how prac(cid:415)ce mediates between the individual/group and their social environment. In other words it is in and through prac(cid:415)ce that prior systems of rela(cid:415)ons come into encounter with newer systems of rela(cid:415)ons. For Bourdieu, to understand prac(cid:415)ce at a par(cid:415)cular conjuncture as an inten(cid:415)onal reproduc(cid:415)on of lived experience or as an individual’s inten(cid:415)onal deployment of the body is to misunderstand the conjunctural interac(cid:415)on as a discreet event in space-(cid:415)me. An interac(cid:415)on at a par(cid:415)cular conjuncture is never contained within the interac(cid:415)on alone and is never about individual interpersonal rela(cid:415)onships (Bourdieu 1977). The habitus is also the preserve of affec(cid:415)ve affini(cid:415)es that stem from historical objec(cid:415)ve condi(cid:415)ons that structured the social field at the (cid:415)me of forma(cid:415)on of disposi(cid:415)onal orienta(cid:415)ons. Sara Ahmed theorizes affect to illustrate how emo(cid:415)ons are more than just psychological states embodied by a bounded, individual subject. Nor does she understand affect in terms of emo(cid:415)ons being manifested in a par(cid:415)cular material object. Rather, she defines affect as what 21 accrues when emo(cid:415)ons circulate between signifiers in rela(cid:415)onships of difference or displacement. Furthermore, while affect can be contagious when it aligns with the affec(cid:415)ve atmospheres of an affec(cid:415)ve order, I reiterate Ahmed’s emphasis on the con(cid:415)ngency of affect where the circula(cid:415)on of affect is dependent on how we are affected at the moment of interac(cid:415)on (Ahmed 2004;2010). Thus, affec(cid:415)ve affini(cid:415)es are rela(cid:415)onal and have potencies so that some affini(cid:415)es are s(cid:415)ckier than others and are accumulated as one moves through life’s trajectory. As the individual’s life trajectory plays out within changing social fields and their intersec(cid:415)ons, the individual’s habitus, corporeal hexis, and their affec(cid:415)ve affini(cid:415)es encounter new affec(cid:415)ve orders. Affec(cid:415)ve affini(cid:415)es that converge can lead to the inter-subjec(cid:415)ve circula(cid:415)on of affect which can either result in convergence or dissonance (Threadgold 2020). Hence, it is in the encounter of the habitus and corporeal hexis with a changing or different social field that can elicit mul(cid:415)ple prac(cid:415)ces and percep(cid:415)ons outside of the social field in which the disposi(cid:415)on was formed (Bourdieu 1977). Conceptualizing kinship in terms of prac(cid:415)ce, and differen(cid:415)a(cid:415)ng the many different ways it is prac(cid:415)ced (officially, prac(cid:415)cally, and fic(cid:415)vely), makes it an especially potent site to understand the cultural and social changes that people are undergoing in the contemporary era of global mobility. Situa(cid:415)ng the study of kinship within the context of global mobility implies understanding what is happening to kinship as a result of the migra(cid:415)on of kin abroad, but also how kinship shapes global mobility because of its inherent predilec(cid:415)ons for social mobility (Andrikopoulos and Duyvendak 2020; Carsten 2020). Furthermore, kinship’s affinity with modes of na(cid:415)onal belonging, and the power of na(cid:415)on-states to regulate mobility across borders, makes kinship a useful object of inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)on to understand the entanglement of the 22 governmentality of na(cid:415)on-states with the everyday lives of its ci(cid:415)zens. By delving into the intersec(cid:415)ons of globaliza(cid:415)on and interna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on, and taking South Asia as the case under study, this disserta(cid:415)on reveals what is happening to kinship in a world undergoing rapid social and material transforma(cid:415)ons. Overview of the dissertation This dissertation is divided into seven chapters. These include an introduction followed by a chapter on research methodology, fieldwork experience, and my positionality vis a vis the research and the field. The main body of the dissertation consists of four data chapters that are organized thematically to portray the varied phenomena that I study to answer the theoretical interests and research questions of this dissertation. These chapters are succeeded by a conclusion which elaborates on this dissertation’s contributions to literature. In the introduction I have outlined the theoretical questions this dissertation seeks to address and have laid out the conceptual landscape through which it addresses these questions. The theoretical concerns of this dissertation revolve around the changing parameters of personhood in a globalizing world and how that is interconnected with changes in the way people construct their belonging in/to places. It tries to understand the role of affect in animating these new aspirations and motivations for achieving personhood, and in the shifting ways people make meaning of places, and construct their belonging to them, in a globalizing world. By choosing transnational migration from South Asia, particularly Pakistan, as the context through which to examine these theoretical questions, this dissertation illustrates the transformations in kinship as it becomes transnationalized. In the second chapter on positionality and methodology, I outline my personal background, and experience as a transnational migrant, 23 in forming the impetus for this research and inspiring my trajectory towards the pursuit of graduate studies in Anthropology. In this chapter, I also outline my research questions, methods of data collection and analysis, and provide a sketch of my fieldsite(s) and fieldwork experience. Chapter three on going abroad and the quest for personhood looks at the aspirations and motivations of young college educated people in Lahore for pursuing higher education outside of Pakistan. By paying attention to their narratives, this chapter demonstrates their understandings of what constitutes abroad in juxtaposition with their experience of life in Pakistan. It sheds light on how young college educated urbanites engage in a complicated cost-benefit calculus when deciding upon destinations for higher education, and how this calculus is shaped by the exigencies of the global neoliberal economy and the situatedness of my respondents in the social and cultural context of Pakistan. The chapter reveals the hierarchies that structure the global neoliberal order and shape the contours of global personhood, and how higher education abroad is an avenue for young people in Pakistan to access the social, cultural, and economic capital that legitimates their belonging (symbolic capital) in a global economy and society. In this chapter, I also elaborate on conversations with young professionals from the new middle class in Lahore about their aspirations and motivations for going abroad. I show how a global Pakistani Muslim identity sanctions their aspiration to go abroad for earning money, pointing to class differences in the experience of global mobility. In addition to illustrating the segmentation of global mobility by class locations, this chapter demonstrates that class differences notwithstanding, the aspiration for global personhood for people in urban Pakistan is a means to achieve local personhood. Moreover, the experience of global mobility is not only affected by class but also by gender. 24 Chapter four on Pakistan as the place of kinship illustrates the scattering of the joint and nuclear family in urban Pakistan as family members living in the same house migrate abroad for education or work. It elucidates how the migration of relatives abroad significantly alters the everyday life and experience of space and place for those left behind. Despite the breakdown of the physically integrated or spatially contiguous family, people still considered Pakistan as the place which had their kin and which enabled the doing of kinship. This chapter illustrates how respondents explained this in terms of Pakistan being one’s own country (‘apna mulq’) and the place of one’s own people (‘apnay log’), but on elaborating on what this meant they pointed to the more immediate, day to day relational socialities with family, friends, and neighbors. The data in this chapter shows that even as the family was undergoing transformation, and the material basis for its continuity in place was changing, people still held on to the idea of Pakistan as the place which not only had their kin but also enabled the doing of kinship. Hence, this chapter looks at the imbrication of the discursive regime of kinship that operates at the level of national identification with the much more open-ended working of kinship in the everyday lives of people in Pakistan. Interviews with diasporic return migrants illuminate the significance of building a house of one’s own as a material foundation for practicing kinship in Pakistan to constitute their experience of it as the space and place of kinship. The chapter also sheds light on the discursive regimes of the imperial global neoliberal order which construct kinship to be at odds with global mobility and progress, consequently relegating the place of Pakistan and all who identify with it to a low ranking in the global neoliberal order of places. Overall, this chapter underscores the flexibility of kinship but also its simultaneous vulnerability to being mobilized in the interests of power at multiple levels, in varied ways, for upholding the dominant social order. 25 Chapter five on maintaining kinship via digital communication turns to the significance of digital technologies and digital communication in transnational social relations with relatives abroad. It describes the evolution of digital communication technologies in Pakistan and their capacity to enable cheap, frequent, readily available connection with kin abroad as a relatively recent development. The narratives and experiences of people in this chapter elucidate the ways in which they harness the affordances of digital communication technologies to experience the reintegration of the global family in virtual space. However, the reintegration of the global family in virtual space is dependent upon a host of factors such as digital literacy, attitude towards digital technology, international and national rules and policies, age, gender, and life stage to name just a few. Furthermore, this chapter shows that digital connectivity does not necessarily translate into deep emotional connections. It sheds light on digital practices, such as the sharing of digital artifacts, to establish bonds of affection among kin. In doing so, this chapter illustrates how the use of digital technologies to maintain connectivity with relatives abroad is shaped by cultural understandings of kinship, resulting in newer ways of doing kinship in the digital age. Chapter six on maintaining kinship via consumption and material exchange turns to the importance of these practices in transnational social relations with relatives abroad. With the integration of the local economy into a global capitalist economy, this chapter illustrates the commodification of culture, and emergence of an imperial understanding of culture and cultural identity that is enacted via consumption. It points to the ways in which ideas about culture interlace with ideas about place in the global neoliberal order, and how these ideas and perceptions are shaped by the global circulation of commodities. By investigating material exchange among people in Pakistan and their relatives abroad, this chapter elucidates how 26 exchange practices with kin abroad are intimately tied to the politics of class. The sending of family members abroad and/or maintaining ties with diasporic relatives possesses the potential to enable access to material goods and class mobility and/or maintenance of class location in the global economy. Being able to access material goods from abroad serves to buttress the prestige of not only the giver, in this case relatives abroad, but also serves to increase the prestige of the receiver, in this case people and families in Pakistan. However, the development of a commodity market in Pakistan and its increasing segmentation by class points to the emergence of a third currency alongside prestige and consumer choice in practices of consumption and material exchange. This third currency is the affection associated with kin ties. In this chapter, I show how affect emerges as the new currency that eases the flow of material goods among kin while simultaneously enabling them to hold on to their dignity and sense of Pakistan as the place of kinship in a global neoliberal world. 27 CHAPTER 2: POSITIONALITY AND METHODOLOGY Preamble The impetus for embarking on this project is intertwined with my first encounter of America, and my journey of pursuing a doctorate degree in Anthropology from a university in the United States. Although I was born in the state of Delaware in the United States while my father was comple(cid:415)ng his master’s in food science via a USAID scholarship, my first conscious experience of living in America did not occur (cid:415)ll 2012. Encouraged by our rela(cid:415)ves in the United States to avail my status as a US ci(cid:415)zen, we decided to explore moving to the United States. This fearless decision was in line with our past experiences of circular migra(cid:415)on to different countries and ci(cid:415)es, wherever my father’s work would take us. As a food technologist he had worked his way up to the posi(cid:415)on of General Manager by working for different mul(cid:415)na(cid:415)onal companies, as well as reputed local food companies, both in Pakistan and abroad. For the family this had meant living in places as divergent as different ci(cid:415)es in Pakistan, Colombo the capital city of Sri Lanka, and a small city in Abu Dhabi called Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). My educa(cid:415)on in all these different places had occurred in private schools such as the Beaconhouse School System (BSS) in Pakistan, and the Colombo Interna(cid:415)onal School (CIS) in Sri Lanka. At the (cid:415)me we decided to move to the United States in 2012, I was in my sophomore year at one of Pakistan’s pres(cid:415)gious private universi(cid:415)es, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), halfway through my undergraduate in a program that offered a joint degree in Anthropology and Sociology. I decided to freeze a semester here during our exploratory trip to the United States. There was a crucial difference between previous migra(cid:415)ons and the one we undertook to the United States in 2012. The former always occurred within the context of my 28 father’s employment, while the la(cid:425)er was undertaken with the goal of migra(cid:415)on itself with the hope of finding work and con(cid:415)nuing educa(cid:415)on once we were in the United States. Another crucial difference between these migra(cid:415)ons was the presence of kin in the United States as opposed to no kin members living in Sri Lanka and the UAE at the (cid:415)me we moved there. Although we had begun to form a closer rela(cid:415)onship with our rela(cid:415)ves from America in more recent years due to their return visits to Pakistan, it was not un(cid:415)l we stayed with them in Michigan for an extended (cid:415)me that our families became closer. Even though my parents had lived in America before, when my father was comple(cid:415)ng his Master’s degree in the early 1990s, coming to the United States this (cid:415)me without any employment or educa(cid:415)onal anchor meant that our rela(cid:415)ves were our window into the American life. Having lived in the United States for almost thirty years, our rela(cid:415)ves had spent a life(cid:415)me building and cemen(cid:415)ng their life in America, and despite their best inten(cid:415)ons and support we could not be protected from the harsh reali(cid:415)es of everyday life in the United States. Already having lived a privileged transna(cid:415)onal life in the region of South Asia and the Middle East, we were not prepared for the financial, social, and cultural impoverishment that immigrants had to face to gain entry into society in the United States. Our funds from Pakistan started drying up, we found the cost of educa(cid:415)on insurmountably high, my parents faced the stresses of naviga(cid:415)ng the immigra(cid:415)on process and the US job market at the same (cid:415)me, all while we tried to find our place within the culturally similar, yet different, limited social circle we had access to via our extended kin. A(cid:332)er spending about eight months in the United States, we decided to return to Pakistan. This ini(cid:415)al encounter with America and my rela(cid:415)ves in the United States had le(cid:332) in me deep consterna(cid:415)on. Our departure from the United States had felt incomplete and without 29 closure as to why our moving there had not worked out. This was contrary to the vague image of America that resided in the depths of my mind, an image that surfaced to consciousness when I came to the United States for the first (cid:415)me. While parts of America lived up to its image in my mind (I remember being enthralled by the concrete jungle in New York), the everyday life of my diasporic rela(cid:415)ves centered around work, and the insularity of their social life with its explicit emphasis on the maintenance of cultural and religious iden(cid:415)ty, was a far cry from the idea of life in America I had imagined. The unse(cid:425)lement experienced by my family’s visit to the United States had an indelible effect on my life trajectory as it s(cid:415)rred me towards specific ques(cid:415)ons that I sought the answer to in my desire for a(cid:425)aining higher educa(cid:415)on abroad a(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)ng from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). My desire to seek higher educa(cid:415)on abroad was not just influenced by my transna(cid:415)onal experiences but was also part and parcel of following societal ideals and undergoing a rite of passage a(cid:332)er undergraduate studies in Pakistan. Funding considera(cid:415)ons, the presence of rela(cid:415)ves in the United States, my legal status as a US ci(cid:415)zen, and the pres(cid:415)ge accorded to the United States as a place made America the obvious first choice for me to pursue graduate school. Since star(cid:415)ng my PhD program in Anthropology at Michigan State University (MSU) in 2016, I have been moving back and forth between the United States and Pakistan and engaging in par(cid:415)cipant observa(cid:415)on of transna(cid:415)onal rela(cid:415)ons from the vantage point of my own experiences and the experiences of others. Moving within the Pakistani diasporic community in Michigan, I came across a constant preoccupa(cid:415)on with Pakistan as a country, and the way things were done there, as an ac(cid:415)ve topic of discussion. O(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes, the overt denuncia(cid:415)ons of Pakistan that I witnessed in these conversa(cid:415)ons, and that I was hailed to par(cid:415)cipate in, felt to 30 be at odds with my sen(cid:415)ments and experience of Pakistan as place. The affec(cid:415)ve vigor with which these discussions and pronouncements were charged seemed akin to a personal affront as if the very place I was from, and my iden(cid:415)ty as Pakistani, were under assault. At the other end of the transna(cid:415)onal dyad, whenever I returned to Pakistan, I felt exhilarated at the idea of mee(cid:415)ng family and friends but found the pace of life there slow and s(cid:415)fling. Many of my undergraduate friends had moved abroad, or back to the ci(cid:415)es they were originally from, and while I s(cid:415)ll had my maternal rela(cid:415)ves in Lahore, I met with them only occasionally whenever they could take (cid:415)me out of their busy social calendar and work lives. Hence, on my return, my experience of Pakistan as place was also changing, and was o(cid:332)en more subdued than I had imagined it to be. To add to the dissonance of my experience of Pakistan as place was the emo(cid:415)onal labor that was required to keep up digital communica(cid:415)on and manage material exchange with people at both ends. On my trips back to Pakistan during the summer, I was faced with requests to please leave space in my suitcase for gi(cid:332)s that my diasporic rela(cid:415)ves wished to send to rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan. O(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes, extended rela(cid:415)ves also handed me small amounts of cash as remi(cid:425)ances that needed to be delivered to family members in need. From the other end, rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan expected me to come bearing gi(cid:332)s on my return visits, regardless of my status as a graduate student with li(cid:425)le money to spare. Aside from gi(cid:332)s, requests were also put forth for more expensive items they were willing to pay for themselves such as coveted electronic gadgets. On returning from Pakistan to the US, the inverse situa(cid:415)on prevailed. Rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan requested me to take gi(cid:332)s for diasporic rela(cid:415)ves on their behalf and diasporic rela(cid:415)ves in turn requested for tradi(cid:415)onal clothes, food items, and other such cultural 31 commodi(cid:415)es. As I became more embedded within these transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons and undertook frequent travel between the United States and Pakistan, I also took graduate courses on migra(cid:415)on, transna(cid:415)onalism, and diasporic communi(cid:415)es to help me think through my experiences through an academic lens. As part of my area specializa(cid:415)on, I built my founda(cid:415)on in the anthropology of South Asia, to build more context for the research project I had started to envision. Ini(cid:415)ally conceived as transna(cid:415)onal in scope, from the perspec(cid:415)ve of the figure of the migrant, my disserta(cid:415)on research was aimed at trying to understand how transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons among people in urban Pakistan and their diasporic counterparts in the United States were reconfiguring local understandings of place and personhood. I also wished to understand the role of material exchange and digital communica(cid:415)on in these transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons. The covid 19 pandemic was in its second year when it was (cid:415)me for me to begin my fieldwork. I was in Pakistan at the (cid:415)me and did not know when I would be able to return to the United States due to lockdowns in the country and the interna(cid:415)onal travel ban. Facing issues of mobility, access, and funding, I decided to recalibrate my research in line with the circumstances I was naviga(cid:415)ng at that (cid:415)me. Previously, I had conducted a few preliminary interviews in Lahore in 2018 and had realized the prevalence of transna(cid:415)onal families that had family members dispersed in different countries. Hence, the reality on the ground was not as neat as I had thought it to be with social rela(cid:415)ons encompassed within a transna(cid:415)onal dyad. Rather it was more accurate to think of the transna(cid:415)onal family in terms of a home base from which there was a dispersal of family members to different parts of the world. Moreover, I found myself intrigued by the many other 32 ways in which globaliza(cid:415)on manifested in Lahore, whether it was the inflow of affordable commodi(cid:415)es from China, the spread and affordability of digital technologies, or the obsession with the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture that I witnessed during my (cid:415)me there. How could I make sense of what was happening here and capture the richness of the mul(cid:415)faceted context within which my research ques(cid:415)ons were embedded. In redrawing the boundaries of my research, I decided to limit my field site to Lahore, and to inves(cid:415)gate how people in urban Pakistan were thinking about global migra(cid:415)on and how it was affec(cid:415)ng them. Although during the covid 19 pandemic Michigan State University (MSU) had put s(cid:415)pula(cid:415)ons in place to curtail interna(cid:415)onal travel and research, with departmental support I was able to obtain permission to begin fieldwork in Pakistan in August 2021. The fact that I was already situated in the city of Lahore and did not have to travel to my field site helped my case. I also had to fill out lengthy paperwork where I provided detailed informa(cid:415)on about the precau(cid:415)ons I would take during fieldwork to minimize the risk of exposure to the virus for myself as well as my research par(cid:415)cipants. I was required to provide a statement in wri(cid:415)ng to assume all responsibility (read liability) for conduc(cid:415)ng fieldwork in Pakistan during the pandemic. With the help of funds awarded by the department, opportuni(cid:415)es provided by the department of anthropology and the department of religious studies to be a graduate assistant remotely, and the financial (and emo(cid:415)onal) support of my parents, I was able to embark on fieldwork and complete it in June 2022. Research Ques(cid:415)ons As I tried to excavate how people in urban Pakistan were understanding global migra(cid:415)on and how it was affec(cid:415)ng them, my fieldwork revolved around trying to answer the following 33 research ques(cid:415)on: 1. How is the global mobility of people in urban Pakistan, in physical as well as virtual terms, changing their sense of place and personhood? To anchor my larger research ques(cid:415)on, I chose to focus on how people in Lahore found meaning in going abroad or staying in Pakistan, and how they made sense of their transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons with rela(cid:415)ves abroad. To inves(cid:415)gate this, I asked the following ques(cid:415)ons: (a) What are the aspira(cid:415)ons and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons of/for people in urban Pakistan that shape their desire to go abroad or stay in Pakistan? How does the migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad affect my respondents in Lahore? How are transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons affec(cid:415)ng their sense of Pakistan as place, and consequently, their personhood? (b) What type of material exchange occurs with rela(cid:415)ves abroad? What does this material exchange with rela(cid:415)ves abroad mean for my respondents in Lahore? (c) How do my respondents in Lahore maintain contact with their rela(cid:415)ves abroad via digital communica(cid:415)on technologies? What type of digital communica(cid:415)on takes place with rela(cid:415)ves abroad and what does it mean for my respondents in Lahore? Field site(s) While the history of the discipline of Anthropology has been closely (cid:415)ed to the colonial encounter and its preoccupa(cid:415)on with knowing the other and binding the other so as to make them knowable, contemporary anthropology has tried to redefine itself by bringing forth new concepts and methods with which to study the contemporary human condi(cid:415)on (Asad 1995; Marcus 1995; Silverstein 2005). Anthropologists who study globaliza(cid:415)on and transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on have pointed to the need to ques(cid:415)on the assump(cid:415)ons and biases upon which our 34 worldview of na(cid:415)on-states is built to make sense of the contemporary condi(cid:415)ons and forces of globaliza(cid:415)on that are shaping how we live in the world today (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc 1994; Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Malkki 1997). Taking inspira(cid:415)on from the new anthropology, although I conducted fieldwork in the city of Lahore, the specific parameters of my field sites were defined by my own social loca(cid:415)on, as well as that of my respondents and the networks within which we were situated. Working through these networks meant that I conducted interviews and par(cid:415)cipant observa(cid:415)on in several sites in Lahore. I would o(cid:332)en be invited by elder women to their houses to conduct my interviews, while my interviews with younger respondents o(cid:332)en took place in public restaurants or cafes in different parts of the city, or at university campuses. At (cid:415)mes I would meet respondents at their work offices. I was also successful in employing social media, Facebook in par(cid:415)cular, to recruit par(cid:415)cipants by crea(cid:415)ng a page for my research and adver(cid:415)sing a call for research par(cid:415)cipants through that page. My interviews with these par(cid:415)cipants were all carried out over the phone, and I did not get the chance to meet them in person. Hence, while I conducted my fieldwork in Lahore, and my observa(cid:415)ons of the local context were significant in helping me make sense of the social loca(cid:415)on of my respondents and the context within which they were embedded, the focus of my study was on their transna(cid:415)onal networks. In other words, even though my ethnographic study was done in the city of Lahore in Pakistan, my field site and its boundaries were defined by the transna(cid:415)onal networks within which my family and I, as well as my respondents, were embedded. Thus, this is not so much a study of the city of Lahore as a study of the transna(cid:415)onal networks of people living in the city of Lahore. While my research aims to understand how people make sense of place today, it gets at their 35 understanding of their physical loca(cid:415)on by privileging their social loca(cid:415)on, and not the other way around. Nevertheless, there were certain sites in Lahore from where I drew many of my respondents. These included the Canal View Housing Society, the Informa(cid:415)on Technology University (ITU), and Facebook. 36 Figure 1. Arfa So(cid:332)ware Technology Park that houses ITU, US Lincoln Corner, tech start-ups, and HEC office is an important symbol of globaliza(cid:415)on in Lahore 37 Data Collec(cid:415)on Before star(cid:415)ng data collec(cid:415)on, I bought a second mobile sim to have a second number that I could use exclusively for research purposes. A second mobile number not only enabled me to organize my communica(cid:415)on with respondents, but it also helped to establish a boundary between my personal life and my life as a researcher in Lahore. I began data collec(cid:415)on by leveraging my own, and my family’s, transna(cid:415)onal and local networks in Lahore to recruit respondents for my research. Therea(cid:332)er, to move beyond the networks of which my family and I were already a part, I made use of social media, Facebook in par(cid:415)cular, for recrui(cid:415)ng research respondents. To establish newer networks in the city, I realized that I needed to be part of a se(cid:427)ng which would align with the goals of my research project and enable me to meet new people. Thankfully, I came across a call for hiring visi(cid:415)ng faculty in a semi-public university in Lahore. The university was a great fit for the type of project I was pursuing as it represented the amalgama(cid:415)on of globaliza(cid:415)on and higher educa(cid:415)on in Lahore and proved to be a great gateway to establishing newer connec(cid:415)ons in the city. I u(cid:415)lized a mix of snowball sampling and direct recruitment to field research par(cid:415)cipants. To ensure selec(cid:415)on of appropriate par(cid:415)cipants, I established a recruitment criteria for respondents to be a resident of Lahore, to either have travelled abroad themselves or have rela(cid:415)ves abroad, and to be in frequent contact with rela(cid:415)ves abroad whether in person or virtually. I used a Sony recording device to record many of my interviews un(cid:415)l I became aware of the conspicuousness of the device and switched to recording interviews on my mobile phone which proved to be less intrusive for respondents. I recorded par(cid:415)cipant observa(cid:415)ons in my field diary at the end of the day or week. When it became too exhaus(cid:415)ng to write down detailed field notes, I preserved insights from par(cid:415)cipant 38 observa(cid:415)ons via voice notes recorded on the Sony recorder device. I would only make field notes when I was by myself so that my note taking did not disrupt the interview or make my par(cid:415)cipants feel hesitant to share their stories with me. Overall, for this disserta(cid:415)on I was able to conduct 45 interviews. These included 16 women and 7 men in the 50-70 age range, and 12 women and 10 men in the 20-40 age range. I began with recrui(cid:415)ng respondents from my own, my parents’, and my sister’s networks in Lahore. My sister’s network and my own included young university educated people from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and Forman Chris(cid:415)an University (FCU), within the 20-30 age range, who resided in Lahore and had transna(cid:415)onal linkages with rela(cid:415)ves abroad. My network also included people I had met at Michigan State University (MSU) who were now residing in Lahore, or moved frequently between Pakistan and the US. My parents connected me with their acquaintances in the residen(cid:415)al area where we lived as well as with people who were from among their professional acquaintances. This included people within the 40-70 age range who lived in a residen(cid:415)al area owned by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), and people who had ac(cid:415)ve or former associa(cid:415)ons with mul(cid:415)na(cid:415)onal companies (e.g. Unilever) or private schools in Pakistan (e.g. Beaconhouse School System or The City School). While my parents circulated my call for research par(cid:415)cipants on their WhatsApp groups based on professional associa(cid:415)ons, recrui(cid:415)ng research par(cid:415)cipants from my parent’s network was only successful when my parents did the footwork of evalua(cid:415)ng who was a good fit for my research, and who they could call to ask if they were willing to be interviewed. Likewise, par(cid:415)cipants from within my sister’s network could only be recruited because I had a rela(cid:415)onal link with them, being the sister of their friend, illustra(cid:415)ng the significance of rela(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons in 39 how society operated in Pakistan. In the words of a respondent, if you needed to get anything done in Pakistan, it did not depend on “…what you know but who you know.” One of my mother’s contacts from her WhatsApp group of women who had worked for Beaconhouse, Afreen Aunty, became one of my main informants for my research. She was an ac(cid:415)ve 70 year old woman who, like my mother, had three daughters and had worked for Beaconhouse. All her daughters were now married and lived abroad. The fact that her second daughter and her husband were both published authors and in social science related disciplines, with her son in law being a graduate from LUMS like me, might have also contributed to Afreen aunty’s sense of familiarity and comfort in being my informant. Afreen aunty lived with her husband, a re(cid:415)red Army officer, in their house in Canal View, a residen(cid:415)al area home to established, upper/upper middle-class families in Lahore. Whether she felt deeply about the type of research I was doing, or whether it was in her personality as a caring, helpful person who gladly took on the responsibility of helping people and bringing them together, or both, Afreen aunty became my gatekeeper to respondents in the residen(cid:415)al area of Canal View. In my efforts to branch out of my exis(cid:415)ng networks and establish new ones, I tried to reach out to a wider audience via social media. My experimenta(cid:415)on with circula(cid:415)ng a call for research par(cid:415)cipants on WhatsApp groups had not been as successful as I had hoped. Maybe it was the influx of long forwards on WhatsApp groups, the way my message was cra(cid:332)ed, or the effort required to contact me separately on a different number that made people disregard my message or be unresponsive to it. It could also have been the idea of WhatsApp as a more private, in(cid:415)mate forum of communica(cid:415)on that prevented my call for research par(cid:415)cipants from yielding respondents on its own. WhatsApp was only successful in elici(cid:415)ng responses when 40 paired with a rela(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)on. Nevertheless, I was not ready yet to give up on exploring the poten(cid:415)al of social media for my research and turned next to Facebook. I knew that most universi(cid:415)es had student groups on Facebook. Using the call for research par(cid:415)cipants that I had dra(cid:332)ed for circula(cid:415)on among WhatsApp groups, I posted on the university wide student Facebook group of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). I also tried to gain access to wider audiences from other Facebook university groups. Speaking to a good friend from LUMS about my research, I found out that her cousin was an alumni of the Informa(cid:415)on Technology University (ITU) located in the Arfa Technology So(cid:332)ware Park. She connected me with her cousin who kindly agreed to post my call for research par(cid:415)cipants on the ITU student Facebook group of which he was a part. Looking over my call for research par(cid:415)cipants, he suggested that I shorten my academic descrip(cid:415)ons of my research project, and instead formulate the post as a brief, exci(cid:415)ng invita(cid:415)on for people to tell their stories about going abroad and about their rela(cid:415)onships with rela(cid:415)ves abroad. Considering that my long post on the LUMS Discussion Forum had not yielded any leads, I agreed to take his advice and dra(cid:332)ed a post that would act as a hook for recrui(cid:415)ng research par(cid:415)cipants. He warned me that people rarely responded to such posts on Facebook but we decided to s(cid:415)ll give it a try. I managed to get three leads through my post on ITU’s Facebook group for students, and one of the respondents eventually became my main informant at ITU. It was (cid:415)mely that I came across an ad on Facebook for hiring a visi(cid:415)ng faculty member at ITU for teaching a course on an introduc(cid:415)on to Global Studies. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to gain access to the Arfa Technology So(cid:332)ware Park which could poten(cid:415)ally become one of my major field sites in Lahore. The fact that this was a semi-public university 41 would help me get connected to a student demographic that was different from the type of university students I had access to in my networks through private ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons such as LUMS and FCU. To make sure that my research as an anthropologist did not jeopardize my responsibili(cid:415)es as an instructor at ITU, I only interviewed those people in ITU with whom I had no conflict of interest. In employing Facebook for recrui(cid:415)ng research par(cid:415)cipants, I had to navigate the structural limita(cid:415)ons of the pla(cid:414)orm. I enlisted the help of a content creator, who was also a recent acquaintance, to get an understanding of the poten(cid:415)al of Facebook for accessing research par(cid:415)cipants. To create a public page on Facebook as an individual academic researcher, I only had access to a generic template designed for either a business, content creator, or an organiza(cid:415)on. As I was neither a content creator, nor a business, I felt that the best way I could stay true to my situa(cid:415)on was by modeling the page a(cid:332)er that of an organiza(cid:415)on. I (cid:415)tled the page ‘Migra(cid:415)on and its Effects: Project Pakistan’ and accompanied it with a brief descrip(cid:415)on which made the page look like it belonged to a research collec(cid:415)ve or organiza(cid:415)on such as an NGO or think tank. To publicize the page, I created the call for research par(cid:415)cipants as an adver(cid:415)sement for my research project and varied the terms and condi(cid:415)ons for its audience as people aged between 18-65+ years, 18-40 years, and located in Lahore+25 miles. I set up the ad so that when people clicked on it, it would automa(cid:415)cally reroute them to my WhatsApp business chat where they could correspond with me directly (see Figures. 2, 3, 4, and 5 below). To channel responses from my page on Facebook to WhatsApp, I downloaded a WhatsApp Business applica(cid:415)on. The WhatsApp Business applica(cid:415)on enabled me to organize and separate Facebook responses from the communica(cid:415)on I was undertaking on the regular 42 WhatsApp account (associated with the same mobile number) with respondents who had been recruited via other means. Crea(cid:415)ng a WhatsApp Business account with a profile picture and name associated with the Facebook page to which it was linked allowed me to maintain a degree of privacy with respect to my individual iden(cid:415)ty. Even though the mobile number associated with the WhatsApp Business account was visible and could give away my iden(cid:415)ty if someone had the resources to trace the number’s associa(cid:415)on with my na(cid:415)onal iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on number, the WhatsApp Business account afforded me a certain level of anonymity. As a researcher, and as someone who iden(cid:415)fied as a female, I felt more comfortable and confident in corresponding with people as a number associated with an image and name that did not give any clues with respect to my individual iden(cid:415)ty. To afford a similar level of privacy to the other person, once someone sent me a message, I would ask them a few screening ques(cid:415)ons to determine their eligibility for par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in my research before moving on to introduc(cid:415)ons and details about the research project (see Figure.6 below). Some(cid:415)mes I was able to explain my posi(cid:415)on as a PhD student and the specifics of my research via message on WhatsApp Business, while at other (cid:415)mes I would have to have a phone conversa(cid:415)on to clarify who I was and what I was doing. Only a(cid:332)er clarifying my role, my research, and what an interview would entail, would I ask respondents for their consent to be interviewed. Interviews with respondents fielded via the Facebook page were conducted over WhatsApp, and in cases where there were Wi-Fi signal issues, over the mobile phone. Although recrui(cid:415)ng via Facebook allowed me to reach out to a large audience and recruit many people in a short amount of (cid:415)me, the lack of in-depth context with these respondents meant that I conducted the phone interview as a semi-structured informal 43 interview. These interviews ranged from anywhere between 20-40 minutes and involved asking specific ques(cid:415)ons but allowing respondents to digress as they saw fit. I conducted three rounds of boos(cid:415)ng my call for research par(cid:415)cipants on Facebook via the page I had created. A lot of these responses were filtered out due to their non-eligibility for my research. S(cid:415)ll others proved to be difficult to get in touch with. I would spend a few hours every day sending calls to the numbers that were shortlisted for par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on and would consider it a successful day if I was able to get hold of even one person. Furthermore, I recruited via the Facebook page in the last 3 months of my fieldwork which meant that I was le(cid:332) with very li(cid:425)le (cid:415)me to develop my rela(cid:415)onship with these respondents. Surprisingly, majority of the responses I received were from men, illustra(cid:415)ng the digital divide in the gendered use of digital technologies in Pakistan. Many respondents seemed to assume I was a man un(cid:415)l I revealed my iden(cid:415)ty as a female researcher. Thus, through the Facebook page, I was able to gain access to a middle-class male demographic for my research which would otherwise have been difficult to access given my social loca(cid:415)on as a highly educated, upper middle-class female in Pakistan. 44 Figure 2. Genera(cid:415)ng ads for the call for research par(cid:415)cipants to be circulated on Facebook via the crea(cid:415)on of a Facebook page (cid:415)tled 'Migra(cid:415)on and its Effects: Project Pakistan' 45 Figure 3. Details of target audience and payment for running the ads on Facebook for 4 days 46 Figure 4. Sta(cid:415)s(cid:415)cs for the first trial ad run on Facebook 47 Figure 5. Comments on Facebook showing public responses to an ad designed as an image of the globe asking 'Are you from Pakistan?' 48 Figure 6. Conversa(cid:415)on on WhatsApp Business with a poten(cid:415)al research par(cid:415)cipant in a mix of English and Roman Urdu 49 Data Analysis I transcribed, and simultaneously translated, the recorded interviews in word documents. Transla(cid:415)ng parts of interviews that were conducted in Urdu into English involved paying careful a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the preserva(cid:415)on of the meaning of respondents’ words. This meant choosing appropriate words and forgoing the structural integrity of the sentence in English to preserve its meaning in colloquial Urdu, and to reproduce the conversa(cid:415)onal style of these interviews. Words and sentences in Urdu that were difficult to translate, were transcribed in roman Urdu to not lose sight of the meaning and context conveyed by respondents. To recreate the conversa(cid:415)onal context in the interviews, I have sprinkled contextual clues in brackets throughout the transcrip(cid:415)on, such as per(cid:415)nent details about the se(cid:427)ng, the body gestures or laughter of respondents. In trying to stay true to the conversa(cid:415)onal style, I have also tried to capture the emphasis put on certain words by playing around with their spelling or styling (e.g. by interjec(cid:415)ng periods or by capitaliza(cid:415)on). Where I bring in another part of the interview, I separate the text by period marks. A(cid:332)er transcribing, I uploaded the interview documents into the qualita(cid:415)ve analysis so(cid:332)ware, MaxQDA. I created codes by going through the text of each interview and coding for themes related to content. These codes included more expansive codes like ‘reason for migra(cid:415)ng’ or ‘communica(cid:415)on with diaspora’. Whenever I came across similar themes in the content, I would code them with the same codes. Within the more generic codes, I also created sub-codes which fit in with the theme of the main code. Hence, for instance, a sub-code for the code ‘reason for migra(cid:415)ng’ could be ‘marriage’, ‘higher educa(cid:415)on’, or ‘business failure’. Similarly, for the code ‘communica(cid:415)on with diaspora’, some of the sub-codes were ‘sharing 50 memes’, ‘technology dependent’, or ‘lack of in(cid:415)mate connec(cid:415)on’. Crea(cid:415)ng codes and sub-codes enabled me to break down the textual data from my interviews into iden(cid:415)fiable, discreet units that made it easier to visualize and compare the themes that emerged within, and across, interviews. I conducted a lateral analysis of the content of my data considering these themes, i.e. I looked at what different respondents in my study were saying with regards to the main codes to get an understanding of how my respondents were making meaning of phenomenon such as ‘reason for migra(cid:415)ng’. This helped me to become familiar with the specific concerns of my respondents and to map out the discursive context within which they were embedded. Therea(cid:332)er, I circled back to making sense of these sub-codes within the context of my respondents’ narra(cid:415)ves and social loca(cid:415)on. To contextualize the narra(cid:415)ve analysis of respondent interviews, I made use of par(cid:415)cipant observa(cid:415)ons recorded in field diaries or in voice notes on the recorder. For thin data, such as interview transcripts from semi-structured interviews conducted over the phone for which I did not have par(cid:415)cipant observa(cid:415)ons to supplement and contextualize interview data, I drew contextual details from the interviews themselves. While the coding process itself is systema(cid:415)c and methodical, it must be expressed that the process of making sense of data involves a lot more than coding. The process of finding the connec(cid:415)ons between units of data is a lot more intui(cid:415)ve and involves a con(cid:415)nuous effort of playing around with the data un(cid:415)l it finds its place and emerges as a substan(cid:415)ve research finding. It is akin to star(cid:415)ng with a fragmented picture that does not make sense, by coding you break the picture into puzzle pieces, and then you rearrange the pieces to form a new, ideally 51 more legible, picture. What helps you rearrange the pieces to create something new is all the knowledge you have been exposed to, and ways of thinking you have been inculcated into. An integral part of the process of making sense of data is the wri(cid:415)ng process. The new picture you are crea(cid:415)ng is essen(cid:415)ally being created in wri(cid:415)ng, a process that u(cid:415)lizes the tangibility and visuality of language to express the picture you have formed, and to share its expression with other people. Hence, anthropological research is as much a science as it is an art. Posi(cid:415)onality in the field Conduc(cid:415)ng research and fieldwork among communi(cid:415)es that you are a part of has its own advantages and disadvantages. Anthropologists have demonstrated over the years that it is more frui(cid:414)ul to think about one’s posi(cid:415)on as an anthropologist in terms of degrees of insider and outsider status rather than as a na(cid:415)ve anthropologist versus a foreign anthropologist. In Pakistan, the city of Lahore has been my family’s primary home in spite of our ancestral history of belonging to migrant communi(cid:415)es from India whose spoken language is Urdu and who predominantly se(cid:425)led in the city of Karachi in Pakistan a(cid:332)er the par(cid:415)(cid:415)on of the subcon(cid:415)nent. My parents had grown up in the heart of Punjab, in Lahore and neighboring Faisalabad, and so the (cid:415)es of our Urdu-speaking family to these ci(cid:415)es, which are home to large Punjabi popula(cid:415)ons, are at least two genera(cid:415)ons old. My maternal grandmother’s house is in Lahore and my parents built our family house in Lahore in 2011. Moreover, I started school in Lahore and completed crucial parts of my educa(cid:415)onal journey in the city, such as my Cambridge O’Level examina(cid:415)ons from Beaconhouse School System (BSS) and my undergraduate degree in Anthropology/Sociology from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Part of the genera(cid:415)on of children who grew up in Pakistan in the 1990s and early 2000s, 52 I was a witness to many of the early manifesta(cid:415)ons of globaliza(cid:415)on and emergence of urban city cultures in the country. This included the arrival and spread of American fast-food chains such as McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), and Pizza Hut, the arrival of communica(cid:415)on technologies such as the internet, landline, and mobile phone, the connec(cid:415)on to TV channels from around the world, the development of urban spaces for socializa(cid:415)on, ea(cid:415)ng out, and shopping, and the emergence of a thriving local pop music industry. I witnessed this from my social loca(cid:415)on of being part of an upper middle-class family which could afford to send me to private schools and a private university and also enable my par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in the global consumer cultures prevalent in Pakistan at that (cid:415)me. However, my family’s status of upper middle class was not an inherited status but was rather consolidated over (cid:415)me via educa(cid:415)on and work. The social mobility that my family experienced went hand in hand with the physical mobility we undertook to different ci(cid:415)es in Pakistan and to different countries. I spent an essen(cid:415)al part of my childhood years in Colombo in Sri Lanka, my adolescent years in Multan in Pakistan, and my A Level school years in Al Ain in the UAE. Consequently, while I spent significant periods of (cid:415)me in Pakistan, I experienced different life stages in different places, leading to a more fragmented experience of Pakistan as place than majority of my peers who had lived in the same city throughout their lives. The mobility I experienced not only contributed to my personhood, but also influenced my experience of Pakistan as place, majorly affec(cid:415)ng the contours of my insider and outsider status. By way of example, my frequent movement in and out of the city meant that my network of friends remained fragmented, compared to the age-old friendships and networks of people who had never le(cid:332) the city. Another example is the trouble I had with having to relearn Urdu upon my return from Sri 53 Lanka. To add to this repute of being in and out, I was now in Lahore from my vantage point as a PhD student from America. This implied being put on a pedestal in terms of being a highly educated person and as someone who lived in the United States of America. To be a PhD student from America in Pakistan is one thing, to be an anthropologist and qualita(cid:415)ve researcher in Pakistan quite another! The social sciences that have gained ground in Pakistan are those that (cid:415)e in well with na(cid:415)onal development goals such as economics and sociology. While anthropology did have its moment in Pakistan in the 1980s, leading to the establishment of an academic department solely dedicated to the discipline of Anthropology in the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) in Islamabad, the vibrancy of the discipline has only managed to survive today in a select few interdisciplinary departments. I became used to people asking me what I was doing my PhD in and finding their faces express confusion followed by inquiries about what the discipline studied. There was more than an instance when people explained anthropology to me as being the study of insects, confusing it with the discipline of entomology. I o(cid:332)en found myself referring to anthropology as the sister discipline of sociology to help people in Lahore understand the type of study that I was engaged in. I became used to expec(cid:415)ng the next ques(cid:415)on that people would ask once I had explained what anthropology was; what is its scope? In other words, how will this degree help you in the professional job market. Not only was it difficult to familiarize people with anthropology, I found that very few people were familiar with the way qualita(cid:415)ve research was done. When I explained that my research involved interviewing them and talking with them, people would become hesitant and scared as to what that would entail. Once, a respondent even asked me to email the interview 54 ques(cid:415)ons to them beforehand so that they could prepare their answers in advance. People would also ask me for the availability of tangible research tools, such as ques(cid:415)onnaires or surveys, and it took some (cid:415)me for me to explain that I did not have any. When I asked my respondents if they would consent to an interview, they o(cid:332)en become suspicious and wary. Asking to talk about their lives and their rela(cid:415)onships felt like an invasion of privacy to some people. I remember I was cut short while explaining to a poten(cid:415)al respondent what I would like to interview them about by their response that this was highly inappropriate and that I should avoid calling them (see Figure.7). I appreciated the honesty of this poten(cid:415)al respondent, for o(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes I found people unwilling to say no directly and conveying their anxie(cid:415)es and fears about being interviewed in indirect ways. For instance, when I asked a rela(cid:415)ve to connect me with a friend of theirs for a possible interview, they jokingly said, “what are you going to ask them anyway, don’t go ge(cid:427)ng them thrown out of the US now”. Conversely, some(cid:415)mes people felt fla(cid:425)ered and proud to have been asked for an interview, making me feel like I was contribu(cid:415)ng to infla(cid:415)ng their sense of self-importance and expecta(cid:415)ons of what this interview would, or could, do for them. It almost felt like I was perceived as someone from the media coming to hear their story and relay it to the world. I experienced the misunderstanding of my role as an anthropologist and academic researcher in mul(cid:415)ple contexts in the field. The Facebook page I had created for recrui(cid:415)ng research par(cid:415)cipants was a customiza(cid:415)on of the generic template for crea(cid:415)ng a page on Facebook which was based on the assump(cid:415)on of the page belonging to a business or organiza(cid:415)on. O(cid:332)en, people did not give me a chance to clarify my research and my role, and tried to evaluate if this would be worth their (cid:415)me by asking me ques(cid:415)ons like ‘do you offer any 55 compensa(cid:415)on?’, and requests for help with the emigra(cid:415)on process itself. Even when I clarified to poten(cid:415)al respondents that I was a PhD researcher gathering data for my disserta(cid:415)on, people s(cid:415)ll had trouble comprehending who I was and what I wished to do, the dissonance being caused by the format of the Facebook page and the impression it gave of an organiza(cid:415)onal en(cid:415)ty, such as an NGO or an immigra(cid:415)on agency, behind it. One of the respondents who agreed to par(cid:415)cipate belonged to a local journalist collec(cid:415)ve and he urged me to join this collec(cid:415)ve and to work with them on raising the issue of the plight of labor migrants. When I clarified that I was a PhD student from America, he stressed that I use my pla(cid:414)orm to raise awareness about the dangers of unskilled people migra(cid:415)ng to the Middle East and ge(cid:427)ng stuck there in exploita(cid:415)ve and fraudulent employment arrangements. 56 Figure 7. Conversa(cid:415)on on WhatsApp Business in English and failure to recruit a research par(cid:415)cipant 57 Furthermore, not always was I hailed as an ally or someone in a posi(cid:415)on to help but rather was seen as poten(cid:415)al compe(cid:415)(cid:415)on. During fieldwork I tried to get in touch with the owners of a store that exclusively sold imported groceries in Lahore. The store was famously known for being the place to get grocery items from a global supply chain, items that were in demand globally such as matcha powder, lotus Biscoff paste, and high-quality imported chocolates. I got the number of the store’s administra(cid:415)ve office from the person at the counter and coordinated with the store’s HR manager for an appointment day and (cid:415)me. The office was located on the top floor of a commercial building in the area of Defence and seemed like an office designed on an ad hoc basis, very different from the upscale corporate style office I had imagined. The HR manager was a brusque woman, sharply dressed, her founda(cid:415)on covered face swea(cid:415)ng in the heat of Lahore. She seemed to be the only woman in the office, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of men hurriedly entering and leaving a recep(cid:415)on like area to drop off supplies. The woman ques(cid:415)oned me, with a brashness almost bordering on hos(cid:415)lity, about my purpose for coming there. I tried to explain to her that I was a researcher from a university in America and wished to talk with the owner about his inspira(cid:415)on for his store and business model. The HR manager refused to listen to me and kept on insinua(cid:415)ng that for all she knew I was working for someone else who was trying to steal their business model. Exasperated, I tried to reassure her that I had no such inten(cid:415)ons, and if she wanted, I could ask for an official le(cid:425)er from my university or professor to vouch for my status as an academic researcher. She refused to budge and kept on insis(cid:415)ng that I was there with other designs. Meanwhile, a member of the family that owned the business arrived and sat in upon our mee(cid:415)ng. I waited for him to speak so that I could address him directly and assure him of my role as a researcher and the purpose 58 of my visit. He just sat there, le(cid:427)ng his manager do all the talking, the manager ac(cid:415)ng like a figura(cid:415)ve wall blocking my access to the owner even though he was si(cid:427)ng in front of me in plain sight. This felt strangely similar to the frustra(cid:415)on you would o(cid:332)en face in government offices where no ma(cid:425)er how much you tried to reason with the official, they stuck to their narra(cid:415)ve and refused to yield to your pleas. Infuriated, I decided to leave. Even when people understood my research and role, they s(cid:415)ll had ques(cid:415)ons which were difficult to answer. During a telephonic interview when I started wrapping up the conversa(cid:415)on by asking if my respondent had any ques(cid:415)ons, the respondent stated that he did have a ques(cid:415)on for me. He asked me what I was planning to do with my research. I was caught off guard with this ques(cid:415)on, and as I fumbled through vague statements of advocacy and policy making at governmental and interna(cid:415)onal levels to fill the silence, the respondent’s lack of affirma(cid:415)on made me feel the emp(cid:415)ness of my words, and the difficulty of transla(cid:415)ng the worth of qualita(cid:415)ve academic research to the everyday lives of people. My status as a US ci(cid:415)zen also proved to be a tricky situa(cid:415)on to handle during fieldwork and beyond. Studying the experiences of young college educated people from Pakistan like myself, and their ambi(cid:415)ons to go abroad and the obstacles they faced in a global poli(cid:415)cal economy, my respondents thought I was one of them. While I certainly had many commonali(cid:415)es with them, my legal status as a US ci(cid:415)zen marked a major difference in my experience compared to theirs. On some level, I was also aware of this, and just like I felt uncomfortable in declaring myself as a doctoral student, I also felt awkward in revealing that I had ci(cid:415)zenship of the United States of America. I would try to let that detail about myself slide unless it organically emerged in conversa(cid:415)on with my respondents. Whenever it did, I would 59 feel terribly embarrassed at the revela(cid:415)on and at the reac(cid:415)on I received from respondents. Upon finding out, some respondents who had been talking to me animatedly suddenly became quieter and it felt like they were dismayed at finding out that I was not in the same situa(cid:415)on as them. Some(cid:415)mes respondents expressed surprise and amusement at finding out. During an interview when a respondent found out, he blew through his fist in a gesture that expressed a feeling of shock on the revela(cid:415)on. In colloquial Urdu he made a statement that can be roughly translated as “So you are someone who is coming from above (to app uper se aa rahi hein)”. This phrase is o(cid:332)en used to refer to someone who has li(cid:425)le insight into themselves and their ac(cid:415)ons, who enjoy playing the vic(cid:415)m and pu(cid:427)ng the blame on other people to draw a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on away from their own contribu(cid:415)on to the situa(cid:415)on. For my respondents, my privilege as a US ci(cid:415)zen in the global poli(cid:415)cal economy gave me li(cid:425)le right to complain about the difficul(cid:415)es of naviga(cid:415)ng a global economy, and shaky grounds for empathizing in their experiences as ci(cid:415)zens of Pakistan whose opportuni(cid:415)es abroad were severely limited and highly regulated. Conclusion By providing an exposi(cid:415)on of the inspira(cid:415)ons and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons for this research, and a detailed overview of the research process, I hope to have communicated the factors that shaped this research and consequently its limita(cid:415)ons. My social loca(cid:415)on as an upper middle class female from Pakistan who was also a ci(cid:415)zen of the United States, role as an academic researcher in Anthropology, individual experiences of transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on, and individual traits and skills such as the extent of familiarity with social media, all shaped the project in decisive ways, as did circumstan(cid:415)al events such as being hired at ITU and conduc(cid:415)ng fieldwork during the covid-19 pandemic. In the chapters that follow, I turn to the main subject ma(cid:425)er of my research. 60 CHAPTER 3: GOING ABROAD AND THE QUEST FOR PERSONHOOD Introduc(cid:415)on This chapter illustrates how going abroad is imagined by my research par(cid:415)cipants as an avenue for achieving mobility within Pakistan and the global neoliberal economy. It excavates the aspira(cid:415)ons and mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons of young college educated people in Lahore for going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on and their preference for studying in the United States. Moreover, this chapter also u(cid:415)lizes interviews with people from the new middle class in Lahore, as well as recent internal migrants to the city, to try and understand how interna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on from Pakistan is understood and given meaning by people from different demographics. In trying to demonstrate how people in urban Pakistan make sense of going abroad, this chapter draws a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the classed and gendered differences in experiences of mobility in a globalizing world. Going abroad for more than just higher educa(cid:415)on and the United States as the ideal des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on When I spoke with young college educated respondents about higher educa(cid:415)on abroad, I found that they did not limit themselves to a specific country. They compared their op(cid:415)ons to pursue higher educa(cid:415)on in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Australia, and at (cid:415)mes even non-western countries such as China, Thailand, and Japan. A look at the website of the Government of Pakistan’s Higher Educa(cid:415)on Commission (HEC) shows a list of countries where scholarship opportuni(cid:415)es are available for interna(cid:415)onal students from Pakistan. However, out of the 14 countries where HEC offered scholarships, whether through partnerships with governments or specific universi(cid:415)es, 10 of those op(cid:415)ons 61 pertained to western countries. Only 2 of my college educated respondents men(cid:415)oned the presence of opportuni(cid:415)es for higher educa(cid:415)on in countries such as China, Thailand, and Turkey, and even they did not consider these opportuni(cid:415)es worth pursuing. In deciding upon the future course of their lives with respect to higher educa(cid:415)on, young college educated people in Lahore engaged in a careful cost-benefit analysis, weighing the pros and cons of different op(cid:415)ons available to them. This cost-benefit analysis was a complicated calculus that involved trying to predict which opportunity would afford the best possible configura(cid:415)on of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital that would yield the most profit for naviga(cid:415)ng a global neoliberal economy. These considera(cid:415)ons included things like financial cost of tui(cid:415)on, lodging, and mobility, the family’s financial resources, familial rela(cid:415)onal considera(cid:415)ons and context, the desire to study in a par(cid:415)cular country, visa regula(cid:415)ons and restric(cid:415)ons, the presence of suppor(cid:415)ve kin in that country, the ranking of the ins(cid:415)tute and program, among others. This illustrates the evalua(cid:415)on of a configura(cid:415)on of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital that was associated with each opportunity. However, even though my respondents weighed different factors in their decision to pursue higher educa(cid:415)on abroad, there was a general understanding that going abroad to a western country yielded the greatest profit for enabling them to navigate a global neoliberal economy. O(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes, they would jus(cid:415)fy their desire to go abroad to a western country for higher educa(cid:415)on by poin(cid:415)ng to the discrimina(cid:415)on in Pakistan’s professional job market where only those applicants with a degree from educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tutes abroad, or from elite universi(cid:415)es in Pakistan, were shortlisted as possible candidates and employed at higher salaries. Acquiring a degree from a western country did not just improve your professional prospects and 62 socio-cultural capital in Pakistan, but also granted you entry into more global social networks, opening further opportuni(cid:415)es for employment, be(cid:425)er wages, and travel at a global scale. Vanessa Fong in her ethnographic study of Chinese interna(cid:415)onal students points to their understanding of abroad as primarily referring to developed countries such as the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, and other western European countries. The developed world was imagined as a single community that shared a single culture, system, and ci(cid:415)zenship status thereby enabling the ease of mobility of people, money, jobs, goods, and media between developed countries, especially among the elites of these countries. Fong underscores that the ease with which interna(cid:415)onal Chinese students elided the differences between developed western countries was not just due to inadequate knowledge but also due to the very real similari(cid:415)es in their cultures, laws, and orienta(cid:415)on and policies towards interna(cid:415)onal migrants like themselves (Fong 2011). Scholarship on interna(cid:415)onal student mobility (ISM) and/or interna(cid:415)onal higher educa(cid:415)on (IHE) has looked at the imagina(cid:415)ve geographies of interna(cid:415)onal students and the mul(cid:415)ple sources from which they are constructed (Beech 2014; Bal 2014; Lee 2020; Phan 2018; Waters and Brooks 2022). In interviews with interna(cid:415)onal students at three universi(cid:415)es in the UK, Beech illustrates how students’ percep(cid:415)ons of the UK as a place were constructed over a long period of (cid:415)me by sources as varied as television adver(cid:415)sements of higher educa(cid:415)on in the UK, dissemina(cid:415)on of informa(cid:415)on via experiences of prior interna(cid:415)onal students in the UK, and the historical social and cultural imaginaries formed as a result of former colonial (cid:415)es with the UK. Beech’s study shows that ideas about place are central to student decision making, thereby revealing that choosing a university for study abroad is about much more than the pursuit for higher educa(cid:415)on (Beech 63 2014). I connected with Saim, a graduate of Informa(cid:415)on Technology University (ITU) in Lahore, via my call for research par(cid:415)cipants on the university’s student forum on facebook. He shared that growing up he had been obsessed with going abroad to study in the United States. He had even go(cid:425)en the opportunity to visit the United States as part of a program through his Church in Pakistan and had formed a goal to return there for higher educa(cid:415)on. He had applied for the Fulbright scholarship but had unfortunately been rejected. Therea(cid:332)er, he had pivoted to looking for scholarship opportuni(cid:415)es in Germany where he had come across complica(cid:415)ons regarding his bank statement and show of funds. He had then applied to the Hungarian scholarship but since they had only 100 seats worldwide, he was unable to get that as well. When I asked him whether he would consider looking towards Asia, this is how the exchange unfolded; ST: “I don’t know, so now for instance, a lot of people go to China, they go like on the side of Asia as well, Thailand….not interested in all these?” [SM clicks tongue to signal not at all] ST: “Why?” SM: “I mean if you have to stay within Asia, not only in Asia, but also like in Pakistan, if you have to live outside of Lahore, faaarrr from family meaning faarrrr from parents, that’s not worth it. I believe that isn’t worth it (clicks tongue).” ST: “And what makes it not worth it, and makes the other uhhh, you know, for example the places you applied to, worth it to pay..that..price?” [western music playing in the background] SM: “If I got the Fullbright or if…I got the Hungarian scholarship, then, I believe that a degree is not everything. I have a very flexible personality, because of that wherever I will stay, I will adopt that culture. So if I live in the US, I will adopt their culture. I believe that there the situa(cid:415)on about individual values, I am not talking about social values here, individual values that are more prevalent there, they provide an environment in which one is able to develop one’s personality in a good way.” Recent scholarship on interna(cid:415)onal student mobility has begun to address the significance of studying intra-regional student flows to understand how the global educa(cid:415)onal landscape might be changing (Phan 2018; Yang 2018). In his study of Indian students from Tamil 64 Nadu who go to China to pursue medical degrees, Yang points to the compromises and complici(cid:415)es engaged in by the students and their families in a context where educa(cid:415)on is the only avenue that provides hope for social mobility, however slim that hope may be. He argues for studying these cases of intra regional student mobility to shed light on how geographical loca(cid:415)on and social class operate to create new mobili(cid:415)es and their experiences in rela(cid:415)on to their emula(cid:415)on of more elite forms of educa(cid:415)onal mobili(cid:415)es and subjec(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es dominated by Anglophone countries (Yang 2018). In the different context of a prominent regional university located in Vietnam, Phan shows us that even universi(cid:415)es in Asia market themselves along terms set by the dominance of western universi(cid:415)es in the global neoliberal economy. Her study outlines the strategic posi(cid:415)oning of a university in Vietnam to market itself as a regional hub of high-quality English language educa(cid:415)on and curriculum styled on the model of a US educa(cid:415)on. Phan shows how the university does this by establishing educa(cid:415)onal alliances with neighboring Philippines, a former US colony, as a source of English language educa(cid:415)on exper(cid:415)se and recruitment ground for desirable English-speaking student demographics (Phan 2018). The scholarship on interna(cid:415)onal student mobili(cid:415)es, therefore, illustrates the construc(cid:415)on of ‘interna(cid:415)onal space’ in a global neoliberal order as delimited to developed western countries and its regula(cid:415)on by factors such as na(cid:415)onality and class (Waters and Brooks 2022). My respondent, Saim, was from a middle-class family in Lahore and even though his experience in trying to get into a university in the UK had not been successful thus far, he was s(cid:415)ll trying to go abroad to a university in a western country for higher educa(cid:415)on. His exposure to the US via previous travel through his Church had contributed to his desire to study in the west but he told me that his obsession to study abroad (synonymous with the west) had begun 65 from an early age ever since he had learnt how to use the internet and been exposed to informa(cid:415)on from around the world. I later realized that one of the reasons Saim had probably agreed to meet with me was because he knew I was studying at a university in the US. At the (cid:415)me we met, he had been unsuccessful in ge(cid:427)ng admission into a US university but had managed to apply for a short-term leadership exchange program which would enable him to spend 3 months working with different organiza(cid:415)ons in the US. Saim’s example sheds light on a hierarchy of places in the global neoliberal educa(cid:415)onal landscape, its regula(cid:415)on according to factors such as class, na(cid:415)onality, and religion and the mul(cid:415)ple sources that contribute to the imagina(cid:415)on of specific places and a(cid:425)achments to them. The predominance of the west as an object of aspira(cid:415)on and desire among young college educated people in Lahore should also be seen in the context of a history of western colonialism and imperialism in the region which was central to the shaping of social structures and projects of educa(cid:415)on, development, and modernity and the hierarchies upon which they operate (Khoja-Moolji 2018; Mitchell 1988). Alongside the implicit assump(cid:415)on that going abroad to western countries for higher educa(cid:415)on was the best op(cid:415)on, my respondents, through their narra(cid:415)ves, also demonstrated that the United States had the pride of place as the premier des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on for higher educa(cid:415)on. Although the UK offered global scholarship programs such as the Commonwealth and Chevening scholarships, these scholarships were highly compe(cid:415)(cid:415)ve, and difficult to navigate in terms of the expenses they covered. I o(cid:332)en heard of people ge(cid:427)ng admi(cid:425)ed into a UK university but not being able to go because (a) they were unable to secure funding, (b) they were unable to get a visa, and/or (c) they had go(cid:425)en a scholarship that did not cover board and lodging and they could not afford living expenses in the UK. In some cases, where people had 66 rela(cid:415)ves in the UK willing to support them, for example le(cid:427)ng them live with them so that they would not have to afford rent, or where students were able to secure part (cid:415)me assistantships to keep themselves afloat, students were able to make it to the UK. However, rela(cid:415)ves were not always suppor(cid:415)ve, provided you had some living in Europe in the first place, and in terms of the employment market, Europe was considered to be a smaller market than the United States. In addi(cid:415)on to the educa(cid:415)onal and living expenses in Europe, some countries in Europe also had the added obstacle of a language barrier. Given all these constraints to studying in Europe, the Fulbright Scholarship program for studying in the United States was considered the obvious best choice for pursuing higher educa(cid:415)on abroad. Fulbright program in Pakistan details and cita(cid:415)on. As a respondent expressed, she had six siblings, and her parents could not afford to fund her higher educa(cid:415)on in any way. Therefore, her only op(cid:415)on for studying abroad was the fully funded Fulbright program. The fact that there might be op(cid:415)ons for fully funded scholarships in other areas of the world did not even cross her mind. This illustrates that alongside the prac(cid:415)cal considera(cid:415)ons of going abroad to study, due to which the Fulbright program offered by the United States was considered the best op(cid:415)on, there were also other ideas that influenced the worldview of my respondents. I had met Noor in my first year as an undergraduate at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), one of Pakistan’s most pres(cid:415)gious universi(cid:415)es known famously as ‘the Harvard of Pakistan’. Having recently moved from the UAE to Pakistan, both of us formed an immediate bond over our common experiences of feeling slightly like a fish out of water. A(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)ng from LUMS, Noor had applied for the Fulbright scholarship to pursue a master's degree in the US. Since her return to Pakistan, she had been working with different non-governmental organiza(cid:415)ons and 67 her most recent employment was with the United Na(cid:415)ons Development Program (UNDP) in the capital city of Islamabad. While Noor was ini(cid:415)ally dismissive of the mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons that had shaped her decision to apply for the Fulbright as just something that she had done under peer pressure, her subsequent confessions revealed to me that she had put much thought into the decision. In addi(cid:415)on to the mul(cid:415)ple factors that shaped her decision, she added that one of the most obvious mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons for going abroad for educa(cid:415)on was to have the opportunity to live abroad and experience living in the United States. When I reminded her that she already had had the opportunity to live abroad with much of her life being spent in Dubai, she laughed and asked me with a smile if Dubai was “really abroad”. With such large diaspora communi(cid:415)es from South Asia in Dubai, it did not feel too far removed from her own cultural and religious background.   Noor’s sideways smile and ques(cid:415)on of whether we could really consider Dubai ‘abroad’ is further evidence of the tenacity of the hierarchy of places in the global neoliberal educa(cid:415)onal landscape with the United States and other western countries occupying the top. Vanessa Fong’s ethnographic study showed that Chinese interna(cid:415)onal students did not consider even countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, or Qatar as part of the developed world community because they lacked the pres(cid:415)ge, power, and geopoli(cid:415)cal alliances of the developed world even if they had per capita GDP levels similar to developed countries (Fong 2011). In the context of Pakistan, a Muslim majority country, even though countries like the UAE or Saudi Arabia occupied a significant place in the transna(cid:415)onal imaginary due to geographical proximity, associa(cid:415)on with Muslim iden(cid:415)ty, and as a hub for South Asian labour migra(cid:415)on, these countries were not considered as ideal des(cid:415)na(cid:415)ons for higher educa(cid:415)on. Even though countries in the Persian Gulf had invested in se(cid:427)ng up knowledge ci(cid:415)es and branches of American universi(cid:415)es 68 called satellite campuses, the educa(cid:415)on provided at these loca(cid:415)ons was considered sub standard in comparison to the educa(cid:415)on you received at universi(cid:415)es in the United States. I prompted Noor to further elaborate on what she meant by Fulbright offering her the opportunity to experience living abroad in America. She explained that more than anything else, it gave her a chance to live life on her own terms. A(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)ng from LUMS she had found a job in Dubai and returned to live with her family. Her job in a marke(cid:415)ng consultancy firm was not something she was passionate about, and she felt that it was far removed from the type of career she wished to establish for herself. Moreover, having lived away from family during her undergraduate studies at LUMS, she wished to have the freedom once more to live life according to her own rules and preferences. Therefore, even though she had access to a super glossy and fancy life in Dubai, something that people associated with the United States, she had s(cid:415)ll wanted to go to America as she thought that would afford her a very different experience.  This was strikingly similar to what I heard from another respondent when he described his mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)on to pursue a PhD from the United States. I had met La(cid:415)f, a Fulbright PhD student in Planning, Design, and Construc(cid:415)on at Michigan State University while I was pursuing my doctorate in Anthropology there. During my fieldwork in Lahore, I found that he was also residing in Lahore at the (cid:415)me to fulfill his 2-year home residency requirement for Fulbright.  La(cid:415)f confessed that even though his elder brother had go(cid:425)en his PhD from Japan, and he had the opportunity of a scholarship from the Asian Ins(cid:415)tute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand, which was a reputable ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on, he had desired to go to America for his PhD.  He reasoned that this was because he wished to get a more wholesome experience than just academic advancement. Even though he had precedents in his family of people going to places like Japan 69 and Spain for higher educa(cid:415)on, he desired to go to America. When I inquired as to why he wished to go to America in par(cid:415)cular, he replied; LK: “I wanted to go to America, I had other op(cid:415)ons and more scholarships, but America a(cid:425)racted me I don’t know why. Again, maybe because of Hollywood............... There were many implicit reasons or drivers you can say. For example, the faculty members in our university, who were American graduates, apparently looked be(cid:425)er, than others. They were be(cid:425)er teachers, they were be(cid:425)er researchers, they were more uhh presentable. Then America is always thought of as the leader in almost everything. Epi.tome of what you say research, specially in construc(cid:415)on they are leaders, so that’s another reason. But those are implicit drivers, the only real reason I can think of is that I was pulled towards the culture.” On inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)ng further what my respondents meant by the United States offering them a different experience, or an experience more than just higher educa(cid:415)on, they employed terms in English such as freedom and professionalism to explain what was dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)ve about the United States. My respondents used the term freedom to refer to various aspects of their lives. Some used the term to imply freedom from family, especially if they had grown up in large or overprotec(cid:415)ve families, while others used it to describe the freedom to move about globally, to pursue job opportuni(cid:415)es they liked, and to earn enough to have the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do. O(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes both ways of using the term freedom to reveal the context specific ways in which my respondents understood freedom. The use of the term freedom by my respondents also needs to be seen in connec(cid:415)on with their frequent use of the English word exposure. My respondents implied the word exposure to refer to how going abroad to a western country would enable them to have a different experience. In South Asia the English word exposure is o(cid:332)en associated with new experiences, whether it involves going to college or going abroad. Depending on the context, the word exposure is used in mul(cid:415)ple ways and implies encountering new ideas and witnessing other ways of living, while it simultaneously 70 refers to the vulnerability one experiences in feeling exposed without the protec(cid:415)on of one’s family or the familiarity of one’s surroundings. Experiences such as a(cid:425)ending university and going abroad were discussed in terms of exposure and were thought to mark rites of passage to their transforma(cid:415)on as a person. Going to western countries that were geographically and culturally distant from Pakistan, par(cid:415)cularly the United States, provided the ideal circumstances for gaining distance from family and to therefore experience life without any familial protec(cid:415)on and surveillance, and to gain a temporary distance from familial obliga(cid:415)ons. It was thought that living on one’s own abroad in a western country would force one to gain self-sufficiency, not just in financial terms, but also in terms of becoming a responsible adult. Being away from family gave one a chance to experience life on one’s own terms and enabled one to grow as an individual. In western countries you had to do everything yourself to func(cid:415)on as a responsible adult; you had to cook your own food, clean your own space, earn money to get by, etc. There was no house help to take over the daily labor of cooking and cleaning. If you happened to be someone who did not have family or close friends in these countries, you knew there were no parents to coddle you, no extended family members or friends to come forth in the hour of need. Having to fend for oneself not only helped one to a(cid:425)ain maturity but also enabled one to discern one’s own likes and dislikes, one’s way of doing things, and to think about one’s individual dreams and goals in life. The United States housing majority of the top universi(cid:415)es in the world, having an outstanding reputa(cid:415)on for being the world leader in higher educa(cid:415)on, and offering greater opportuni(cid:415)es for scholarships and funding, was thereby associated with conferring greater pres(cid:415)ge, financial leeway, and thereby social mobility than even other western countries. Its 71 reputa(cid:415)on for being the world leader in scien(cid:415)fic research and rigor, and technological innova(cid:415)ons, meant that gaining entry to the United States conferred greater pres(cid:415)ge compared to other western countries. However, it was not just exemplary higher educa(cid:415)on that the United States offered but also the possibility of transforming educa(cid:415)onal creden(cid:415)als into the status of a professional. While other western countries afforded that possibility too, the United States with its reputa(cid:415)on of a fast-paced, efficient, ruthless work culture, represented a paragon of professionalism. My respondents, those who had visited the United States and those who had not visited but were contempla(cid:415)ng going there, confessed that one of the things that impressed them about the United States was its standard of professionalism. Professionalism meant a ‘can do’ a(cid:427)tude that put work above everything else. It meant doing whatever it takes to get the work done, making ge(cid:427)ng the work done the priority, against all other obstacles such as office poli(cid:415)cs among colleagues and between subordinates and superiors, a lack of ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)onal resources, encroachment of family life on one’s work life, etc. It also implied meritocra(cid:415)c standards for performance evalua(cid:415)on and promo(cid:415)on in the workplace rather than personal connec(cid:415)ons etc. A(cid:425)aining the status of a professional seemed like the natural next step in the journey towards exposure that was ini(cid:415)ated for young urban Pakistanis in university/college. Even though my respondents had put much thought into planning for going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on, they found it difficult to pinpoint a specific reason which led them to apply. They men(cid:415)oned that it just seemed the natural next step in life as their peers around them were doing it too. Indeed, it was social media networks such as Facebook university forums and WhatsApp university alumni groups that facilitated the place of my respondents as part of 72 ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)onal networks whose members resided in Pakistan as well as abroad. Going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on to the United States gave them the opportunity to become financially independent, mobile, and self-sufficient, with the possibility of transforming their educa(cid:415)onal creden(cid:415)als into the status of a professional. Taking this as a for granted next step in life and dividing their life experiences into before exposure and a(cid:332)er clearly signifies how my respondents viewed going abroad as a rite of passage. Going abroad was understood as the gateway to specific experiences that would inculcate in them specific a(cid:425)ributes that would enable them to navigate the global economy, whether in Pakistan or abroad. As my respondents emphasized going to the United States was about much more than just academic advancement; it was about individual development and growth and becoming a professional. It was about accessing personhood in a global neoliberal economy i.e. financial independence, flexibility, ease of mobility, self-confidence, individual autonomy, and self-sufficiency; FA: “The reason why I do want to pursue a masters from abroad is 1. because I do want the exposure, my brother went there, a lot of my friends are in foreign universi(cid:415)es, and I have actually seen the difference in them. I won’t say thinking wise, because like I would say even my thinking is different from a normal Pakistani, an average Pakistani, because I am very privileged because of the sort of schooling that I had, the grooming that I had and the exposure that I had, but I don’t think that my thinking has changed too much due to that, but I think the sort of opportuni(cid:415)es that come your way and the type of earning that they are doing and I am doing, one conversion itself screws the comparison but even overall if I see,- ............... ............. Me, personally, I like my life here, I would just want to have the opportuni(cid:415)es and the privilege and the money to do whatever I want and to be able to travel and come back to Pakistan, because I think I am very happy here. So for my masters it’s just that I want to get the exposure and I actually want to come back and work in Pakistan. Maybe like if I get to work there and have the experience, sure why not, that would be a good opportunity.” Scholars wri(cid:415)ng on global neoliberal personhood have iden(cid:415)fied the subjec(cid:415)on of labour to capital in neoliberalism so that the classical liberal idea of the person as an individual 73 being a property owner and the owner of his own labour power is now extended to a concep(cid:415)on of the individual itself as human capital that needs to be developed, managed, and nurtured (Kingfisher 2002; Makovicky 2014; Brockling 2016; Chris(cid:415)aens 2021). Anthropologists, among other scholars, have pointed to the founda(cid:415)on of the concep(cid:415)on of neoliberal personhood as res(cid:415)ng on western ideas about the individual as a bounded, self-contained, autonomous, and atomis(cid:415)c element of society (Mauss 1985; Dumont 1970; Alvi 2001), thereby underscoring the emphasis of neoliberal personhood on flexibility, choice, and self-sufficiency (Freeman 2014; Fong 2011; Ong 1999). While we might be tempted to understand the aspira(cid:415)ons of young college educated people in Pakistan for the a(cid:425)ainment of a global neoliberal personhood in terms of blindly following the west or as a coloniza(cid:415)on of the mind, interviews with my respondents revealed a more nuanced picture. Not only did my interviewees navigate the demands of a global neoliberal economy in complex ways, but they did so from their situatedness within local and individual contexts and social rela(cid:415)onships. Anthropologist Vanessa Fong iden(cid:415)fied a similar pa(cid:425)ern among Chinese interna(cid:415)onal students and the complex ways they navigate the gain and loss of varied and mutually exclusive ‘freedoms’ in the developed world and China through transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on. Fong highlights the dissonance in the protected and privileged upbringing of the singleton genera(cid:415)on in China imbued with developed world aspira(cid:415)ons and the immense pressure they face as they are expected to go abroad to advance the family’s situa(cid:415)on, take on filial care taking obliga(cid:415)ons, and adhere to the norms and standards of Chinese rela(cid:415)onships simultaneously. Thus, the ‘freedom’ that they desired from the poli(cid:415)cs and s(cid:415)fling aspects of Chinese rela(cid:415)onships by going abroad was offset by the distance, lack of warmth, depth, and support of rela(cid:415)onships 74 abroad (Fong 2011). Like Fong’s interlocutors, young college educated people in Lahore desired to go abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on to gain freedom, not as an abstract philosophical western ideal of the inherent freedom of an individual, but in terms of a certain distance from family and a respite from familial surveillance, protec(cid:415)on, and obliga(cid:415)ons. Most respondents who expressed going abroad to gain freedom from family, however, talked about it as a temporary situa(cid:415)on. This further underlines the concept of going abroad as a rite of passage. Anthropologist Victor Turner’s founda(cid:415)onal study of the ritual processes of the Ndembu in Zambia outlined rites of passage of a society as being an(cid:415)the(cid:415)cal to norma(cid:415)ve societal structures. He showed how rites of passage involved the subject living through a liminal period that was marked with ambiguity and transforma(cid:415)on, with the subject emerging at the other end as having transi(cid:415)oned from one social status to another (Turner 1995). Thus, going abroad provided temporary freedom, i.e. space from the overbearing family and allowed the individual to take precedence and to learn the capabili(cid:415)es needed to func(cid:415)on as a responsible adult. These capabili(cid:415)es involved learning how to func(cid:415)on as a self-sufficient adult, the parameters of which were financial stability, emo(cid:415)onal resilience, professional status, the capacity to make your own decisions, and the capability to live on one’s own. While these capabili(cid:415)es of adulthood in a global neoliberal economy were sought a(cid:332)er, they were pursued for the end of being able to take on their role as full persons in the family. A respondent linked his mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons to go to America for higher educa(cid:415)on to his life story of growing up with very low self-esteem due to an overprotec(cid:415)ve environment at home. By way of explana(cid:415)on of how overprotec(cid:415)ve an environment he had grown up in at home, he 75 gave the example of his (cid:415)me in college when his classmates would go out to McDonalds together and he would not be allowed to accompany them. Not having much exposure therefore meant that he had very li(cid:425)le self-confidence and thought very low of himself, so much so that even though he desired to go to America for higher educa(cid:415)on, he thought he would never get a scholarship to go study there. A(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)ng from college, he explained to me that he felt like he was leading an aimless life like the young men in the Pakistani movie ‘Slackistan’. Directed by a Pakistani filmmaker in London, ‘Slackistan’ was released at a (cid:415)me when local cinema was being revived in Pakistan. Predominantly known for its popular television drama serials and pop music scene in the region, Pakistani filmmakers began releasing cinema(cid:415)c films to infuse new life into Lollywood as the Urdu and Punjabi language film industry in compe(cid:415)(cid:415)on with India’s global phenomenon of Bollywood. An Indie genre film, ‘Slackistan’ was a story about Islamabad’s privileged, westernized youth from elite families that were caught in between their ambi(cid:415)ons and desires for developed world lifestyles and careers, and their disconnect from societal issues in mainstream Pakistan. While the film was not popular among Pakistani audiences like other releases of the (cid:415)me, La(cid:415)f’s connec(cid:415)on to the film was indica(cid:415)ve of the experience that was characteris(cid:415)c of young college educated people in Pakistan whose global desires and ambi(cid:415)ons far exceeded what was available to them locally, not least in terms of systema(cid:415)c career counselling and guidance and the difficulty of finding fulfilling employment opportuni(cid:415)es in the country. In such a context, therefore, going abroad was necessary for a genera(cid:415)on whose access to the very precondi(cid:415)ons of adulthood, and by extension the a(cid:425)ainment of the status of a full person in the family, was blocked in a global neoliberal order. 76 Gendered implica(cid:415)ons for transi(cid:415)on to local personhood in a global South Asia These parameters of global neoliberal personhood encounter the cultural marker of personhood in South Asia: marriage. Culturally, in South Asia, heteronorma(cid:415)ve marriage forms the basic founda(cid:415)on of a kinship system that is a blueprint for the biological, social, cultural, and material reproduc(cid:415)on of society. While historically in the Indian subcon(cid:415)nent, indigenous ideas about sex and gender were much more fluid and accorded space to third gender people, such as hijras, by ascribing them social roles and incorpora(cid:415)ng them into ritual processes, the inroads made by colonial modernity and the codifica(cid:415)on of religious tradi(cid:415)ons in the region, such as Hinduism and Islam, at the level of the na(cid:415)on-state resulted in their marginaliza(cid:415)on and abuse in society (Nanda 1999). The sex and gender binary is of great significance to norma(cid:415)ve prescrip(cid:415)ons in both Islam and the kinship system and is the basis for pa(cid:425)erns of sociality oriented towards gender segrega(cid:415)on and homosociality that are intertwined with religious and cultural values such as modesty, sex a(cid:332)er marriage, the prac(cid:415)ce of arranged marriages, etc. Heteronorma(cid:415)ve marriage, therefore, is not just about gender rela(cid:415)ons but is the basic founda(cid:415)on for the social and religio-cultural reproduc(cid:415)on of society, albeit in gendered ways. Heteronorma(cid:415)ve marriage in South Asia is therefore a rite of passage for achieving full personhood for both men and women. Once married, young men are allowed to take decisions as they are now considered the patriarch of their new family. Domes(cid:415)c responsibili(cid:415)es and the management of kinship rela(cid:415)ons are gradually passed down to young married women so that they begin gaining control over integral social structures. However, the ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of marriage in South Asia consists of certain precondi(cid:415)ons that need to be met before young people can be considered eligible for marriage. Men should be able to demonstrate that they can provide for 77 the young woman they are going to marry, and the young woman that she has the capability to undertake domes(cid:415)c du(cid:415)es and the nurturing of familial/kinship rela(cid:415)ons. Given that the path to achieving global neoliberal personhood was li(cid:425)ered with obstacles and could o(cid:332)en become long drawn out, college educated women in Lahore who were contempla(cid:415)ng on going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on, expressed considerable consterna(cid:415)on when trying to chart out their future. A(cid:332)er comple(cid:415)ng her Masters in Development Studies from Informa(cid:415)on Technology University, Seher recalled how she felt that for the next major step in life, she could either gain further higher educa(cid:415)on by pursuing a PhD or she could get married and se(cid:425)le down. She recalled how she felt stuck between these two op(cid:415)ons. Seher’s dilemma is emblema(cid:415)c of the consterna(cid:415)on of many young college educated women I spoke with during my research. Educa(cid:415)on as an ideal in South Asia and as a gateway to achieving global personhood in the contemporary neoliberal economy, seemed to be in fric(cid:415)on, par(cid:415)cularly for women, with the a(cid:425)ainment of the founda(cid:415)onal cultural marker of personhood in South Asia, i.e. marriage. It was her sister who helped her think through her approach to this dilemma by advising her to work with what she had available to her right now. Applying for graduate school was within her reach and so she should con(cid:415)nue to work on that while her parents could con(cid:415)nue to work on finding a good match for her. The concern regarding higher educa(cid:415)on and marriage was echoed by another young woman respondent in Lahore in her mid-twen(cid:415)es. Faiza, majoring in economics from Forman Chris(cid:415)an College (FCC), was a good friend of my younger sister from her days in school and college. I had met Faiza at various (cid:415)mes, but the mee(cid:415)ng had always been flee(cid:415)ng or under different contexts such as her visit to our house to meet my sister, or her a(cid:425)endance at the 78 wedding of our elder sister. A(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)ng from FCC, Faiza was now working at a human rights start up organiza(cid:415)on that was run by a team of young professional lawyers. This (cid:415)me, with the understanding of mee(cid:415)ng for an interview for my research, Faiza and I decided to meet at Johar Town, a popular commercial area known for its markets and restaurants catering to residents of Lahore at this end of the city. I was surprised to find that Second Cup, a Canadian restaurant and coffee shop chain, had now opened a branch at Johar Town, a commercial area known to be frequented by people from the middle class in Lahore compared to more elite areas like Gulberg or Defence. While talking with Faiza, I asked her to describe her experience of ge(cid:427)ng rejected by the Fulbright program. She revealed that the rejec(cid:415)on had not really bothered her that much as she felt that her current status as employed and work with a human rights startup was meaningful enough for her to feel like she was living a fulfilling life. She confessed, though, that if she got a rejec(cid:415)on from Fulbright a second (cid:415)me, she would be affected much more as many of her friends had now gone abroad and pursued higher studies and progressed in their professional careers. She illustrated the mismatch between her parent’s expecta(cid:415)ons for her to a(cid:425)ain a Master’s degree, even if from Pakistan, and ideally before marriage, and her own desire for pursuing a Master’s Degree from abroad even if she had to wait longer to pursue that path. If she got rejected by Fulbright a second (cid:415)me, she knew that the pressure to get married would mount. The educa(cid:415)on of women has always been a much-deliberated concern in South Asia and can be traced to the colonial era and the (cid:415)ghtening of Bri(cid:415)sh rule over the subcon(cid:415)nent. Drawing upon a wide variety of archival sources from colonial India, Shenila Khooja-Moolji 79 illustrates the centrality of educa(cid:415)on to the Bri(cid:415)sh colonial project (Khoja-Moolji 2018). Educa(cid:415)on was instrumental to the forma(cid:415)on of a workforce for an expanding Bri(cid:415)sh bureaucracy, and the crea(cid:415)on of a na(cid:415)ve elite who would serve as the middlemen between the Bri(cid:415)sh rulers and the people they governed. This class of people were defined by Thomas Macauley, the Bri(cid:415)sh poli(cid:415)cian known for making the case for western educa(cid:415)on in the subcon(cid:415)nent, as “...a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” (Khoja-Moolji 2018) With the replacement of Persian and Urdu with English as the administra(cid:415)ve language, and the marginaliza(cid:415)on of the ruling Muslim nobility in the public sphere, the home and family became a site for the reconfigura(cid:415)on of Muslim iden(cid:415)ty and the norms of respectability that characterized ‘ashraf’ (Arabic word translated as most honorable one, noble one, or dis(cid:415)nguished one) Muslims. Furthermore, the focus of the Bri(cid:415)sh on saving Muslim women from their own backward tradi(cid:415)ons and culture, as an integral ra(cid:415)onaliza(cid:415)on for the colonial mission, defined the parameters of the discourse with which Muslim social reformers, both men and women, then engaged and nego(cid:415)ated in their efforts to redefine their place in the new social order (Khoja-Moolji 2018). As Muslim men ventured forth to a(cid:425)ain western educa(cid:415)on and to par(cid:415)cipate in the new ruling structure of the Bri(cid:415)sh Raj, the onus of reproducing the community, biologically and culturally, fell on Muslim women. The educa(cid:415)on of Muslim women, therefore, became an important social project within Muslim communi(cid:415)es which deliberated on what Muslim women were to be educated about, how was this educa(cid:415)on to be imparted, where was this educa(cid:415)on to take place, and to what ends was this educa(cid:415)on to be directed (Khoja-Moolji 2018). While varied posi(cid:415)ons were taken by different social reformers, some advoca(cid:415)ng for western 80 educa(cid:415)on while others calling for women to be educated in the religious sciences, and s(cid:415)ll others requiring only basic literacy and domes(cid:415)c skills, there was an overarching sen(cid:415)ment that the goal of educa(cid:415)on for Muslim women was to be able to put that educa(cid:415)on towards the service of the family and community. A(cid:332)er the par(cid:415)(cid:415)on of the subcon(cid:415)nent into modern na(cid:415)on-states, the educa(cid:415)on of women became (cid:415)ed to the agenda of reproducing (biologically and culturally) the na(cid:415)onal community and the crea(cid:415)on of a workforce for the expansion and development of the na(cid:415)onal economy. The crea(cid:415)on of a workforce for na(cid:415)onal development in the race to gain interna(cid:415)onal prominence meant the explosion of educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tutes across South Asia/Pakistan oriented towards the forma(cid:415)on of a unified popula(cid:415)on educated in basic literacy, western sciences, the basic tenets of Islam, sta(cid:415)st narra(cid:415)ves of the country’s history, and the official languages of Pakistan; Urdu and English. In crea(cid:415)ng the discursive condi(cid:415)ons for the Muslim worker as ci(cid:415)zen-subject, Shenila Khan Moolji draws a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the differen(cid:415)ated terms in which this subject posi(cid:415)on was ar(cid:415)culated by the Pakistani state for middle class women. The explosion of educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tutes and the ini(cid:415)a(cid:415)on of women into the workforce was jus(cid:415)fied in the cultural and affec(cid:415)ve registers of a sta(cid:415)st discourse on kinship which circumscribed and regulated their entry into the public space, giving meaning to their work lives outside of the house only in terms of its use to the family or country (Khoja-Moolji 2018). This does not mean that young men were free from the impera(cid:415)ves of duty to family and country, but rather that the ways in which du(cid:415)es to the family and country came to be defined were in highly gendered ways, indica(cid:415)ng the differen(cid:415)al posi(cid:415)ons allo(cid:425)ed to women and men in the reproduc(cid:415)on of society and subsequently the differen(cid:415)al consequences faced 81 by them during (cid:415)mes of societal and cultural transforma(cid:415)ons. Going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on made the road to an arranged marriage also difficult for young men. Even if they happened to be on a fully funded program, the s(cid:415)pends provided for higher educa(cid:415)on were scarcely enough to sustain a family. In cases where there was an expecta(cid:415)on for men to support family members in Pakistan, it became all the more difficult for men to have sufficient income to support their family by marriage. Nevertheless, gaining higher educa(cid:415)on abroad bestowed them with a favourable es(cid:415)ma(cid:415)on different from that accorded to or expected from women, as it signalled future/deferred financial success. Going abroad to earn money; changing class configura(cid:415)ons in Lahore and varied orienta(cid:415)ons to global neoliberal personhood In addi(cid:415)on to in-depth interviews that I was able to conduct with college educated men and women within my personal and professional networks, I was also able to gain insights from a very different demographic via Facebook. Through the Facebook page adver(cid:415)sing a call for par(cid:415)cipants for my research, I was able to get connected with people who hailed from various parts of Pakistan but were now living, studying, and/or working in Lahore. Moreover, my interac(cid:415)on with these par(cid:415)cipants was limited to a short semi-formal interview on the phone. I was surprised to find Junaid, belonging to the village of Ghotki in Sindh, studying so far from home at Leeds University in Lahore. When I inquired why he had not decided to study closer to home in the metropolitan city of Karachi, he replied that although he had been able to secure admission in a university there, Leeds University in Lahore was giving him a 50% scholarship which made it the obvious first choice. He confessed that although he had ini(cid:415)ally not been interested in studying, as he had wanted to play cricket and make his way into professional 82 sports, he wanted to honor his father’s wish that he pursue formal educa(cid:415)on. His father’s business selling wheat in Pakistan had suffered a huge loss due to which his father had gone abroad to work as a laborer in Saudi Arabia to earn money to support the family. Now, he too, wished to go abroad and hoped to bring educa(cid:415)on to his village in Sindh. I was surprised at how quickly his orienta(cid:415)on towards formal educa(cid:415)on had changed despite his earlier confession of being passionate about professional sports. He now considered formal educa(cid:415)on and the provision of health services as a founda(cid:415)on of everyday life, and explained to me how these were out of reach for the common man in Pakistan. To access these facili(cid:415)es in Pakistan, he reasoned, the common man had to go abroad to earn money. Bilal, a 23 year old economics student at Forman Chris(cid:415)an College (FCC), belonged to a landowning family from the village of Hafizabad. When I asked him why, despite possessing land, people in his family felt the need to go abroad to earn money, he elaborated on the various circumstances that had led his uncles abroad. One of his uncles belonged to a family of four brothers, and since 3 of them were taking care of the land, he felt that he was free to take up the opportunity to go abroad to earn some money. Another uncle, my respondent explained, had only limited acres of land from which to earn a living. Moreover, he had been unsuccessful in finding people to farm the land for him, leading him to give the land for rent and endeavor to try his luck abroad. Despite his family having land, and gaining a subsistence living from it, it was not sufficient to access the modern everyday needs of educa(cid:415)on and health. Like Junaid, Bilal reasoned that it was necessary for people to migrate from Pakistan to sustain their families back home and enable their access to good universi(cid:415)es and health services. Indeed, a respondent who was originally from Jhelum but was now studying in Lahore stated that in his 83 village there were three main pathways to earning a comfortable income: ge(cid:427)ng into the Army, securing a government sector job, or going abroad. ‘Aam aadmi’ (an Urdu term translated in English as the common man) is a popular trope in poli(cid:415)cal discourse in Pakistan that indexes the ordinary, honest, hardworking, pure ci(cid:415)zen who has no influen(cid:415)al connec(cid:415)ons to leverage benefits and protec(cid:415)on from people, groups, and ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)ons in power. The figure of the ‘aam aadmi’ is used as a foil against the corrupt poli(cid:415)cal government and elite, and works to unite the ci(cid:415)zenry into a collec(cid:415)ve body obscuring dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)ons of class, ethnicity, religion, caste, etc. (Glegziabher 2016). Hence, poli(cid:415)cal discourse in Pakistan revolves around addressing elite capture of the na(cid:415)on-state, cri(cid:415)quing dynas(cid:415)c poli(cid:415)cs and the amassment of wealth by a few prominent families. These families, in partnership with each other, maintain a strong hold on the government, industry, and even the military, thereby effec(cid:415)vely taking control as the ruling elite. Marxist models of class poli(cid:415)cs s(cid:415)ll reign supreme in poli(cid:415)cal and social discourse in Pakistan, whereby the common man has characteris(cid:415)cs of the proletariat class as a class of people devoid of access to the means of produc(cid:415)on and only having their labor power to sell. While poli(cid:415)cal discourse in Pakistan o(cid:332)en centers on the laborer and farmer as the common man, i.e. ‘aam aadmi’, of the country in need of state protec(cid:415)on, the term ‘aam aadmi’ in public discourse has increasingly come to encompass ci(cid:415)zens of Pakistan for whom it is a struggle to gain access to the central means of produc(cid:415)on, as well as safeguards, for workers in the global neoliberal economy i.e. educa(cid:415)on and health. Land not being sufficient as a means of produc(cid:415)on points to the diversifica(cid:415)on of the country’s economy where going abroad becomes necessary to earn the economic capital needed to access formal educa(cid:415)on in Pakistan. Admi(cid:425)ance into formal educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tutes 84 serves as a guarantee of becoming a skilled person, the degree received on gradua(cid:415)on as a legi(cid:415)ma(cid:415)on and proof of one’s skill, securing entry into the global neoliberal economy. Access to health services was also a significant concern as the skilled worker needed to be in good health to be a produc(cid:415)ve force in the global economy. Many people whom I was able to connect with through Facebook had experienced the effects of migra(cid:415)on via their father’s migra(cid:415)on to places like Oman and Saudi Arabia to find work as labourers or construc(cid:415)on workers. From this I surmise that many of my respondents belonged to families which made up a significant part of Pakistan’s transna(cid:415)onal working class. In addi(cid:415)on to respondents whose families lived in smaller towns and villages outside Lahore, and who had moved to the city in recent years to pursue educa(cid:415)on, my respondents from Facebook also included those who hailed from areas outside of Lahore but were nevertheless se(cid:425)led and working in the city for a long (cid:415)me. Respondents from this la(cid:425)er demographic were working professionals in Lahore and explicitly iden(cid:415)fied themselves as people belonging to the middle class. This fits with Ammara Maqsood’s study of the emergence of a new middle class in Lahore. Maqsood sees the new middle class as comprising families that belonged to other areas but had se(cid:425)led in Lahore only a genera(cid:415)on ago. With the retreat of the older established middle class, known as the upper or upper middle class in local parlance, into the priva(cid:415)zed sphere, the new middle class took up salaried posi(cid:415)ons in the government sector and found their way into jobs such as university professors, engineers, technicians, and smaller businesses. Maqsood elaborates on how this new middle class constructed a global Muslim personhood to bypass the influence and global linkages of the upper class to claim their belonging in Pakistan (Maqsood 2017). 85 Regardless of the specificity of their background as recent migrants to Lahore belonging to rural families, or as people who considered themselves as middle class, my respondents from Facebook spoke about their mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons for earning money abroad more generally in terms of suppor(cid:415)ng their families. My respondents from Facebook, being from very different socio- economic backgrounds compared to respondents I had fielded from my own limited in person network in Lahore, illustrated the differences in life experiences and concerns around going abroad for different classes. One did not go abroad to gain temporary distance from family for the sake of individual improvement, but rather went abroad to earn money to support family in Pakistan. Furthermore, going abroad was ar(cid:415)culated in terms of ‘majboori’ (an Urdu word translated into English as force of circumstances). Going abroad therefore was given meaning in terms of the failure of the state in Pakistan to provide a basic living to its ci(cid:415)zens and forcing them to seek their livelihoods elsewhere. Despite seeing going abroad in terms of the failure of the state, it was s(cid:415)ll seen as a temporary endeavor which would enable them to return with capital to put towards the service of family and na(cid:415)on. Hence, it was not just for suppor(cid:415)ng family that one went abroad in the imaginary of this group of respondents, but one went abroad also to earn money that one could then invest in business in Pakistan upon return. Whether in service of family or na(cid:415)on, these respondents jus(cid:415)fied going abroad in terms of a cause larger than themselves. Furthermore, as they recounted their thoughts about going abroad, they o(cid:332)en emphasized their iden(cid:415)ty as Muslims and employed religio-cultural ideas to sanc(cid:415)on their mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons for going abroad to non-Muslim western countries. Thus, among my Facebook respondents going abroad was not about reaching for a global neoliberal personhood. Rather it was about making it in the global neoliberal economy to access resources that would 86 enable them to achieve local personhood. Ammara Maqsood in her study of the new middle class in Pakistan draws a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the emergence of a new demographic, which due to a limited disposable income, is able to gain a foothold in modern urban life in Pakistan. Through her ethnographic study of this demographic in Lahore, she outlines local class poli(cid:415)cs in urban Pakistan where this new middle class tries to construct belonging in a globalizing world in rela(cid:415)on to the established old middle class. With the shrinking space of the established old middle class in the country’s public sphere, the old middle class known as the upper middle class in local parlance, par(cid:415)cipated in a collec(cid:415)ve discourse of nostalgia about Pakistan’s golden past. This nostalgic version of the country’s past was a sani(cid:415)zed vision that was contrasted with the religious intolerance and extremism of the present, a decline they traced to the period of Islamiza(cid:415)on during the rule of the military general Zia-ul-Haq. To bypass this narra(cid:415)ve and to claim their growing space within urban life in Pakistan, the new middle class drew upon a global Muslim iden(cid:415)ty to display their connec(cid:415)ons to the outside world and to cra(cid:332) a compe(cid:415)ng moral claim to belonging within Pakistan. Although the new middle class centered religion in their iden(cid:415)ty, Maqsood urges us to understand the aspira(cid:415)on towards a global Muslim personhood within the context of local class poli(cid:415)cs and a history of colonial modernity. Hence, being a global Muslim, for the new middle class in Pakistan, was inflected with modernist ideals as they emphasized ra(cid:415)onalism, educa(cid:415)on, progressivism, and the search for an authen(cid:415)c/true Islam (Maqsood 2017). Ahsan, a man in his late twen(cid:415)es who had graduated with a degree in Pharmacy, informed me that he had several rela(cid:415)ves abroad in different countries such as the US, Canada, UK, and Norway. His cousins in Norway and the US were both pharmacists like him and had 87 gone abroad on the basis of their professional career, a route that allowed for easier access to going abroad than the actual immigra(cid:415)on process. He illustrated knowledge about the process for pursuing a profession in pharmacy in different countries, comparing the language requirement in Norway to the lack thereof of one in Canada where you had to go through the tougher path of obtaining a relevant Masters degree before you could become a professional. I was amazed at his in-depth compara(cid:415)ve knowledge and assumed he had obtained this knowledge in the hopes of moving abroad himself. I inquired what going abroad meant for him, and he responded that it meant to go somewhere, like the US or UK, for some (cid:415)me, to earn some money. He went on to further qualify that from a religious and poli(cid:415)cal perspec(cid:415)ve, places like the US and UK were not safe for Muslims in future. Therefore, one could only conclude that we go abroad, earn money, and then return to Pakistan and put our por(cid:415)on towards serving the country. When I followed this up with why he was only considering going to western countries, there were Muslim countries he could look towards as well, he empha(cid:415)cally explained that he had first considered going to Turkey, but they had rejected his visa. He recalled the humilia(cid:415)on he had felt when Turkish state officials had stamped a rejec(cid:415)on on his green passport; AA: “I felt so much sorrow that see we love Turkey so much but today they refused me just because of a spelling mistake. I felt so angry at our foreign ministry that what type of policies they have made. There used to be a (cid:415)me when the Usmani sultanate ruled much of the world, no one dared refuse an Usmani entry into their country. So foreign policy should be such that even if you are taking a green passport to the US, no one dare even ques(cid:415)on you. So our foreign policy should be made by a think tank who work day and night to make Pakistan stable and to make it a big power.” My respondent’s narra(cid:415)ve unravels the mul(cid:415)ple discourses within which he finds meaning and lives out his life. His first preference of moving to a Muslim country was shaped by 88 his iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on as a Pakistani Muslim linked to a global community of Muslims. He imagined this global community in terms of a nostalgia for the (cid:415)me when Muslim empires ruled the world (even though he had never experienced it directly). As a Pakistani Muslim, his iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on with a global Muslim personhood had been shaken when his entry had been barred by a fellow Muslim country such as Turkey, leading him to a realiza(cid:415)on that being Muslim was not sufficient to access a global Muslim personhood. Being a Pakistani Muslim meant that you were s(cid:415)ll at a disadvantage in a globalizing world. He expressed his anger at the country’s foreign policy and its failure to enable Pakistan to garner a respectable reputa(cid:415)on on the global stage, contras(cid:415)ng this with the power of the Usmani Muslim sultanate and the ability of its residents to move without hindrance around the world. Even though his visa to Turkey had been refused, he spoke with a sense of the west vs. Muslims, sta(cid:415)ng that Pakistan’s foreign policy should be such that even if you took a green passport to the United States, no one dared ques(cid:415)on it. Now that his visa to Turkey had been refused, the next op(cid:415)on was to look for where his degree had the most scope. In South Asia, the English term scope is commonly used to infer the employment possibili(cid:415)es related to a specific degree/field of study. Canada was his choice of des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on now as the daily wage for pharmacists in Canada was more than what pharmacists were earning in other countries. When I followed this up with the morally laden ques(cid:415)on of whether people should go abroad, he replied that people were compelled to by force of circumstances. He used the Urdu term ‘majboori’ to indicate a lack of choice. Therefore, it was impera(cid:415)ve to go abroad to earn well and there were even Islamic injunc(cid:415)ons that deemed it jus(cid:415)fiable to travel the world to find one’s livelihood/sustenance. It was because this was a belief ingrained into Muslims that anyone who went abroad from Pakistan worked hard and as a 89 result earned good money. He gave the example of a cousin who wasted his (cid:415)me and his father’s money loitering around when he was in Pakistan but became very hard working abroad to the extent that he was now able to run the expenses of the household himself! Hence, going abroad was religiously sanc(cid:415)oned and it was due to this Islamic belief that people who went abroad did well. The Encyclopedia of Islam defines the literal meaning of the word ‘rizq’ in Arabic as “anything granted by someone to someone else as a benefit”, hence “bounty, sustenance, nourishment”(Bosworth and McAuliffe 2012). As a theological concept in Islam ‘rizq’ is understood as that which sustains life and health, in other words it is thought of as sustenance that is a provision from God. In the Quran, the work ‘rizq’ or God’s sustenance refers broadly to general good things or provisions or more specifically to things like fruit and livestock. It is significant that Ahsan used the concept of ‘rizq’ in rela(cid:415)on to migra(cid:415)on, a narra(cid:415)ve that seems at odds with the discourse of the global racial system/global neoliberal order. Junaid Rana in his book ‘Terrifying Muslims; Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora’ sheds light on a global racial system in which the trope of the Muslim is a racial trope that not only fixes the Muslim extremist in place but also subsumes the transna(cid:415)onal working-class laborer with the referent/signifier migrant. He states that migrant laborers are the foremost commodity traded in the global economy. Transna(cid:415)onal workers are part of an imperial global economy where their value depends on where they are from and who they are as a popula(cid:415)on (e.g. working class laborers or professional workers) (Rana 2011). Although we can see how the discursive condi(cid:415)ons of the global racial system reify and fix Ahsan’s iden(cid:415)ty as a Pakistani Muslim migrant, he employs a more capacious religious understanding to find meaning in the act of 90 going abroad. Conclusion This chapter illustrates how college educated women and men in Lahore see going abroad for educa(cid:415)on as enabling their ability to experience life in the west, ideas about which were shaped by their encounter with different actors and images that represented life in the west in Pakistan. They frame going abroad as the gateway to a(cid:425)aining the status of adulthood and the status of a professional by gaining temporary distance from familial protec(cid:415)on and obliga(cid:415)ons in Pakistan. For middle class respondents in Lahore, going abroad for financial earnings is jus(cid:415)fied via religious injunc(cid:415)ons and is seen as a means to an end, the end being to be(cid:425)er the lot of one’s family and country. However, despite these differences across socio-economic groups, both my middle class and upper middle class interviewees consistently discussed going abroad in terms of a temporary endeavor; they claim that returning to Pakistan is the desired end point for the sake of kin and one’s obliga(cid:415)ons towards kin. This ambivalence about se(cid:425)ling abroad demonstrates the dissonance people feel in their quest for global and local personhood across class-based groups in contemporary Pakistan. 91 CHAPTER 4: PAKISTAN AS THE PLACE OF KINSHIP Introduc(cid:415)on This chapter begins by looking at the experiences and narra(cid:415)ves of people in the city of Lahore whose rela(cid:415)ves had moved abroad. It illustrates how the departure of kin abroad altered the experience of place for people living in Pakistan and the strategies they employed to reconfigure their rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place in the absence of kin. It demonstrates how people in Pakistan make meaning of it as the place of kinship, and cra(cid:332) their rela(cid:415)onship to it via a logic of kinship that speaks to the social, cultural, biological, and material aspects of everyday life. The chapter also narrates the experience of a(cid:425)aining and surrendering a green card for the United States of America to evoke a visceral encounter with US Empire and underscore the place of Pakistan in a global neoliberal order. Therea(cid:332)er, this chapter turns to the narra(cid:415)ves and experiences of diasporic visitors and return migrants to Pakistan to illustrate how they make their place in Pakistan as a result of the social and cultural isola(cid:415)on they experience in western countries. Holding on to personhood and place in a globalizing world Maryam was a Masters in Philosophy (MPhil) student studying poli(cid:415)cal science at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. An acquaintance at Informa(cid:415)on Technology University (ITU), the ins(cid:415)tute where I was teaching for a semester, had referred her to me a(cid:332)er hearing about my research project. Maryam had given me specific direc(cid:415)ons to find my way around once inside the premises of the University of the Punjab. With Fayaz uncle driving the car, we entered through gate number three, the security guard at the entrance giving us a swi(cid:332) nod to go on ahead a(cid:332)er the generic response Maryam had directed me to give in response to his inquiry 92 about where we were going; “To the department of poli(cid:415)cal science”. We stopped in front of a blue building which Maryam had said was the educa(cid:415)on department and where she would be wai(cid:415)ng to walk me over to her own department. I called her as I got out of the car and no(cid:415)ced a woman dressed in a black abaya heading towards me. It was excep(cid:415)onally hot in Lahore that day and I was glad to find respite from the scorching heat as we entered into the shaded hallways of the poli(cid:415)cal science department. Maryam located a small empty classroom where we grabbed a table and two chairs to sit down to talk. With the university experiencing load shedding, government regulated power outages to manage electricity supply during hot summer months, our voices echoed in the absence of background noise save for the distant clamor of students talking and laughing together. I found Maryam to be a driven 23 year old woman focused on achieving her goals for a(cid:425)aining a higher educa(cid:415)on and a lively, forthcoming person to speak with. Originally from Gujrat, she lived with her family in Lahore in a joint family system with her two younger paternal uncles and their families. However, her paternal uncles had now moved abroad, one now lived in Dubai and the other in Germany. Her maternal grandmother’s house was also in Lahore where they would visit frequently and stay overnight when her maternal aunt and uncles visited from abroad. Her maternal aunt lived in Dubai, while her maternal uncles lived in South Africa. She considered her family to belong to the middle class as her father’s carpet business was only seasonally profitable and had suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic to the point that they were only able to afford the expenses for her own and her brother’s educa(cid:415)on because her brother had recently begun working. I was surprised to find that despite rela(cid:415)ves moving abroad and experiencing the 93 breakup of the joint family system she used to live in, she clung to the idea that what set Pakistan apart as a place was its family system and its family values. By family system, Maryam was referring to the joint family, a family configura(cid:415)on popular in par(cid:415)cular classes in South Asia emerging from pa(cid:425)erns of patrilocality where the husband and his wife live with, or close to, his family by blood. Although she did not refer to the family system in these specific technical terms, she described what a family system meant to her in terms of her experience of living with her paternal uncles, and her observa(cid:415)ons of the care extended to her maternal grandmother by her maternal uncles. The family system was for her a system in which rela(cid:415)ves living together were a source of mutual support and care for one another in the intricacies of everyday life. For example, my respondent stated that she missed having her paternal uncle around ever since he had moved abroad. He used to live with them and would be there for li(cid:425)le things like taking her to the doctor when she felt ill, especially if her father was busy with something else at that (cid:415)me. Furthermore, she explained how her maternal uncles living in South Africa alternated living every other year with their mother in Pakistan so that one of them could manage their business in South Africa while the other was in Pakistan with their aged mother. She confessed that digital media had made it easier to stay connected with family members who had moved abroad so that you did not feel their daily absence too much. Furthermore, when it was (cid:415)me for family members abroad to visit Pakistan, there was a lot of excitement and prepara(cid:415)on in an(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on of their arrival and the (cid:415)me that would be spent together. Whenever her uncles, aunts, and cousins visited, the whole house felt like it was alive with the comings and goings of people. It was only when the (cid:415)me came for them to leave again 94 that you acutely felt a melancholic atmosphere descend. This atmosphere lingered in the house long a(cid:332)er they were gone so that the house felt lifeless and empty un(cid:415)l a return to daily rou(cid:415)ne life dulled the sadness. However, even though you became busy in daily life, it was on occasions such as Eid or a wedding in the family that you acutely felt the absence of family that was abroad. When I inquired whether she herself would ever like to go abroad, Maryam explained that she would do anything to progress in her educa(cid:415)on, but with the condi(cid:415)on that she was able to return to Pakistan where she had her family and friends. Although she did not see se(cid:425)ling abroad as a goal in her life, if she did se(cid:425)le abroad, she would want to have her family near her, especially those family members that meant a lot to her like her father and mother. In talking about the migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad and the possibility of se(cid:425)ling abroad herself, Maryam moved from a valua(cid:415)on of the joint family as a cultural ideal in Pakistan to the togetherness of the immediate natal nuclear family as a necessary basic condi(cid:415)on of living abroad. She, therefore, moved from a nostalgic yearning for the joint family in Pakistan to expressing a hopeful desire for the presence of immediate family members near her if she happened to se(cid:425)le abroad. In South Asia, personhood is predicated upon an individual being part of a family. In other words, an individual can only be considered a person in society (i.e. be socially recognized) through their rela(cid:415)on, quite literally, to other individuals with whom they share a common substance. The preserva(cid:415)on and maintenance of these familial rela(cid:415)onships and ‘the family system’ that they form is therefore an integral social and cultural value, and ideal, in South Asia. By referring to the family system and family values in Pakistan, therefore, Maryam meant being obligated towards people to whom you are related and taking care of them and vice versa. In lamen(cid:415)ng the breakup of the joint family in Pakistan and pleading for 95 the presence of her immediate family abroad, Maryam was not just moaning the loss of a family system or family values. Rather she was a(cid:425)emp(cid:415)ng to define the condi(cid:415)ons, in a globalizing world, for the fulfillment of an integral part of her personhood. This associa(cid:415)on between feeling happy when rela(cid:415)ves from abroad came to Pakistan for a visit, and feeling sad when they le(cid:332), was echoed in conversa(cid:415)ons with other respondents as well. With my mother’s help, I arranged a mee(cid:415)ng with Nadia aunty, the mother of my younger sister’s friend from her (cid:415)me at university in Lahore. Nadia aunty had four children, the eldest two daughters were studying and working abroad, one in the UK and the other in the US, while the younger son and daughter lived with her in Lahore along with her husband and mother-in- law. Despite the absence of people who were the connec(cid:415)ng link between the two families (her daughter in the UK and my sister in the US comple(cid:415)ng their masters degrees), Nadia aunty and my mother met with great fondness and cha(cid:425)ed enthusias(cid:415)cally about their children. By their lifestyle, the size of their house, and a glance at the residen(cid:415)al area where they lived, I judged their family to be a middle-class family whose fortune varied according to the profitability of the business that Nadia aunty’s husband managed. In recoun(cid:415)ng the different factors that had led to her daughters going abroad, Nadia aunty confessed that she had been greatly encouraged by her sisters who lived in the UK and US to let her daughters go abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on. Her sisters had reassured her that they were there to support her daughters if they needed help with anything. Persuaded that her daughters would not be alone abroad, Nadia aunty had reinforced their desire to go abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on. She explained to me that she had done this for her daughters’ be(cid:425)erment as by studying and working abroad they would gain self-sufficiency and would learn how to live 96 as independent, financially stable adults. However, Nadia aunty had underes(cid:415)mated how much she would miss her daughters. Her daughter, Maham, had returned twice to Pakistan in the first year that she had le(cid:332) for the United States because the family had been very sad without her. Therea(cid:332)er, Maham con(cid:415)nued to visit at least once a year. Every year when the (cid:415)me came for her to visit, the whole family felt elated and excited as they awaited her presence: ST: “What happens when she comes?” NA (smiling): “She is also very happy, over here the countdown begins, and the en(cid:415)re family is very excited, like my youngest daughter Fa(cid:415)ma here, and it feels like in our house, in the real sense, some Eid or (cid:415)me of happiness is now coming. The (cid:415)me that she is here, I don’t even feel it, I do not even feel moody or angry, only the happiness of her.” Eid in Islam is a fes(cid:415)val which commemorates the end of Ramadan, a month where Muslims engage in the prac(cid:415)ce of fas(cid:415)ng, abs(cid:415)nence from food, drink, and sex, from dawn to dusk every day. While Ramadan is considered a blessed/sacred month in the Islamic calendar, it is also recognized as a strenuous month which not only alters sleep and dietary pa(cid:425)erns, but also requires the stringent prac(cid:415)ce of religious rituals and adherence to Islamic codes of conduct for everyday life. The coming of Eid signals the end of a tough month and is tradi(cid:415)onally celebrated as a day spent visi(cid:415)ng family and friends and ea(cid:415)ng together. Comparing her daughter’s return to the coming of Eid illustrates how her absence proved to be a trial for the whole family, her departure bringing in a season of heartache and her return bringing a season of joy, ease, and sa(cid:415)sfac(cid:415)on. When I asked Nadia aunty what happens when she leaves, she confessed that a sort of emp(cid:415)ness did seep in, but she dealt with it by reasoning with herself that daughters had to leave home a(cid:332)er ge(cid:427)ng married anyway. Daughters upon marriage were expected to become absorbed into the husband’s family and to live with them, leading Nadia aunty to reason that facing this separa(cid:415)on with her daughters was inevitable. Hence, not only did the 97 presence of suppor(cid:415)ve kin members abroad persuade her to send her daughters abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on, but she also ra(cid:415)onalized the separa(cid:415)on from her daughters that this decision would entail via a logic based on kinship. During the interview, when I tried to explore whether the migra(cid:415)on of her sisters had had an effect on her life, she responded: NA: “There was. There was because over here you visit your sisters, if she has any problem or you have any problem, you share with each other, so these things do come in. The house of your near and dear blood rela(cid:415)ons- the other rela(cid:415)ves you only meet them some(cid:415)mes right whether at a func(cid:415)on or if there is a special gathering and everyone gets together- but rela(cid:415)ons like brother and sister are those where your coming and going is always there. So this difference has definitely come in, but even then I say when I talk to my sister or when she comes and stays over, recently my sister from London came and stayed for 2 months, that is a very good (cid:415)me, we enjoy a lot. Maybe then you get that tonic for the whole year.” As her sisters lived abroad, for most of the year she incorporated them into her daily life by cha(cid:427)ng with them on WhatsApp a(cid:332)er dinner every day. When they came to visit, she tried to make the most of the (cid:415)me she had to spend in the physical presence of her sisters. Like most of my respondents who relayed their experience of the (cid:415)me when their diasporic rela(cid:415)ves would make return visits to Pakistan, Nadia aunty also recalled this (cid:415)me with her sisters as a (cid:415)me of great enjoyment and fun. They would go shopping together, eat out at restaurants, have sleepovers at their parental home, gossip about family poli(cid:415)cs, and share and listen to each other’s troubles. Although digital media enabled Nadia aunty to prac(cid:415)ce kinship in virtual space, the physical presence of her sisters allowed her another modality of doing kinship that was experienced more vigorously than their interac(cid:415)ons online allowed. Hence, she described being with them during the (cid:415)me they visited Pakistan as a (cid:415)me when kinship bonds were reinvigorated, renewing her strength and energy to carry on for the rest of the year (cid:415)ll the (cid:415)me 98 came for her sisters to visit again. Even as Nadia aunty described how the minu(cid:415)ae of everyday life had changed for her since her sisters’ migra(cid:415)on, she claimed that for herself she found it difficult to leave Pakistan as it was the place where she had her rela(cid:415)ves and where her everyday social life revolved around visi(cid:415)ng them every other day. I was surprised to hear this considering she was one of three sisters and the only one now le(cid:332) in Pakistan. I prodded her to further explain why she found it difficult to leave Pakistan: ST: “What do you mean by one’s own country?” NA: “Pakistan. One’s own Pakistan.” ST: “What do you associate with that?” NA: “For me, maybe it’s the feelings that we associate with this, with our rela(cid:415)ves and the love that is spread with mee(cid:415)ng each other and all the comings and goings, these things, maybe we are a sensi(cid:415)ve people that we consider these things more like mee(cid:415)ng with each other, staying connected to each other. But the kids from their point of view say that mee(cid:415)ng each other can happen over there as well. The friends circle, you have that over there as well. On the weekends when everyone is free, you can meet each other there as well. Maybe this is something about owning it, once you own this…but with me this experience has not yet happened, maybe when I go there and live and see, maybe my perspec(cid:415)ve will also change. But for the (cid:415)me being, I am happy in my Pakistan only. I miss kids also, some(cid:415)mes I also think why did I send them, but then I think no I think I did good, I am not going to stay with them all my life, that for the future maybe these are be(cid:425)er decisions. The rest whatever Allah does, may He do it for the be(cid:425)er.” Although both her sisters were abroad, I found out that her mother lived just a few streets away and Nadia aunty paid her a visit almost daily. Moreover, many of her rela(cid:415)ves from her family by marriage also lived in Lahore and they all got opportuni(cid:415)es to meet each other at family events and dinners. Hence, in making meaning of Pakistan as place and construc(cid:415)ng her rela(cid:415)onship to it, Nadia aunty considered Pakistan as the place where she had rela(cid:415)ves, and where mee(cid:415)ng each other and staying connected to each other, regularly and frequently, was prac(cid:415)ced and valued. While her daughters argued that mee(cid:415)ng each other frequently was also a possibility 99 abroad where your friends were like your family and got together on the weekends when everyone gained a respite from the daily grind, Nadia aunty admi(cid:425)ed that she had not yet experienced this abroad. Maybe her perspec(cid:415)ve might change if she lived abroad for a longer (cid:415)me but for now she was happy and content with living in Pakistan. Her daily social life in Pakistan was also punctuated with the excep(cid:415)onally busy (cid:415)me periods when her sisters would visit from abroad and mee(cid:415)ng rela(cid:415)ves and spending maximum (cid:415)me together would take priority over everything else. The (cid:415)me of diasporic return visits can therefore be understood as a suspended (cid:415)me period when kinship prac(cid:415)ces went into overdrive and people experienced a euphoria associated with the coming together of family members. Thus, her daily social life in Pakistan ordered around kin who were s(cid:415)ll in Pakistan, and the affect of family generated during her sisters’ and daughters’ return visits enabled Nadia aunty to construct a meaningful rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as a place. For her, Pakistan was not only a place where she had her kin, it was also a place that enabled the doing of kinship. The place of Pakistan in a global neoliberal order Ideas about Pakistan as the place of kinship were reiterated by other people I spoke with during fieldwork. My father connected me with the daughter of a professional acquaintance, someone who I found had graduated from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) like myself. On mee(cid:415)ng Aima, I found another point of connec(cid:415)on in that she was also the best friend of my brother-in-law’s cousin. Aima’s story of giving up her green card resonated with the story of my own family where my parents had go(cid:425)en a green card a(cid:332)er I had sponsored them, but had then decided to surrender it due to the expense involved in trying to keep it validated if you were unable to se(cid:425)le permanently in the United States. Aima explained 100 how her paternal aunt had sponsored them from the United States when she was li(cid:425)le and how they had always known that someday their green card would come. However, the arrival of their green cards had always remained a thought in the background as it was never explicitly spoken about or discussed in the family. Nor had it ever, Aima stated, factored in any major life decisions they had taken as a family. When their green cards had come through, they had gone to visit their rela(cid:415)ves in the United States, and stayed there for two months. However, they had treated it more like a vaca(cid:415)on rather than going with the inten(cid:415)on to se(cid:425)le down as they were doing well in Pakistan. Her father’s business was based in Pakistan and it was running well. At the (cid:415)me their green cards arrived, she was in the middle of her Cambridge O Level educa(cid:415)on and her brother was comple(cid:415)ng his degree in electrical engineering from FAST Na(cid:415)onal University, a well renowned IT university in Lahore. Therefore, at that (cid:415)me they had not had any reason to consider moving to the United States. For the sake of maintaining their green cards they had made another visit to the United States, but therea(cid:332)er upon returning to Pakistan had decided to give them up. Only her brother, who at that (cid:415)me was about to graduate from university, retained his green card and moved to the United States to pursue a master's degree. A green card refers to the document that grants you legal status as a permanent resident in the United States. Depending on the specific context, to transform this legal status from a permanent resident to a ci(cid:415)zen of the United States requires a certain (cid:415)me period of con(cid:415)nuous residence in the country. It can take anywhere between 3 to 5 years to be considered eligible to apply for ci(cid:415)zenship. To maintain a period of con(cid:415)nuous residency on a green card, you are not allowed to stay outside the United States for more than 6 months. For 101 families like Aima’s, therefore, maintaining their green cards meant spending on 4 roundtrip flight (cid:415)ckets from Pakistan to the United States every year, a considerable expense that could only be borne if you had sufficient financial capital. In addi(cid:415)on to the expense of maintaining their green cards, other factors at the (cid:415)me also led Aima and her parents to decide to turn in their green cards. Given her father’s age and se(cid:425)led business in Pakistan, he was not prepared to leave everything in Pakistan and start from scratch in the United States. Aima also confessed that although she had many extended rela(cid:415)ves in America and had spent (cid:415)me with them during her visits there, she had not been able to form strong bonds with her cousins, aunts, and uncles in the United States as there seemed to be li(cid:425)le common ground between them. Furthermore, she had her ALevel exams just a few months away and with her brother planning to go to the United States for his master’s degree, she felt that at least one child needed to stay with the parents, a kinship duty she professed that she had taken upon herself without anyone having asked. The lack of connec(cid:415)on with rela(cid:415)ves abroad, the difficulty in going to the United States for a visit with her A Levels exams just around the corner, her brother’s impending departure to the United States for higher educa(cid:415)on, and her parents deciding to stay in Pakistan were the circumstances that converged at that point in (cid:415)me, resul(cid:415)ng in her decision to surrender her green card. As I spoke with Aima about handing over her green card to the US consulate in Pakistan, I realized that both of us discussed this experience in terms of giving up or surrendering her green card, illustra(cid:415)ng the discursive condi(cid:415)ons which structured the acquisi(cid:415)on of a green card. Indeed, as she narrated her experience of surrendering her green card, the embodiment of these discursive condi(cid:415)ons came through in full force in many different forms. First, it was 102 the female immigra(cid:415)on officer at the US consulate who had asked her parents to step back as she tried to inves(cid:415)gate if Aima was being pressured to give up her green card. Aima’s descrip(cid:415)on of the (cid:415)me at the US consulate evoked parallels with a hostage situa(cid:415)on where her parents were treated as if they were holding Aima against her will. The discursive condi(cid:415)ons under which immigra(cid:415)on to the United States operated could only be expressed in the language of wan(cid:415)ng a green card, it was unthinkable that someone would want to return it, and if someone did, they were not doing it of their own free will. The female officer offered to extend the date of entry for her by a month to give her (cid:415)me to reassess her decision, telling Aima that she had kids her age and therefore knew the kind of opportuni(cid:415)es that a green card would open up for a young person like her from a country such as Pakistan. Migra(cid:415)ng to the United States could only affect her life in posi(cid:415)ve ways, providing her with greater and be(cid:425)er opportuni(cid:415)es than she could ever dream of as a young woman in a third world country such as Pakistan. Lila Abu-Lughod has pointed to the imperial discourse espoused by the United States about saving Muslim women to jus(cid:415)fy the military invasion of Afghanistan (Abu-Lughod 2002). Aima’s encounter with the immigra(cid:415)on officer brings forth the omnipresence of this global imperial discourse in not just framing military conquest by the United States, but also se(cid:427)ng the terms in which immigra(cid:415)on to the United States is considered permissible. Even though she knew that the female immigra(cid:415)on officer was speaking with good hearted inten(cid:415)ons and watching out for her interests as an individual, the officer’s patroniza(cid:415)on of Aima’s rela(cid:415)onship with her parents and her foregone conclusion that Aima was being forced by them to give up her green card had seemed like an affront. The officer’s demeanor had insinuated that the kinship bond between parents and children in Pakistan was necessarily authoritarian and that 103 children did not have a voice of their own. This had greatly troubled Aima, and she recalled how at that (cid:415)me standing at the window in the American consulate had suddenly made her doubt her own decision for a moment. She shared with me how no one understood the choice she had made. Her decision had even seemed odd to her peers at LUMS who had said that she was insane to have given up her green card, demonstra(cid:415)ng the internaliza(cid:415)on and ac(cid:415)ve reinforcement of an imperial discourse by even those whom it subjugates so that it becomes mere common sense. While her encounter with the female immigra(cid:415)on officer had been short lived, the rebuke that she faced from her uncle in the United States had been relentless. When her uncle in America found out that she had surrendered her green card, he had been exasperated with her parents for le(cid:427)ng her do this. He had blamed them for le(cid:427)ng her quit, telling them it was easier for women to make their careers in America than in Pakistan. His emphasis on Aima’s gender as a woman, disapproval of her parents’ acquiescence to her decision, and posi(cid:415)ng America as a place where it was easy for women to build their careers in contradis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on to Pakistan as a place where it was not, underscores the imperial nature of the discourse of the global neoliberal economy structuring his worldview. The line of reasoning followed by this discourse was that it was difficult for women in Pakistan to build their careers because of the discrimina(cid:415)on they faced in a patriarchal society which saw a woman’s place to be in the domes(cid:415)c sphere, and their primary responsibility the reproduc(cid:415)on and maintenance of kinship rela(cid:415)ons. Therefore, the jus(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on for the par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on of women from Pakistan in a global neoliberal economy could only be ar(cid:415)culated in terms of freeing them from the constraints of kinship. Aima’s story demonstrates the embeddedness of gender rela(cid:415)ons within kinship 104 structures in Pakistan so that addressing one without the other is to arrive at a reduc(cid:415)ve and decontextualized understanding of both. Hence, imperial discourses of gender and/or kinship espoused at the level of the Pakistani state and the global neoliberal economy inevitably have repercussions in both domains of social life in a globalizing Pakistan. Aima’s uncle’s insistence that a green card was her (cid:415)cket of entry into a global economy had put her parents in a dilemma as to whether they had done right by their daughter. Hence, even as Aima employed kinship logic (the need to take care of her parents) to make meaning of her decision to give up her green card, the kinship logics of her parents (are we doing right by our daughter) worked to resist her decision. Ul(cid:415)mately, Aima’s decision prevailed. Her story highlights the insidiousness of a global imperial discourse on kinship which posits kinship concerns to be incommensurate with the global economy when kinship concerns can o(cid:332)en align with the dictates of the global neoliberal economy. Feeling cornered from all sides and with her uncle being relentless in his efforts to persuade her, Aima felt that even though she had made the decision and remained firm in it, this situa(cid:415)on had le(cid:332) a deep imprint on her self-esteem. Caught between the imperial discourse of the global neoliberal economy and her parents’ concern for her and vice versa, Aima tried to make sense of her decision and ar(cid:415)culated her own rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place. She explained that she understood when you viewed Pakistan as a place from the outside, as someone who did not live in the country and whose predominant experience of it was a mediated one, you could only arrive at a nega(cid:415)ve valua(cid:415)on of it. In talking about this mediated experience, Aima referred to interna(cid:415)onal and local news media and what they reported about Pakistan’s economic, poli(cid:415)cal, and social situa(cid:415)on. Thus, media(cid:415)on here was taken to mean the ways in which different forms 105 of mass media influence our percep(cid:415)on of society. By way of an example about the effects mass media could have on a person, Aima talked about how she had been greatly affected by the news of a woman being gang raped on the motorway in Lahore and the country wide outrage that had followed on social media. She would drive herself to work every day via the motorway and felt afraid to go to work a(cid:332)er hearing about this incident. She would follow updates about the case on social media and she recalled that this became so overwhelming that she remembered stopping her car one day and just crying for no reason. This anecdote about how she had been affected by news media was relayed as evidence that she was aware of what was going on around her and that her decision to remain in Pakistan was not unrealis(cid:415)c or made from a naïve understanding of Pakistan as a place. This demonstrates the increasing media(cid:415)za(cid:415)on of society in Pakistan whereby media is used as a tool to understand the world around you and to affect change in it. Mass media, therefore, was no longer just about representa(cid:415)ons and narra(cid:415)ves of the powerful, but a tool through which every person having access to the internet could partake in the construc(cid:415)on and experience of society. Aima assured me that she understood that people who lived abroad and could only experience life in Pakistan via mass media (whether the news media or social media) found it difficult to comprehend the posi(cid:415)ve aspects of the lived experience of people living in Pakistan as only its dismal condi(cid:415)ons dominated global and local media. She gave the example of her brother who had moved to the United States 7 years ago and with whom she now had a difference in opinion about what Pakistan was like as a place. Whenever he read the news regarding Pakistan, he would worry and pronounce it as the worst place to live in, whereas for someone like her who was living in Pakistan and had to contend with its material and social 106 reali(cid:415)es, that same conclusion amounted to a complete denouncement of her place and personhood. Therefore, she reasoned, the basis of her decision to stay in Pakistan were the rela(cid:415)onships that she had there. The presence of her parents as well as extended family members she had grown up with, and was emo(cid:415)onally a(cid:425)ached to, weighed more for her in construc(cid:415)ng her rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place than her experience of it as a place via mass media. A: “I know that when you are on the outside and hearing all that kind of news about Pakistan, you are hearing about the situa(cid:415)on in Pakistan, its very easy for you to forget about the possible pros of living in that place. Or why someone who has lived all their life in that country would want to con(cid:415)nue to live there. Because for us, at least for me, yes I am aware that the situa(cid:415)on economically, poli(cid:415)cally, everything wise is horrible, but when I look at Pakistan, I will look at the rela(cid:415)onships I have, which are really important to me. Yes its not like I don’t care about anything else in the world except that, and not just like my immediate family but my friends, my family, everything is here right, this is my comfort zone, so I will look at that. But somebody who is looking from the outside, even now when I look at my brother who has lived there for 7 years now, his perspec(cid:415)ve has also changed because he is looking in now from the outside in a lot of ways right. From the outside when he reads the news, when I will read that news yes it will worry me but I have to live through that. But when it will worry him, he will be like oh my God Pakistan is the worst place to live in right.” The spaces of diaspora in Pakistan the place of kinship The struggle for legi(cid:415)ma(cid:415)ng one’s rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place, and therefore one’s personhood, was apparent in the stories of other respondents as well. At the (cid:415)me I was conduc(cid:415)ng fieldwork, my mother was working at the headquarters of a popular network of private schools known as The City School. She managed to introduce me and my research to Fa(cid:415)ma, a woman in her for(cid:415)es working in the curriculum development department at The City School. During my interview with her, Fa(cid:415)ma relayed her story of being born in Saudi Arabia, moving to Minneapolis in the United States when she was 12 years old, se(cid:425)ling down in Houston, Texas, and finally moving to Pakistan to take care of her aging parents suffering from 107 illness. Fa(cid:415)ma explained that she had spent a significant part of her life in the United States. She had grown up there, had gone to college, and even started her career there. She had begun her married life in the United States and had lived with her husband for 7 or 8 years even as her siblings and parents had gradually moved back to Pakistan. Due to her mother’s failing health and her father’s cancer diagnosis, she had moved back to Pakistan to take care of them for some (cid:415)me. The stress that this put upon her marriage had led to divorce, and a(cid:332)er her parents passed away, she had decided to remain in Pakistan where she could meet her siblings at least a few (cid:415)mes a year. Her decision had been the target of immense disapproval by her paternal uncles who lived in the United States and the United Kingdom, and she shared with me the vehemence with which they spoke about Pakistan as a place. She told me that when they remembered their childhood, they recalled it in terms of ha(cid:415)ng growing up in Pakistan. This was confusing to Fa(cid:415)ma as she thought her uncles had lived a decent life when they were in Pakistan. One of her uncles was a doctor and had even graduated from a pres(cid:415)gious medical school in Lahore. The hate with which he remembered his life in Pakistan, however, was very intense, and she reasoned that maybe this was because her uncle had migrated a long (cid:415)me ago and wished to detach himself from his culture. When I asked her to elaborate on what her uncles disliked about Pakistan, she said that they did not like the way things were done here. She followed this up with a rhetorical ques(cid:415)on she wished she could ask of her uncles; where is it a perfect place? By way of example, she stated that when her family was living in Saudi Arabia at one (cid:415)me, they had faced discrimina(cid:415)on even over there. Her parents had been stopped by the police and asked to present their marriage cer(cid:415)ficate as proof that they were in a legal union and therefore 108 authorized by Islamic law to accompany each other. Hence, even in a Muslim country such as Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and a place considered sacred and visited by Muslims all over the world, discriminatory prac(cid:415)ces against varied communi(cid:415)es and people were at play. In cra(cid:332)ing her own rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place, Fa(cid:415)ma contended with her uncles’ ideas about Pakistan as place as well as her own ideas about other places like Saudi Arabia. Having grown up and spent most of her life in the United States, she ar(cid:415)culated her understanding of different places in a language that was familiar to her, a(cid:425)aching terms like culture and discrimina(cid:415)on to describe the characteris(cid:415)cs of different places. While it was kinship as lived prac(cid:415)ce that prompted her return to Pakistan, in terms of returning to take care of her father and con(cid:415)nuing to live there because she had a strong support system due to the presence of her siblings, the language in which she made meaning of her decision to stay was specific to her context as a return migrant from the United States. Skin color is an essen(cid:415)al boundary marker for different communi(cid:415)es in the United States where racial categories form the founda(cid:415)on of integral social structures. Hence, the widespread and expansive usage of the term discrimina(cid:415)on to advocate for social jus(cid:415)ce and inequi(cid:415)es based on ascrip(cid:415)ve quali(cid:415)es such as race. Similarly, the term culture is an integral part of the everyday language of sense making in the United States as well and is used to mark minority communi(cid:415)es as well as to dis(cid:415)nguish between them. The script of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States ascribes culture as a quality to non-White minority communi(cid:415)es and employs it in conjunc(cid:415)on with other descriptors to classify and rank them against norma(cid:415)ve hegemonic standards that are associated with the racial signifier White. Therefore, not only do diverse communi(cid:415)es have 109 culture, but brown or Indian culture is different from Chinese culture or from Hispanic or Mexican culture, illustra(cid:415)ng the mul(cid:415)ple (racial, na(cid:415)onal, regional) levels at which the term culture is deployed. Therefore, Fa(cid:415)ma narrated her experiences of moving from Saudi Arabia to the United States to Pakistan in terms of the mul(cid:415)ple cultures she had to navigate. She described the fast- paced life in the United States which revolved around work and making money, telling me how she had taken up a managing job at jewelry stores to keep her household afloat alongside pursuing a university degree in biotechnology. She con(cid:415)nued to work at jewelry stores a(cid:332)er gradua(cid:415)on because she earned more money from these jobs than she was being offered for jobs in her field. In the mean(cid:415)me, her parents and siblings had moved to Pakistan as her father’s grocery store business in the United States had gone into financial loss. For a long (cid:415)me, she was separated from her parents and siblings, and when they would tell her about their lives in Pakistan, she wished she could have those experiences with them. She felt that her life in the United States had become empty and stagnant, and when she moved to Pakistan to take care of her parents, she decided to stay there and not return to the United States. In Pakistan she had to reorient herself to a very different culture and job market. Finding it difficult to get into the retail sector in Pakistan, which according to her was because of its unprofessional environment (read different work culture compared to the United States), she had leveraged her skills in the English language and pivoted to the educa(cid:415)on sector. Working in English language development at the regional office of the Beaconhouse School System, one of Pakistan’s most highly ranked network of private schools in primary and secondary educa(cid:415)on, she confessed had felt like she had found her niche. 110 Not only was the work environment in the educa(cid:415)on sector more professional than other sectors of the job market in Pakistan, working in educa(cid:415)on also fulfilled the void she had constantly felt in the United States that there was something missing from her life. Describing the culture of everyday life in the United States, Fa(cid:415)ma expressed that the fast-paced, work centric rou(cid:415)ne in the US ends up feeling like an empty life because work is understood as an end in itself. She stated empha(cid:415)cally that she had never been afraid of work, as long as she was doing it for somebody in the community and she could see that she was making a difference in someone else’s life. However, work in the United States was so individualis(cid:415)c in nature, and such a central part of everyday life, that it encroached upon all other aspects of life as well, leaving li(cid:425)le space or (cid:415)me to engage in different types of social intercourse. To clarify what she meant by this, she gave the example of how she would have to set her schedule two weeks in advance when she was working at a jewelry store and given that the day of Eid was only determined a day before as it was dependent on the sigh(cid:415)ng of the moon, she could never get (cid:415)me off to celebrate Eid. Over (cid:415)me, Fa(cid:415)ma revealed that her family stopped celebra(cid:415)ng Eid altogether because there was no point in cooking food and rejoicing when there was no one available to do it with. Taking a cue from her lamenta(cid:415)on about the miseries of living in the United States, I inquired eagerly if she met her siblings frequently now that she was in Pakistan. I was caught off guard when she replied lo(cid:332)ily “No, I am too busy for that” and followed that with a quick laugh, giving away her own imbrica(cid:415)on in hegemonic neoliberal discourses about work in the United States as well as globally. Realizing that she had just contradicted herself, she clarified that while it was o(cid:332)en difficult to take out (cid:415)me to meet her siblings in Pakistan, she and her siblings did try 111 to meet, and at the very least, they did manage to get together every Eid. Hence, Fa(cid:415)ma implied that life in Pakistan was different enough for it to qualify as a place which enabled the doing of kinship. Considering that Fa(cid:415)ma had no sibling in Lahore (the nearest one living a 2-hour drive away in the city of Faisalabad), lived on her own, and spent her (cid:415)me outside of work socializing voraciously with friends and co-workers, it was perplexing why her limited mee(cid:415)ngs with her siblings took center stage in making meaning of Pakistan as place. As our interview ended, Fa(cid:415)ma retreated into a pensive mood. I felt her forty years’ worth of transna(cid:415)onal life experiences of being jostled about in Saudi Arabia (the place of discrimina(cid:415)on), United States (the place of professional work), and Pakistan (the place of kinship) flash before her eyes as she offered a final contempla(cid:415)ve conclusion: FS: “So that’s what life is about, I think, at the end of the day its about family. People don’t realize it; they are running a(cid:332)er things.” Fa(cid:415)ma was one of my several return migrant respondents who were (figura(cid:415)vely and literally) trying to find a stable middle ground upon which to land. While it seemed like Fa(cid:415)ma had arrived at a meaningful closure to her transna(cid:415)onal life, being able to reconcile her aspira(cid:415)ons for a professional work environment with her desire for meaningful rela(cid:415)onal sociali(cid:415)es, the struggle for a conclusive reconcilia(cid:415)on seemed much more evident in my conversa(cid:415)on with another respondent named Sameen. Sameen lived in Canal View Society, a gated residen(cid:415)al area alongside a canal that ran through the city of Lahore and was considered one of its landmark features. Now in her early fi(cid:332)ies, Sameen had lived most of her life in the United Kingdom but had returned to Pakistan in what seemed like a permanent move a few years ago. Since the death of her parents, she was living alone in the family house they had built in Lahore, while her brothers resided in the United Kingdom and Dubai with their families. 112 Sameen was part of the residen(cid:415)al neighborhood community that Afreen aunty, my main gatekeeper, belonged to. As Afreen aunty accompanied me for my first mee(cid:415)ng with Sameen, she told me Sameen’s house was conspicuously iden(cid:415)fied in the neighborhood as ‘the English house’. Indeed, as we came to a stop at its wrought iron front gates which were barred by a chain and an old-fashioned lock, it felt like we were about to enter an English manor, an image of which I had only ever seen on television. The grand columns adorning the verandah of the house, its manicured lawn with its intricately designed garden bench, its towering front doors opening to a circular lobby with a winding staircase, a massive tapestry hanging down from the ceiling in the si(cid:427)ng room, all evoked an old-world English aesthe(cid:415)c. During one of our interviews, Sameen shared that her parents had le(cid:332) the construc(cid:415)on, design, and decora(cid:415)on of their family house in Pakistan to their children. Since her brothers did not live in Pakistan, she had been the most involved and ac(cid:415)ve par(cid:415)cipant in the en(cid:415)re process. Proudly, she showed me around the house and admi(cid:425)ed that one of the major considera(cid:415)ons that had shaped the way the house was designed and decorated was her desire to recreate some aspects of her life in London which she missed. In addi(cid:415)on to this, during my visits there, I no(cid:415)ced that the house was also embellished with flashy golden objects that Sameen had purchased during her travels to and from Dubai. Another characteris(cid:415)c feature of the house were picture walls which included portraits and framed photographs of Sameen’s immediate and extended family. Adorning the wall behind the winding staircase were photographs as old as those of her great grandfather, displaying evidence of the influen(cid:415)al status of her forefathers and ancestral family from (cid:415)mes as early as Bri(cid:415)sh rule in the subcon(cid:415)nent. While these old photographs and portraits traced Sameen’s kinship (cid:415)es to the distant past, the pictures that 113 adorned the wall in the in(cid:415)mate space of her bedroom exhibited her kinship (cid:415)es with her immediate family, (cid:415)es that remained the center of her world even as she lived a transna(cid:415)onal life. Both her parents belonging to a well-established Punjabi Arain family in Lahore, Sameen explained how she had been visi(cid:415)ng Pakistan and staying with extended blood rela(cid:415)ves in Lahore since she was 5 years old. Not only did she have an abundance of rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan, but her strong family background in terms of also belonging to a socially, poli(cid:415)cally, and economically influen(cid:415)al family in Lahore meant that she was always well looked a(cid:332)er during her stay and had access to luxuries that she could not even dream of in her life in the UK. SA: “But to be honest, Sara, the main reason, and the difference is, it depends on your family background. When you’re working it backwards, from London back to Pakistan, you have to look at it this way because that’s the way I am dealing with it right, you might have been dealing with it the other way around, but this way. If your foo(cid:415)ng is strong in Pakistan, then Pakistan is like wow for you..... When the foo(cid:415)ng on that front is on the stronger side, then a lot of doors open for you. When we use to come, we use to go to really nice places, and we would get protocol everywhere, we used to think we are something and have a really good (cid:415)me. So I used to absolutely love it.” She recalled how she had loved visi(cid:415)ng Pakistan when she was younger as they would stay at the ancestral manor in the village with all their rela(cid:415)ves. She had been apprehensive at her first visit to the ancestral manor in the village, imagining that she would have to sleep under the stars and would have to adjust to a lack of ameni(cid:415)es. To her surprise, she had found life at the manor to be a grand affair with plenty of rooms, beau(cid:415)ful architecture, hanging chandeliers, the availability of sumptuous food, and people to wait on them. In the daily run of things with so many people living together, the hustle and bustle at the manor meant that there was always something or the other to do. With child-like laughter, she told me that she would go back to the UK and tell all her friends there that in Pakistan she lived in a castle whose high walls had 114 slits through which you could shoot arrows. This exaggerated portrayal, she said, was meant to convey to her friends the sense of grandeur she felt when she was in Pakistan as if she was part of something larger than herself. Being part of a large extended family that had a history and status in Lahore afforded her life experiences that were the opposite of the anonymity and isola(cid:415)on of her life in London. Sameen explained the contrast between her life in London and Lahore in the following words; SA: “I have a whatsapp group with all my white friends and they have been trying to get together since December and I looked at the messages and now they’re saying January and then someone else was saying let’s do it in February. But over here if somebody says Sameen, come, I will grab my bag right now and go. Here you can take the (cid:415)me out because you want to take the (cid:415)me out. Over there even if you want to do it there will be something holding you back. There will be your work, or you will have to get ready for tomorrow. I have to cook food, I have to iron my clothes, it’s a one man show.” Over (cid:415)me, due to frequent visits and mee(cid:415)ng different people via her cousins, Sameen was able to make her own social network of family and friends in Lahore. However, it was only when they built their own family house in Lahore, that was she able to partake in that network more fully as she now had a space where she could invite people over and engage with them on her own terms. SA: “Then come some 25 years ago we decided that we need to have our own house so that we can like stay, and come and go. I’ll tell you the reason behind that as well. When we would come to Pakistan, MA the family lived very well and we used to have a very good (cid:415)me. But as you get older, you make your own friends, and those friends are because of you, they are not your friends for any other reason, they are not your friends because the mill is a(cid:425)ached to you or something, it is because of your own personality and they become your friend! So I was like oh we need to entertain people. Everybody was very happy that you come to our house, but we wanted our own personality, do you understand? Even though their houses were beau(cid:415)ful and all, but you s(cid:415)ll want your own space. And you realize that more as you get older.” In revealing the mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)on for building their own house in Pakistan, Sameen’s narra(cid:415)ve drew a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the dissonance she felt as a diasporic return migrant in trying to find her place in 115 Pakistan. The diasporic context in which she had been raised marked her social loca(cid:415)on in the UK as a brown, Muslim, Pakistani female, marginalizing her on mul(cid:415)ple fronts and forcing her to struggle for the preserva(cid:415)on of her cultural and religious iden(cid:415)ty. The sobering effect of living a diasporic life seemed to her at odds with the sense of en(cid:415)tlement with which people in her social circle in Pakistan operated. While the flamboyance of her social network in Pakistan had impressed her as a child, as her social life in Lahore deepened, she found her diasporic vantage point to be morally different from other women who frequented the same social circles as her. While she understood the allure of a glamorous life when you were young, she did not understand the compe(cid:415)(cid:415)on among older women in Pakistan who belonged to upper middle class and elite families and were obsessed with outdoing each other in their pursuit of glamor, beauty, and excitement. SA: “I remember looking at the culture here in Pakistan and I was shocked, because I had never a(cid:425)ended so many par(cid:415)es in London even compared to what I was a(cid:425)ending here, valen(cid:415)nes party, I have danced here, I have danced all night here, I've never seen so many people drink that I have here, and I just think the reason for that is that they are doing things at the wrong (cid:415)me of their life. What people were doing at age 16, they are doing at age 50. And they have got too much and they feel like (cid:415)me is very li(cid:425)le and we have to do all of this. And when they talk to us they are like [using mock voice] oh are you really from London, doesn’t seem like it, only when you open your mouth then one can see that.” ST: “What did you mean about age?” SA: “I am sure you must have seen the fashion of women here, why are they dressed like as if they were 16 years old. I cant recall my mother going to have her hair blow dried every day, why would she do that? And yet I have personally seen women who are older than me whom you are invi(cid:415)ng on a Quran recita(cid:415)on and they are coming with their hair styled and wearing false eyelashes.” The prolifera(cid:415)on of consumer items in Pakistan and the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture has led to the commercializa(cid:415)on of the food, tex(cid:415)le, and beauty industries in the country. Given these trends in commercializa(cid:415)on alongside the compe(cid:415)(cid:415)ve nature of kinship rela(cid:415)ons, 116 therefore, it is not surprising that for certain classes, the pursuit and maintenance of the high life in Pakistan is their social raison d’etre. The very same en(cid:415)tlement which Sameen had been happy to partake in to maintain her sense of place as a lonely child living in London now seemed to be at loggerheads with her spartan, individualis(cid:415)c personhood that made her out of place now that she was living in Pakistan. While maintaining her personhood and sense of place in London required frequent travel to Pakistan and prolonged visits, i.e. was dependent on her ease of mobility, maintaining her personhood and sense of place in Pakistan was predicated upon substan(cid:415)al material investment, i.e. building and furnishing a house and hiring people for its upkeep. A house of one’s own was thus the basic material structure that was required to enable one to claim space for oneself and to transform its poten(cid:415)ality into a rela(cid:415)onal sense of place, and by proxy, a rela(cid:415)onal personhood. The significance of building a house in Pakistan for diasporic transna(cid:415)onals also came to the fore in my encounter in Lahore with a student I had come to be acquainted with at Michigan State University. Upon viewing his Instagram story, I found that he was in Lahore at the (cid:415)me I was doing fieldwork. With the ongoing pandemic and feeling isolated during fieldwork myself, I excitedly reached out to him to meet. I found out that he was visi(cid:415)ng from the United States with his family, and they were currently living in their house at Bahria Town, a residen(cid:415)al area which as luck would have it was just a twenty-minute drive from my own house. Upon arriving, I was ushered into the house as a formal guest and led to the drawing room. My acquaintance’s mother and younger brother accompanied us during our mee(cid:415)ng, and I got the chance to engage with his family. My acquaintance, his younger brother, and I then sat down to tea at a heavily laden table that made me feel embarrassed at the lengths to which they had gone to 117 host me. In customary fashion, I protested at their having done so much, to which they responded in customary fashion that this was nothing at all. A family of four, Ahmed let me in on their immigra(cid:415)on journey to the United States. His maternal aunt in the United States had sponsored his mother, leading to her immigra(cid:415)on in early 2000s. Therea(cid:332)er, the harrowing incident of 9/11 in 2001, and the global war on terror which followed it, had led to a delay in the visa processing (cid:415)me for him and his father. Meanwhile, his mother tried to set up base in the United States. She worked several jobs in order to earn enough money to travel to Pakistan, and to provide evidence to the United States Ci(cid:415)zenship and Immigra(cid:415)on Services (USCIS) that she had enough funds to support her children. His younger brother, who was an infant at that (cid:415)me, got his visa earlier, and his mother took him with her to America. It took around 8 to 9 years for Ahmed and his father to arrive in the United States and for all four of them to be reunited as a family. Originally from the rural town of Okara in Punjab, Ahmed and his family had intermi(cid:425)ently been in and out of the city of Lahore before migra(cid:415)ng to the United States. While many of his extended rela(cid:415)ves on the maternal side now lived in the United States, most of his paternal rela(cid:415)ves were now based in Lahore. Whenever Ahmed and his family visited Pakistan, they would stay at a rela(cid:415)ve’s house in Lahore. While this was a (cid:415)me of great fun and enjoyment, Ahmed recalled that it restricted their experience of Pakistan as a place as they had to be respec(cid:414)ul of their hosts and had to abide by their values and priori(cid:415)es. In par(cid:415)cular, due to their upbringing having taken place predominantly in America, Ahmed and his brother felt a cultural difference with their rela(cid:415)ves that made them feel as if they were not quite at home. Furthermore, his parents wanted his brother and him to experience living in Pakistan, but they 118 did not want to impose too much on their rela(cid:415)ves who had different considera(cid:415)ons and family situa(cid:415)ons to take into account when hos(cid:415)ng them. Hence, they decided that they needed their own space so that their family could experience Pakistan on their own terms, and not under the watchful gaze of extended rela(cid:415)ves. It was not surprising that when his parents visited Pakistan in 2015, they decided to make Lahore their home base and ini(cid:415)ated the plan to build a house in a thriving residen(cid:415)al area. Their house was completed in 2018 and since then Ahmed and his family had visited as frequently as twice a year. The house had made it possible for them to have a space of their own which enabled them to engage with people on their own terms rather than staying at a rela(cid:415)ve’s house and invi(cid:415)ng people over there. When I asked Ahmed how he and his brother spent (cid:415)me in Pakistan, he responded that they would go out and about familiarizing themselves with all the delicious food their residen(cid:415)al area had to offer, speak with their neighbors and get to know them, and spend (cid:415)me with their rela(cid:415)ves. One visit to Pakistan, therefore, was for the purpose of rekindling (cid:415)es with extended rela(cid:415)ves and neighbors and experiencing the local life. The vicissitudes of the immigra(cid:415)on process and work life in the United States had fragmented their (cid:415)me together as a family. Their house in Pakistan also provided them with a home base through which they could achieve their goal to spend (cid:415)me together and bond as a family. The second visit to Pakistan was then made with the inten(cid:415)on for the four of them to spend (cid:415)me together, for example, by ge(cid:427)ng comfortable in their house in Lahore and making travel plans to see other areas of Pakistan. AD: “A(cid:332)er that out visits to Pakistan were quite frequent, twice or thrice a year, because in a way our base had been made in Pakistan. We had our own house, and it was more convenient to just go to your own house and not live with anyone else. Because when you are living with someone, you have to go along with their principles and rules. I gave 119 you an example like last (cid:415)me too right, if you are living with someone you then you can’t stay out too late right because then they will be worried about you and stuff like that. That’s what happened in 2018 when we were promised our house will be done but it wasn’t done so we had to live with our family rela(cid:415)ves for 3 months and you know how 3 months goes right. I mean the experience was nice that we were able to meet with more people, give people (cid:415)me, but it wasn’t under the condi(cid:415)ons how you wanted it to be. You wanted to invite people to your own house, that was something we wanted to do but we weren’t able to, and that limited our experience of our first trip. But a(cid:332)er the house was completed, then we started making more frequent visits to Pakistan. One visit would be just dedicated to rekindling and reforming our own bonds with our neighbors and family. One visit would be strictly for that. This visit would be anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 weeks. Just ge(cid:427)ng in touch with your family rela(cid:415)ves, and spending some (cid:415)me with them, and doing whatever the hell they want, we just go with it. The second visit would be us, as a four family, if we want to go travel somewhere else we do it together as a family, and this visit wasn’t about ge(cid:427)ng in touch with anyone.” ST: “So what were the mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons behind building this house in Pakistan? You guys are se(cid:425)led in the US, why build a house in Pakistan?” AD: “Oh, that’s quite simple, because my parents when they went for umra in 2013 and then went to Pakistan, guess who they stayed with, they stayed with my dad’s side right. And obviously you can feel right that there is going to be a disparity of cultural values. There is an upbringing of American values and then there is an upbringing of Pakistan values, right, these two values in a similar household you will see things differently and eye to eye right. And because of that, my dad was like, you know some(cid:415)mes we might agree to things, we might disagree to things, and I think it’s just be(cid:425)er that we need to have our own place, we need to have our place for our kids. It doesn’t mean necessarily for our sake because the thing is if its just the two of them like it was in 2013, they don’t mind living either with my dads or my moms side of the family, they don’t mind that. But if it’s the two of us right, if the kids are also going, which they will in future right, then we are gonna be needing our own place. The other thing is that the kids are also two boys and imagine going into a family where there are more girls, then it just creates a weird dynamic.” It was interes(cid:415)ng that both my diasporic respondents men(cid:415)oned the need to have their own space from which to build their rela(cid:415)onships and social networks when I inquired about their mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)on for building a house in Pakistan. The fact that they chose to find that space in Pakistan and lay claim to it by building a house in Pakistan underscores the significance of how Pakistan was seen as the ideal place for forging rela(cid:415)onal (cid:415)es while abroad it was difficult to form them. Therefore, by juxtaposing abroad to Pakistan, my interviewees made meaning of 120 Pakistan as place by authen(cid:415)ca(cid:415)ng it as the place of kinship. In addi(cid:415)on to seeing Pakistan as the literal place where their family resided or in other words as the place which had their kin, it was also imagined as the place which enabled the doing of kinship. Pakistan as one’s own country and the place of one’s own people In the interviews that I did over the phone with respondents I had fielded from Facebook, many people used the Urdu phrase ‘apna mulq’ when talking about Pakistan. When I tried to get an understanding of what they meant by ‘apna mulq’, they defined it as referring to Pakistan as a country of one’s own and one’s own people. By calling it a country of one’s own, a respondent clarified, they meant the place where they had their home, lifestyle, and culture. He stated that it was only natural, then, for people to love their country because it contained within itself all that a person was familiar with. When I tried to inves(cid:415)gate how my respondent had arrived at this conclusion, he said that it was his own personal experience that even when he stepped out of his own house, he was reminded of how much he loved it and missed it. This slide between one’s country and one’s house caught my a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on as it emerged in another conversa(cid:415)on with a 30 year old man as he recounted his experience of trying to get a visa to enter Turkey; ML: “My experience in Turkey was just like when you leave your home and go to someone else’s, they treat you very nicely, they ensure good hospitality, provides you with all good things, but you are unable to sleep immediately on their bed, you try to sleep but even then you feel restless. When you leave from there and come back home, you fall asleep immediately on your own bed. So this difference between your house and someone else’s house, I felt that difference over there.” He stated that it had caused him great humilia(cid:415)on when the Turkish authori(cid:415)es had rejected his visa over a minor spelling mistake. Even though Turkish officials had dealt with him nicely and his visit had been smooth except for the visa rejec(cid:415)on itself, he felt ill at ease throughout this 121 encounter. He contrasted this to his experience in dealing with officials at a government office in Pakistan where even if you had ac(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es like bribery going on you s(cid:415)ll felt mentally at peace because there was this sense that these were s(cid:415)ll your own people and you were on familiar terrain. In trying to ar(cid:415)culate the sense of mental sa(cid:415)sfac(cid:415)on and safety one felt in one’s own country, a peace that you could not find in any other place, he explained in the following words; ML: “So I read about an incident that there was a girl si(cid:427)ng at the airport in the US, she was wai(cid:415)ng for her flight to another state, there was an announcement that your flight is a bit late and will leave so and so (cid:415)me in the morning. So this girl kept her bag under her head and went to sleep on the bench. She woke up in the morning, got on the flight, and le(cid:332). In listening this sounds like a normal story but the writer asks you to just think how much trust that girl must have had that I am in America and I am safe. So in Pakistan also we feel this safety.” In sliding between country and house, I found my respondents to be using the phrase ‘apna mulq’, i.e. one’s own country, amorphously. This was accompanied by the amorphous use of the phrase ‘apnay log’, i.e. one’s own people, to refer to varying levels of significa(cid:415)on. I had the opportunity to speak with a woman who had moved from Peshawar to Lahore a(cid:332)er her marriage and ask her about what she thought about life abroad given what she heard from a dear friend who had moved to the UK. She responded in a ma(cid:425)er-of-fact tone that everybody knew that to a(cid:425)ain a good life abroad required a lot of effort and struggle, especially because over there people did not have their own people to support them or take care of them. Each person was on their own and had to manage everything by themselves from preparing one’s own food to nursing oneself back to health when one fell ill. This was in contrast to Pakistani people who valued their guests more than themselves, especially the Pathan community that was famous for its ethic of hospitality. In comparing life abroad and life in Pakistan, the woman 122 referred to the different levels of community within which she lived out her life and which for her formed the basis for rela(cid:415)onships of care; one’s family, ethnic community, as well as na(cid:415)onal community. Anthropological work on South Asia has demonstrated how the (cid:415)es that bind family members and people in a community, e.g. people living in the same village, are predicated on there being a shared substance among them. For example, we all eat from the same soil which (cid:415)es us to the land we live on and to each other, or we all share the same blood which (cid:415)es us all to each other. Kinship in South Asia as predicated upon a shared substance is thus defined in terms of an organic connec(cid:415)on to people and places. However, a shared substance is not sufficient for the establishment and maintenance of kinship (cid:415)es, and is dependent upon regular social interac(cid:415)ons and material exchange among people who are linked by shared substance (Alavi 1972; Alvi 2007; Daniel 1984; Dube 2001; Eglar 1960; Inden and Nicholas 1977; Marriot and Inden 1977; Schneider 1984). Older anthropological accounts of kinship were cri(cid:415)qued for propaga(cid:415)ng the biological/cultural divide in their analy(cid:415)cal separa(cid:415)on of biological substance and moral code as two integral, yet dis(cid:415)nct, aspects of kinship. Subsequent scholarship on kinship illustrated how ideas about what cons(cid:415)tuted the biological and cultural aspects of kinship were socially and culturally constructed (Sahlins 2013; Carsten 2003), posi(cid:415)ng a new framework for studying kinship by dis(cid:415)nguishing between ascrip(cid:415)ve and performa(cid:415)ve kinship and tracing their convergence and divergence (Bourdieu 1990; Carsten 2003). This new framework widened the horizon of kinship studies to include an inves(cid:415)ga(cid:415)on of the dangers of the transplanta(cid:415)on of kinship logics and biological metaphors in iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons of belonging to the na(cid:415)on-state (Carsten 2003; Malkki 1977). 123 Benedict Anderson demonstrated the significance of understanding the cultural founda(cid:415)ons of na(cid:415)onalism, cultural developments that enabled people to imagine community with people they had never met (Anderson 2006). Shenila Khoja-Moolji showed us how the Pakistani state legi(cid:415)mizes its sovereignty over the Pakistani na(cid:415)on by enabling Pakistani publics to imagine their rela(cid:415)onship to the state and na(cid:415)on in terms of cultural and affec(cid:415)ve registers of kinship such as those of father, mother, sons, and daughters writ large (Khoja-Moolji 2021). In shi(cid:332)ing focus from how people iden(cid:415)fy with Pakistan as a na(cid:415)on-state to how they make meaning of Pakistan as place, I found that my respondents ar(cid:415)culated more open-ended possibili(cid:415)es of iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)on present within kinship logics. The open-ended possibili(cid:415)es of kinship lie in its shi(cid:332)ing nature and its ability to appear in many guises; the family house, the sharing of food, the exchange of gi(cid:332)s (McKinnon 2016). The ease with which my respondents iden(cid:415)fied a country, a territorially bounded space, with a house, a space bounded by a physical structure with a clearly delineated interior and exterior, illustrates the significance of kinship in construc(cid:415)ng their rela(cid:415)onship to (and experience of) space and place through its capacity for forging rela(cid:415)onal (cid:415)es based on literal and metaphorical shared substances. Conclusion As the migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad altered their everyday life, elder women in the 50- 70 age range and college-educated women in the 20-30 age range from the upper middle and middle classes in Lahore paradoxically made meaning of Pakistan as the place of kinship. Even as their everyday life had changed with the departure of kin abroad, the con(cid:415)nued presence of extended family members and friends and a societal orienta(cid:415)on towards social gathering, made Pakistan for them not only the place of kinship but also as the place that enabled the doing of 124 kinship. Diasporic counterparts who were se(cid:425)led abroad but had a house in Pakistan, returned frequently, and stayed for long periods of (cid:415)me also partook in making meaning of Pakistan as the place of kinship. Making meaning of Pakistan as the place of kinship also came forth in phone conversa(cid:415)ons I had with respondents fielded from Facebook, all of whom iden(cid:415)fied themselves as belonging to the middle class in Pakistan. In conversing with them about global migra(cid:415)on from Pakistan, I found them referring to Pakistan in terms of the Urdu phrase ‘apna mulq’ (translated in English as one’s own country) and as the place of ‘apnay log’ (translated in English as one’s own people). They conflated country with house, spoke of fellow ci(cid:415)zens as one’s own people, and considered one’s country as the place where one had one’s way of life. In elabora(cid:415)ng on what they meant by one’s way of life, they pointed to overt cultural ar(cid:415)facts such as tradi(cid:415)onal food and clothes and a house of one’s own, but their narra(cid:415)ves also revealed the nontangible aspects of kinship as a social and cultural way of life. This ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)on of the meaning of Pakistan as the place of kinship came into fric(cid:415)on with other ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)ons of Pakistan as place stemming from the narra(cid:415)ves of global and local mass and digital media and diasporic views from a distance. While my respondents made meaning of Pakistan as place by privileging their lived experiences, whether in the past or present, the narra(cid:415)ves of global and local media and diasporic Pakistanis intertwined to privilege representa(cid:415)ons of Pakistan as an objec(cid:415)ve place with fixed nega(cid:415)ve a(cid:425)ributes. Pakistan was the place of discrimina(cid:415)on, the place of human rights viola(cid:415)ons, the place of the subjuga(cid:415)on of women, the place of patriarchal men, the place of authoritarian parents, the place of voiceless children, the place of forced marriages, the place of Islamic fundamentalism, the place of poverty, the place of corrup(cid:415)on, and the list goes on. Media and diasporic loca(cid:415)ons 125 were not the only sites where imperial discourses of Pakistan as place were perpetuated. As the analysis of the experience of a respondent of surrendering a green card illustrates, these imperial discourses were embodied by the female immigra(cid:415)on officer at the US consulate in Pakistan, her uncle in the United States, her peers at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, and even in the hesita(cid:415)on of her parents in Pakistan. This points to the convergence of the US immigra(cid:415)on regime, educa(cid:415)onal ins(cid:415)tutes in Pakistan, and even kinship concerns and logics with media and diasporic narra(cid:415)ves in their contribu(cid:415)on to upholding the imperial discourse of a global neoliberal order. 126 CHAPTER 5: MAINTAINING KINSHIP VIA DIGITAL COMMUNICATION Introduc(cid:415)on This chapter inves(cid:415)gates how kinship is prac(cid:415)ced despite the breakup and sca(cid:425)ering of families in a globalizing world. It looks at the role of digital connec(cid:415)vity and communica(cid:415)on in the lives of people as they strive to maintain connec(cid:415)vity and deepen connec(cid:415)ons with their rela(cid:415)ves abroad. This chapter unearths the varied ways in which people relate to digital technologies, and how that is informed by wider societal transforma(cid:415)ons and cultural values. In addi(cid:415)on to my respondents being situated within the broader contexts of a global capitalist economy, and a transna(cid:415)onal pres(cid:415)ge economy, the stories of my respondents reveal the emergence of an affec(cid:415)ve economy which shapes the way people in Pakistan use digital technologies to engage in digital communica(cid:415)on with rela(cid:415)ves abroad. Using digital technologies to maintain the global family During my (cid:415)me in the field, I came across the men(cid:415)on of family WhatsApp groups quite o(cid:332)en and soon realized that this was a common digital prac(cid:415)ce in Pakistan. My respondents spoke of WhatsApp groups where extended family members were added, and where people would drop life updates, birthday or anniversary wishes, pictures of children, and pictures of family dinners. O(cid:332)en(cid:415)mes, people would engage in friendly banter with each other on WhatsApp, recrea(cid:415)ng the euphoria of a sense of community and/or in(cid:415)macy with other family members. Addi(cid:415)onally, WhatsApp was also a pla(cid:414)orm where family members would get into heated debates about poli(cid:415)cs and/or religion. Some(cid:415)mes people had separate groups for the paternal and maternal sides of the family, especially if the parents were not related in any way and belonged to two separate ancestral families. Even if some people did not have an extended 127 family WhatsApp group, they o(cid:332)en had a group for immediate family members to facilitate communica(cid:415)on amongst themselves, whether it was with respect to everyday things, the sharing of pictures of memorable moments, engaging in emo(cid:415)onal support talk, joking around with each other, or deba(cid:415)ng about societal issues. In addi(cid:415)on to family groups, my respondents also had smaller WhatsApp groups with select rela(cid:415)ves, and these were o(cid:332)en rela(cid:415)ves they were par(cid:415)cularly close to. For example, separate WhatsApp groups of siblings or even of cousins who were more a(cid:425)ached to each other were quite common and were used to vent frustra(cid:415)ons with other family members or to gossip about family poli(cid:415)cs. This corroborates studies on the use of WhatsApp that have illustrated its everyday media(cid:415)on as a social ‘technology of life’ and its role in sustaining and shaping quo(cid:415)dian ac(cid:415)vi(cid:415)es from the personal to the economic or poli(cid:415)cal (Cruz and Harindranath 2020). The use of WhatsApp as the preferred applica(cid:415)on for crea(cid:415)ng family groups also fits with studies that have demonstrated how WhatsApp is integral to the cons(cid:415)tu(cid:415)on of ‘everyday dwelling’ and how its affordances enable people to experience a felt-life of being together (O’Hara et al 2014). Kanwal aunty lived in the house in front of ours. I had o(cid:332)en seen her walking their family dog in the lane, opening the gate to let her husband’s car in, or parking her car under the tree in front of their house when she returned from dropping and picking her children from school. Amongst our neighbors, she was one of the younger female residents, around 40 years old, and my mother kept in touch with her about what was going on in the neighborhood. Since she fit the criteria for my research respondents, my mother asked her if she would be willing to be interviewed. One day, while her father-in-law and husband were away at work, she called me to her house so that we could talk at length. Her mother-in-law was in her bedroom in the inner 128 por(cid:415)on of the house, and so Kanwal aunty and I had the privacy needed for her to answer my ques(cid:415)ons with as much ease as possible without being interrupted. Kanwal aunty was one of four sisters, and although she was born in Lahore, she had lived much of her life before marriage in Saudi Arabia where her father had worked as an accountant in the Aramco oil company. She had got married when she was rela(cid:415)vely young, in her early 20s, to her cousin in Lahore. Although she had completed a bachelor’s degree from Lahore College in psychology and English literature, Kanwal aunty had found it difficult to study further a(cid:332)er her marriage due to household responsibili(cid:415)es and had decided not to pursue further educa(cid:415)on. Her husband was a doctor, her father-in-law now a re(cid:415)red army brigadier with his own business. Together with father in law and mother in law, Kanwal aunty lived in a house in Phase 12 of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) with her husband and two sons. While she had moved in with her in-laws and husband in Lahore, her parents and sisters had immigrated to Canada from Saudi Arabia. Her parents lived in Canada for most of the year but would visit Pakistan for 2 to 3 months to escape the harshest period of winter in Canada. Therefore, Kanwal aunty got to meet her parents in person almost every year, and while they were in Canada, she stayed connected to them via WhatsApp. When I inquired about the role WhatsApp played in her life, she told me about the various family groups she was a part of and how she would coordinate her rou(cid:415)ne with that of her parents to find the perfect (cid:415)me for them to be able to talk every day. ST: “How do you use WhatsApp to keep in touch with your parents and sisters?” KL: “I use WhatsApp so much that today because our internet is not working, I don’t know who to talk to! (laughs). Our internet is not working today because our dog had bit the cable, and a(cid:332)er having registered a complaint, we are now wai(cid:415)ng for the person to come fix it. In my opinion, the role of WhatsApp has become a lot, quite a lot. I mean my children are connected with everyone else’s children, with their grandparents, everyone 129 has their own groups, and everyone is connected all the (cid:415)me, I like it very much, it has a big role to play today.” ST: “So in your everyday rou(cid:415)ne, how o(cid:332)en do you connect in this way? As soon as you wake up, before sleeping at night…I mean what is your rou(cid:415)ne?” KL: “So I definitely connect in the evening because at that (cid:415)me it is the (cid:415)me of morning over there and I can connect directly. But throughout the day, whatever thoughts I get, I just write them then at the moment (laughs), that when they will get up, they will see it. But it is absolutely necessary to connect in the evening, absolutely must. My father gets up early, my mother has a very good and deep sleep. Because he gets up early for Tahajjud or Fajr, I talk with him early, so like at even 3 or 4 here I know he will be awake and so I will do a video call. My mother likes her sleep so she keeps sleeping, but yes this is there all the (cid:415)me, as soon as I wake up, at any (cid:415)me during the day whenever I think of something, definitely in the evening. Even with my sisters this is the same.” ST: “Is there a specific (cid:415)me at which you video call?” KL: “Uhh…I think its in the evening because it is day(cid:415)me there then.” ST: “And you call everyday?” KL: “Even if the video call is not everyday but every other day, we are s(cid:415)ll always in contact via chat and voice notes.” ST: “What is the dynamic with WhatsApp groups? What happens in there?” KL: “So I have groups for both sides of my family, my immediate family and that of my in laws. So in my immediate family one, it is just us, my sisters, mother, father, while in my in laws group we have my mother in law, father in law, sister in law and brother in law and their spouses.” ST: “Do you have a sister’s only group?” KL: “Yes (laughs), in that we are always gossiping. So like something is happening over there and simultaneously we start ge(cid:427)ng messages in the group that look this person said this, that person said it like this, so at the same (cid:415)me this also starts to happen (laughs).....in this group we have our own conversa(cid:415)on, like look I went here, that person did this, for example my sister had gone to Switzerland and she said to me that guys here are so wonderful, they are so hot (laughs), and I said send me pictures. So nonsensical stuff like this that occurs among siblings. Reminders like it was mother’s birthday yesterday, did you wish her, so stuff like this happens in this group.” As digital media enabled Kanwal aunty to stay connected with her parents and sisters who were abroad, it also helped Huma aunty and Afreen aunty stay connected with their children who were abroad. Both women were within the 65-75 age range and considered the internet and digital applica(cid:415)ons, such as WhatsApp and Face(cid:415)me, as God’s blessings in this day and age which helped them to deal with sending their children away. They used the Urdu word ‘naimat’ (translated in English as God’s blessing/favor) to refer to the internet and 130 communica(cid:415)on technologies that enabled them to maintain connec(cid:415)vity. They compared it to the days of their mothers where the only ways of keeping in touch was via wri(cid:415)ng le(cid:425)ers, a correspondence that would take approximately a month, or to wait in line to access the exchange telephone which charged exorbitant rates for even a quick 3-minute interna(cid:415)onal call. Afreen aunty expressed that witnessing her grandchildren’s lives via digital media was like seeing them grow up in front of her very eyes, and when they visited her it did not feel like she did not know them. Indeed, as I spent (cid:415)me with Afreen aunty, I no(cid:415)ced that she would o(cid:332)en excuse herself and step away to take a call from one of her daughters. They had developed a system where each daughter had chosen a specific (cid:415)me each day, considering their daily rou(cid:415)ne and the (cid:415)me difference with Pakistan, to call and check up on their mother. This meant that Afreen aunty received 3 calls daily and felt like she was a part of her daughters’ lives, and they were a part of hers. This digital connec(cid:415)vity supplemented the travel that Afreen aunty and her daughters were able to undertake to meet frequently in person and thus enabled them to maintain kinship at a distance. AN: “Now there is so much ease, you can see faces, my daughter brought her 1.5 yr old son but it doesn’t seem like we didn’t see him because we saw him everyday! He played in front of us, he stood for the first (cid:415)me in front of me, also walked for the first (cid:415)me in front of me. So now there is a lot of ease as well, and strength/pa(cid:415)ence/courage also increases because of this ease today.” While family Whatsapp groups had been there since before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, during fieldwork in 2021-22, my respondents pointed to the explicit inten(cid:415)onality and increased regularity with which they connected with family members via digital apps/pla(cid:414)orms? during the pandemic years. The frequent lockdowns and regula(cid:415)on of social interac(cid:415)ons, the hal(cid:415)ng of interna(cid:415)onal travel and mobility, and the precarity and uncertainty 131 of life that had been suddenly brought into focus by the Covid-19 pandemic had been a stressful (cid:415)me for everyone. The absence of the physical presence of family members had been felt even more acutely. It was a (cid:415)me when everyone had needed support and wished to be in frequent contact with each other, resul(cid:415)ng in an increased usage of digital media to communicate with each other, par(cid:415)cularly applica(cid:415)ons/pla(cid:414)orms such as WhatsApp, Skype, and Zoom that enabled the experience of visual copresence. When I inquired what they would do on these family virtual group calls, they stated that it was mostly just asking a(cid:332)er each other and engaging in banter to the point that it became difficult to tell who was speaking with whom. In the liminality that people had suddenly been thrown into by the Covid-19 pandemic, the need for social structure was felt painfully, leading my respondents to harness digital media for recrea(cid:415)ng and reliving the family and its affect all the more intensely in virtual space. AL: “Nowadays there are a lot of ways, there is zoom, all my brothers and sisters, my siblings, every Saturday my mother and my siblings and me have a zoom mee(cid:415)ng.” ST: “Every Saturday?” AL: “Every Saturday. This started during corona. Before we used to talk individually to this or that person, but during Corona we felt life is so uncertain, this should be a regular prac(cid:415)ce. Its been now 1 and a ½ year or so. The conversa(cid:415)on easily takes an hour or more. So we coordinate a (cid:415)me right, that England it is this, America it will be this (cid:415)me, here it will be this (cid:415)me, and so we manage it that way. Whoever feels like using whichever device for this mee(cid:415)ng, my mother does it on her laptop, I do it on my phone.” In their efforts to transcend the obstacles presented in a globalizing world to prac(cid:415)cing kinship in the absence of kin, my respondents made use of digital media in a variety of ways to bridge the gap between presence and absence. The kinship prac(cid:415)ces that my respondents engaged in via digital communica(cid:415)on technologies involved establishing co-presence, engaging mul(cid:415)-sensorially (mul(cid:415) modal digital communica(cid:415)on) with an emphasis on being able to see and hear the other person, connec(cid:415)ng frequently, and establishing reciprocity. Hence, digital 132 prac(cid:415)ces that afforded the prac(cid:415)ce of kinship in these ways formed the blueprint of doing kinship in the virtual realm. These best prac(cid:415)ces included, for example, establishing presence by trying to connect in real (cid:415)me, reinforcing virtual presence by sharing in(cid:415)mate details about everyday life as well as sharing visual materials such as in(cid:415)mate pictures and videos, and taking care to establish reciprocity by connec(cid:415)ng regularly and responding to the other person. 133 The development of communica(cid:415)on technologies and the pre-condi(cid:415)ons of digital connec(cid:415)vity Figure 8. A huge billboard at Liberty Chowk adver(cid:415)sing data packages for a telecommunica(cid:415)on company Zong (cid:415)tled 'Lets get Digital' However, while access to digital media for my respondents in Lahore was ubiquitous at the (cid:415)me I was conduc(cid:415)ng fieldwork, many respondents highlighted the fact that the development of the digital media landscape in the country had come about only in the last decade or so. One of my respondents from Facebook was originally from Jhelum, a city famous for being a hub of transna(cid:415)onal labor migra(cid:415)on in Punjab. He explained that his educa(cid:415)on in Lahore was only possible because his father had emigrated to Oman to work. When I asked him 134 how he had kept in touch with his father during all these years, he gave me an insigh(cid:414)ul account of the changes in communica(cid:415)on technologies that he had grown up with and witnessed. MA: “Uhhh..I was very li(cid:425)le at the (cid:415)me (laughs). I remember that at that (cid:415)me there were no telephones in our village, very few PTCLs also, PTCLs could be found in only some of the houses. So I remember the first (cid:415)me we got a le(cid:425)er from our father. We were so happy that father had gone and wri(cid:425)en us a le(cid:425)er (smiling). So this kept on going for like the first 2 to 3 years, then PTCL became quite common. Our village got a PTCL, PTCL used to be in the village next to us but not in our village. So when PTCL came, a(cid:332)er that also came the internet. So first got fixed the PTCL, then the internet, and first I think it used to be viber etc. and then whatsapp etc. began to be used and so that’s how we kept in contact with him. In the start, it was le(cid:425)ers, for like 2 to 3 years or maybe even more. It took almost 1 month for the le(cid:425)ers to come and go, 15 days his le(cid:425)er used to reach us and 15 days our le(cid:425)er would take to reach him, there would be a gap of 1 month. A(cid:332)er PTCL came, we started talking on the phone. Whatsapp used to be banned there, I think it s(cid:415)ll is, so first there would be only messaging, I think first there wasn’t even an op(cid:415)on for calling on whatsapp, for calling we used to use viber. Then EMO came, and now I think even on whatsapp etc. VPN and all must be being used. Now its online calling so now its more easier. We used skype for quite a while as well. Now we have calls daily almost. Voice messaging, text, and video calling. Whenever one is free, we just send voice messages, deliver voice messages, and whenever one gets (cid:415)me then one replies. Otherwise, obviously, when he gets free a(cid:332)er duty (cid:415)me, our (cid:415)me gap with there is 1 hour, we are 1 hour ahead, they are GMT plus 4, Pakistan is GMT plus 5, our 9 o’clock is their 8 o’clock. So around this (cid:415)me his 8 p.m. when he comes back from duty and sits down to eat dinner, he calls. Facebook is not used that much, over there WhatsApp and EMO is used more.” Naila, an MPhil student at Forman Chris(cid:415)an University belonging to an upper middle- class family, told me how it had been difficult to maintain connec(cid:415)vity with her maternal aunt a(cid:332)er her migra(cid:415)on to Dubai in 2008. Naila had been li(cid:425)le at the (cid:415)me her aunt had migrated and had therefore been unbothered about maintaining connec(cid:415)on with people who were no longer around her. Furthermore, and this is the significant point here, her house did not have an internet connec(cid:415)on (cid:415)ll 2011 that would have enabled her to maintain connec(cid:415)vity. They only had a telephone line and could only get in touch with her maternal aunt through a brief phone call because of the high cost of interna(cid:415)onal calling at that (cid:415)me. While her aunt visited them in 135 Pakistan every year, the (cid:415)me they were able to spend together had been too short for them to establish a deep emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)on. Hence, (cid:415)ll they got the internet connec(cid:415)on, in the intervening years an insurmountable sort of distance had crept into their rela(cid:415)onship. Reminiscing about her first mobile phone, Naila recalled that even when they had an internet connec(cid:415)on and digital applica(cid:415)ons, their communica(cid:415)on with their maternal aunt in Dubai had not been smooth due to the UAE’s ban on WhatsApp. There were alterna(cid:415)ves such as using a VPN to connect via WhatsApp or using other applica(cid:415)ons such as Skype, but the fact that you had to go through so many hoops to get connected, deterred them from being in frequent contact with her aunt in Dubai. Hailing from a middle-class family with both her siblings having moved abroad, Faiza told me that she had what she referred to as tradi(cid:415)onal minded parents who were not that tech savvy, even in comparison to other people in their age group. Her parents thought that technology was a waste of (cid:415)me and money and did not like how everyone today was on their phones 24/7. This is a very common genera(cid:415)onal discourse on technology in Pakistan where young people that have grown up with the development of the internet and communica(cid:415)on technologies are reprimanded for their excessive use of technology to the detriment of in person presence and social rela(cid:415)ons. This discourse constructs young people as glued to their screens and losing their ability to par(cid:415)cipate in real life. The online world is seen as fake, while the offline world is considered real, crea(cid:415)ng a hierarchy between the tangible and the virtual, the elder and the younger genera(cid:415)on. This discourse establishes a hierarchy by moralizing the use of technology along genera(cid:415)onal lines, thereby enabling the elder genera(cid:415)on to maintain their authorita(cid:415)ve power. Such a discourse obscures the fact that virtual space has its own 136 materiali(cid:415)es (algorithms, etc.) and that in a globalizing world the online world intersects with the offline world and is part and parcel of how people live out their social and cultural lives in the current day and age. Thus, despite their espousal of this discourse, Faiza’s parents were forced to reckon with digital communica(cid:415)on technologies and gain some level of digital literacy. Her mother knew how to make a call, and send a text message on a cellphone, but she could not engage in the rapid text culture of WhatsApp. Her father was be(cid:425)er than her mother at using the phone and would occasionally send forwards or a meme relevant to them as a family on their family WhatsApp group. Some(cid:415)mes this would ins(cid:415)gate her and/or her brother to begin a long discussion on the family WhatsApp group, while at other (cid:415)mes she would let her father and brother argue amongst themselves and she would take it up with her brother in the sibling's WhatsApp group. Her father was the most ac(cid:415)ve member of the family WhatsApp group but he used it only occasionally. Hence, not only was the possibility of maintaining more frequent digital connec(cid:415)vity with rela(cid:415)ves abroad rela(cid:415)vely new, but it also relied on a host of factors such as access to internet and communica(cid:415)on technologies, na(cid:415)onal and interna(cid:415)onal rules and regula(cid:415)ons, the life stage, age group, and digital literacy of the people trying to connect. Digital communica(cid:415)on with rela(cid:415)ves abroad and best prac(cid:415)ces Not only was the ability to establish connec(cid:415)vity via digital media affected by a mul(cid:415)tude of factors, even if you were able to establish connec(cid:415)vity, it did not necessarily translate into deep, emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons with family members. Faiza told me about the communica(cid:415)on and emo(cid:415)onal gap that had emerged with her brother who had moved to the United States to pursue a master’s in law and was now working there. Even though he had a 137 mobile phone and access to an internet connec(cid:415)on and was digitally literate in how popular communica(cid:415)on applica(cid:415)ons worked, he would not establish connec(cid:415)vity with them as frequently as she would have liked. Furthermore, he had exited out of many of their common family WhatsApp groups and hardly ever shared details or pictures of his daily life in America. It also took a lot of persuasion by their mother to make him call someone for condolences or congratulatory purposes. He had become so distant that he had had a major medical procedure, and he had only called them right before he went into the hospital. Their mother had been so worried that she had contacted his friends in the United States and asked them to go check in on him. With a hint of indigna(cid:415)on in her voice, Faiza told me that instead of feeling grateful he had been angry at their mother for making such a big deal about this! Research on transna(cid:415)onal migra(cid:415)on has demonstrated the remote sensing and emo(cid:415)onal labor that is undertaken by family members who have emigrated, as well as those who remain in the home country, to keep abreast with each other’s well-being.(Berg 2015; Madinou and Miller 2012) It has illustrated how family members, abroad and at home, share only selec(cid:415)ve aspects of their lives, censoring out those details which they think might worry the other person. Furthermore, it has also illustrated how work schedules, in countries such as the United States, and (cid:415)me differences between places, makes it difficult for people in different loca(cid:415)ons to maintain constant connec(cid:415)vity. Due to her brother’s lack of sharing in(cid:415)mate details about his everyday life in America, Faiza felt that her deep connec(cid:415)on with her brother had become a(cid:425)enuated. She felt like she had an idea of the big things going on in his life but was clueless about the everyday par(cid:415)culars that were part of how he lived out his daily existence. She expressed that it felt like they were all living a very sca(cid:425)ered life with just enough 138 connec(cid:415)vity to maintain their rela(cid:415)onship at a surface level, but not enough to be able to maintain a consistent deep emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)on. The inability of digital technologies and digital communica(cid:415)on to fulfill the demands of presence that kinship requires complements studies on the use of the internet and digital media technologies which illustrate how connec(cid:415)ng online supplements connec(cid:415)ng offline, rather than virtual networks replacing social networks in the real world (Castells 2010; Uimonen 2013). Resen(cid:414)ul towards her brother for being unable to prac(cid:415)ce kinship properly via the use of digital communica(cid:415)on technologies, Faiza shared with me her surprise at the intensity of his reac(cid:415)on towards their niece during a video call. They had a sister who lived in Germany and who had recently had a baby daughter. Faiza kept frequently in touch with her sister in Germany, who not only reciprocated in their online communica(cid:415)on, but also visited Pakistan more frequently than her brother. Her brother had been unable to meet their niece in person (cid:415)ll now and had only seen her on video call. During one such video call, their niece gestured as if trying to take him out of the phone, and he started to cry! Faiza had been astounded by this reac(cid:415)on as her brother rarely became emo(cid:415)onal when he was talking to them and was usually irritated by the constant a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on demanded by family groups on WhatsApp. He had been asked by their sister in Germany if he wanted to be removed from all family WhatsApp groups since they disturbed his peace so much. Even though he was not ac(cid:415)ve on them, he had requested to be allowed to stay a passive par(cid:415)cipant as he wanted to retain his access to pictures and videos of his niece. The underlying principle that shaped the blueprint for prac(cid:415)cing digital kinship, therefore, was the recrea(cid:415)on of kinship affect. This was most effec(cid:415)vely engendered by real 139 (cid:415)me presence, consistent connec(cid:415)vity, the sharing of in(cid:415)mate and visual details about everyday life and establishing reciprocity in digital communica(cid:415)on. These were the norma(cid:415)ve ways of prac(cid:415)cing digital kinship, and anyone unable to keep up with these standards or reciprocate similarly was resented for their lack of effort towards maintaining kinship. Faiza’s brother could not keep in touch in these ways, and it felt as if he was disregarding his kinship du(cid:415)es and obliga(cid:415)ons. His unstable digital connec(cid:415)vity with his family was considered one of the many signs of his laxity in his care towards them. For example, Faiza complained that even though he contributed to household expenses, he would send varying amounts every month instead of a fixed monthly sum, adding to their percep(cid:415)on of him as an inconsistent and unreliable source of support. Rela(cid:415)ng to me how her brother had promised to send her on a trip to Turkey as a thank you for all that she did for their parents, Faiza told me how she had jokingly admonished him for trying to buy her services in taking on the care taking responsibili(cid:415)es for their parents, a responsibility that was supposed to be primarily shouldered by the son in the family. By refusing to see her brother’s proposi(cid:415)on of sending her on a trip to Turkey as a thank you gi(cid:332) for taking care of their parents, Faiza refused to see the gi(cid:332) in terms of its affec(cid:415)ve value and instead saw it as a commodifica(cid:415)on of her labour towards the family. By declining her brother’s offer, she underscored the indispensability of her brother’s kinship obliga(cid:415)ons towards the family. Sharing digital ar(cid:415)facts to express affec(cid:415)on However, although Faiza was cri(cid:415)cal of her brother’s efforts at maintaining kinship via digital communica(cid:415)on, she also recognized that the norms of maintaining kinship via digital communica(cid:415)on were changing. Sharing memes was also a way for Faiza to connect with her siblings abroad. Whenever she came across a relatable meme on the internet, she would share 140 it on the siblings WhatsApp group. Recalling the communica(cid:415)on and emo(cid:415)onal gap that had emerged with her brother, she confessed that even though her brother would o(cid:332)en not reply or react to the memes she would send, she s(cid:415)ll considered sending memes to him as a way of communica(cid:415)ng with him. Her parents, who complained about her brother’s lack of effort at staying connected with the family, did not understand that there were different ways of communica(cid:415)ng. For her, just the act of sending a meme was communica(cid:415)on, as it implied that she had thought of the person to whom she sent it, and trusted that they had seen it. Although her brother’s lack of reciprocity in reac(cid:415)ng to the memes she sent, and more generally her siblings’ lack of effort in ini(cid:415)a(cid:415)ng contact bothered Faiza, the act of sharing a meme with her siblings s(cid:415)ll made her feel emo(cid:415)onally connected with them. Limor Shifman defines internet memes as “…...(a) a group of digital items sharing common characteris(cid:415)cs of content, form, and/or stance; (b) that were created with awareness of each other; and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the internet by many users.” (Shifman 2014, 8). While I did not get the opportunity to collect specific memes from Faiza, being privy to some of the popular digital content circulated in the mediascape of people who associated with Pakistan, I o(cid:332)en came across memes that were a way for people to engage in social commentary. A screenshot from a series of images shared on Facebook by an acquaintance in Lahore illustrates a popular meme in circula(cid:415)on at the (cid:415)me I was conduc(cid:415)ng fieldwork. I came across a similar meme being shared on WhatsApp as well, as a tweet rather than as an image, poin(cid:415)ng to the meme’s variability and circula(cid:415)on on mul(cid:415)ple pla(cid:414)orms. The meme juxtaposes the US flag with the flag of Pakistan and accompanies that with the juxtaposi(cid:415)on of one-line sentences that illustrate how the same thing is expressed in different 141 ways in the two countries owing to cultural and contextual differences. However, the meme does not do this in a benign way, but rather its structural format carefully renders a hierarchy between the culture of the US and the culture of Pakistan, rendering a comical commentary on the la(cid:425)er. It situates the US flag above the Pakistani one, and establishes the statement related to the US as the norma(cid:415)ve one, with the statement related to Pakistan a(cid:425)emp(cid:415)ng to convey the absurdity of how things worked in Pakistan. One of the varia(cid:415)ons of this meme, for example, juxtaposes how a real estate agent in the US is a real estate agent, whereas in Pakistan most real estate agents are re(cid:415)red army officers revealing the unfair monopoliza(cid:415)on of land ownership by the Pakistani military. Likewise, another varia(cid:415)on comments on the ease of direct communica(cid:415)on among the sexes in the US, where a girl will say ‘I don’t like you’ in a straigh(cid:414)orward manner to a boy she is not interested in, while in Pakistan a girl will assign the kin category of ‘brother’ to communicate her disinterest in a boy (see Figure.9). 142 Figure 9. Memes in circula(cid:415)on comparing culture in the US and Pakistan Another example of a popular meme in circula(cid:415)on at that (cid:415)me is an image that looks like a screenshot of Donald Trump’s twi(cid:425)er account (see Figure.10). Donald Trump had won the 2016 US presiden(cid:415)al elec(cid:415)ons, shaking the liberal democra(cid:415)c image of America. Trump was known for his antagonism towards immigrant popula(cid:415)ons, Muslims in par(cid:415)cular, via his 143 campaign speeches and ini(cid:415)a(cid:415)on of a ban on immigrants from Muslim countries. Globally, the elec(cid:415)on of Donald Trump in the United States had been met with smugness, as his elec(cid:415)on was thought to bring out into the open the hypocrisy of American imperialism which touted America as the land of the free and as a country for immigrants. The meme depicts Trump’s twi(cid:425)er account with the handle (cid:415)tled @realDonaldTrump, with an invoca(cid:415)on from the Quran in Arabic which translates to ‘with help from Allah, let victory be near’. The meme can be read in a variety of ways depending on the context of recep(cid:415)on. From a diasporic Muslim loca(cid:415)on, it can be read in light of the terror faced by Muslim communi(cid:415)es in the United States at the elec(cid:415)on of an an(cid:415)-Muslim president, employing humour to make light of the situa(cid:415)on by posi(cid:415)ng Trump in actuality as a convert to Islam who relied on Islamic invoca(cid:415)ons to God to win the elec(cid:415)on. The meme, from this point of view, conjures a world where the power dynamic is reversed by enfolding Trump into the Muslim community. From the loca(cid:415)on of people residing in Muslim majority countries that have suffered from American imperialism, it can be read as a triumphant celebra(cid:415)on of the unveiling of the true face of the United States whereby Trump’s elec(cid:415)on is a victory for Muslims worldwide by exposing American imperialism and hypocrisy. Figure 10. Meme depic(cid:415)ng the US Presiden(cid:415)al race with candidate Donlad Trump's twi(cid:425)er handle twee(cid:415)ng a popular Quranic verse in Arabic that prays for victory 144 Sharing memes is an integral part of digital culture in a globalizing world. Their malleability, ability to dis(cid:415)l complex issues, communica(cid:415)ve efficacy by using devices such as humor and sarcasm, interpre(cid:415)ve openness, visual potency, and shareability, make internet memes a special type of digital ar(cid:415)fact. All these quali(cid:415)es enable memes to be widely circulated, helping people living in different physical loca(cid:415)ons experience communitas in the virtual realm via the sharing of a digital ar(cid:415)fact. The sharing of memes with larger audiences, such as pos(cid:415)ng on your profile on Facebook or on a WhatsApp group, enables people to enact their iden(cid:415)ty and par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in global digital cultures. For my respondents, however, the act of sending a meme to specific people in their network operated in terms of strengthening already exis(cid:415)ng bonds. Memes were sent to only those people with whom one had a close rela(cid:415)onship, whether they were family members or friends. My respondents explained that they sent memes to those people whom they knew in(cid:415)mately enough to be aware of their interests and type of humor. Not only did my respondents state that they shared memes with people they had a close rela(cid:415)onship with, but they also stressed that they shared those memes that had some relevance for the other person or for their rela(cid:415)onship with the other person. Thus, for example, the sharing of a poli(cid:415)cal meme with another person could be because of your shared poli(cid:415)cal ideologies or even a shared interest in deba(cid:415)ng/following poli(cid:415)cs. Naila, an Mphil student at Forman Chris(cid:415)an College, explained how her rela(cid:415)ves had moved abroad while she was s(cid:415)ll young, and when the internet and communica(cid:415)on technologies were not as widespread as they were today. Due to these limita(cid:415)ons, it had been difficult for her to stay in touch and establish a deep emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)on with her rela(cid:415)ves abroad. However, over the years as her cousins from Dubai had visited Pakistan frequently, and 145 she had go(cid:425)en to witness her younger female cousin grow up, she had managed to form a bond with her by sharing memes. As her younger cousin had grown up, Naila had found it easier to connect with her over pop culture like K-pop, in addi(cid:415)on to assuming the role of an elder sister with whom one could discuss concerns related to university life and boys. Whenever Naila came across a meme that she thought her cousin would relate to, she would send it to her, and upon her reply would feel good that her cousin had enjoyed it. When I asked her what sharing memes meant for her rela(cid:415)onship with her rela(cid:415)ves abroad, she responded: NS: “For me as a person I don’t associate meaning to my rela(cid:415)onships based on how much I talk to them. It is not like I will only become friends with you if I am talking with you 24/7 365 days, that is not my criteria. But you know when I see a meme and I think that Alizeh would find it interes(cid:415)ng or that Alizeh would have a laugh on it, I think and just share it. And then she likes it and she replies me back so I feel oh she liked it, she had a good (cid:415)me, so that’s just how it happens, I feel like the thought…the value I have when it comes to an exchange of memes is that I think of her or she thinks of me. If she finds something relevant that Sherry apa (Urdu term for elder sister) would like this, it’s just the thought that counts.” It was not just memes that were shared by my respondents but other digital ar(cid:415)facts as well. Seher, a thirty-year-old woman working as a research assistant at Informa(cid:415)on Technology University, had an elder sister living in the United States. She told me that she talked to her sister frequently via WhatsApp, and that her communica(cid:415)on with her sister was integral to helping her make major life decisions. For example, a(cid:332)er comple(cid:415)ng her master’s in development studies from Informa(cid:415)on Technology University, Seher shared feeling paralyzed as she tried to decide her next major step in life. She could either gain further higher educa(cid:415)on by pursuing a PhD, or she could get married and se(cid:425)le down. She expressed how she felt stuck between these two op(cid:415)ons. During the (cid:415)me I spent with her, she shared her fears with me about entering her 30s and going for a PhD abroad which was sure to delay and complicate her 146 marriage prospects. It was her sister who helped her think through her approach to this dilemma. Since she did not yet have a concrete acceptable marriage proposal within reach, her sister advised her to work on things that were in her control, i.e. her career. Since Seher wished to do a PhD and work in academia in future, her sister advised her to focus on applying for PhD programs rather than deferring applying in an(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on of coming across a suitable marriage prospect in Pakistan. It was in light of this conversa(cid:415)on that Seher shared with me the digital ar(cid:415)fact she had shared with her sister a few days ago. Figure 11. Tweet in Roman Urdu expressing frustra(cid:415)on at the difficul(cid:415)es of entering into an arranged marriage or falling into a love marriage, for young people in South Asia The digital ar(cid:415)fact was a snapshot of someone’s tweet on their twi(cid:425)er account commen(cid:415)ng on the social and cultural issue of arranged marriages in Pakistan while simultaneously cri(cid:415)quing the western concept of love marriages. The image I collected displayed the twi(cid:425)er handle and name of the person who wrote the tweet, but the image associated with the person’s account was blurred. As this was the account of a young woman, the blurred picture indicates the value of female purdah that must have been important to the 147 person who originally produced this digital ar(cid:415)fact by taking a snapshot of this tweet and sending it into circula(cid:415)on. In Roman Urdu, the text image ques(cid:415)ons why arranged marriages have become so complicated that they make the object of marriage itself difficult to a(cid:425)ain. With a hint of sa(cid:415)re, it also cri(cid:415)cizes the concept of love marriage, sta(cid:415)ng that for God’s sake please stop complica(cid:415)ng the process for arranged marriages because I do not seem to be falling in love with anyone, thereby ruling out the op(cid:415)on of a love marriage as an alterna(cid:415)ve. In the end it communicates despera(cid:415)on and frustra(cid:415)on at this situa(cid:415)on where one just ends up feeling stuck and wan(cid:415)ng to cry. The internet is an inven(cid:415)ve space where people who do not hold ins(cid:415)tu(cid:415)onal hegemonic power can express themselves and cri(cid:415)cize the structures and systems which are shaping their lives. By way of example, the digital ar(cid:415)fact Seher shares with her sister communicates the tensions young people from Pakistan are facing with regards to living their lives within the fric(cid:415)on of the global and the local. Local cultural dynamics, such as arranged marriages, have been upset and become more difficult to achieve in a globalizing world, and the global alterna(cid:415)ve in its place of a westernized concept of love marriage does not hold much promise as it is en(cid:415)rely dependent upon chance. Thus, the digital ar(cid:415)fact communicates not only the imperial discourses of global culture, but also the rigidity and fixity of discourses in local culture, and the stagna(cid:415)on this can cause for young people from Pakistan as a result of their imbrica(cid:415)on within both these discourses. By sharing this digital ar(cid:415)fact with her sister abroad, Seher was able to communicate her emo(cid:415)onal state to her sister with very li(cid:425)le effort due to its visual nature, use of sa(cid:415)re, and concise wording. Furthermore, her sister’s experience of divorce and a second marriage that had been contracted transna(cid:415)onally made this digital 148 ar(cid:415)fact well suited for sharing with her sister who would be able to empathize with the situa(cid:415)on this digital ar(cid:415)fact was trying to communicate. While speaking with Rabia, a recent graduate from LUMS and a Research Assistant at Informa(cid:415)on Technology University, I asked for examples of the types of digital ar(cid:415)facts that circulated between her and her cousins in the United States. She showed me an image of a Facebook post from a global public news broadcas(cid:415)ng channel with the headline ‘A ‘bored’ security guard destroys a $1 million pain(cid:415)ng by drawing eyes on it’. She explained how her cousin shared this with her as it seemed like the kind of nonchalant thing Rabia might do when she was bored without realizing the disastrous consequences of her ac(cid:415)ons, illustra(cid:415)ng that the cousin knew Rabia at the level of the idiosyncrasies of her individual personality. Rabia’s cousin could have shared this digital ar(cid:415)fact with her for a variety of reasons. It could have been that Rabia and her cousin shared a common interest in the work of the ar(cid:415)st to whom this pain(cid:415)ng belonged, or it could have been their shared interest in following the news page of TRT World. However, both Rabia and her cousin found meaning in the exchange of this digital ar(cid:415)fact by relega(cid:415)ng its original context into the background and recontextualizing it within the context of their rela(cid:415)onship, illustra(cid:415)ng how affec(cid:415)ve kinship was at work. 149 Figure 12. A screenshot of a Facebook post from an infotainment news agency in which a respondent's cousin had tagged her Maryam, an MPhil student at the University of Punjab, shared with me that even though she had several rela(cid:415)ves abroad, she was closest to her younger paternal uncle and his wife in Dubai. Her uncle was deeply concerned about her educa(cid:415)on and would involve himself in asking about her progress and encouraging and suppor(cid:415)ng her in her pursuit of higher educa(cid:415)on. His wife had gone to the University of Punjab for her Masters in Educa(cid:415)on, the same university Maryam was now a(cid:425)ending, and this common ground helped her and Maryam to form a strong bond as well. Furthermore, his wife was very friendly and stayed frequently in touch, and Maryam and her would connect almost every day, sharing mundane details as well 150 as significant ones about their lives with each other. To help me get an idea of what this everyday connec(cid:415)vity looked like, she showed me how just the other day her aunt had been grocery shopping and came across an oil brand that had the same name as her, Maryam. She immediately took a picture and shared it with her. Not only had this made Maryam laugh but it showed that her aunt had remembered her upon seeing this. The phrase ‘it is the thought that counts’ is o(cid:332)en used in relevance to the exchange of gi(cid:332)s. Whether employed by the giver in search of an appropriate gi(cid:332), and/or the receiver in acknowledgement of receiving a gi(cid:332), the phrase emphasizes the affec(cid:415)ve value of gi(cid:332)s over their material or use value. By doing this, the phrase redirects the focus of the gi(cid:332) exchange from the material object being exchanged to the rela(cid:415)onship between the giver and receiver. Furthermore, my respondents also used the phrase when conversing with me about what the exchange of material objects with their rela(cid:415)ves abroad meant to them. The exchange of memes among my respondents and their friends and family members, therefore, can also be understood in a similar manner. My respondents sent memes as digital ar(cid:415)facts to people with whom they had a close rela(cid:415)onship. The norms which structured this exchange of memes were like those that structured the exchange of gi(cid:332)s among people who had close rela(cid:415)onships, such as among kin, among good friends, or even among people of the same village or neighborhood. These norms were structured according to the values of reciprocity, maintaining regular exchange and contact, and fostering in(cid:415)macy among those who par(cid:415)cipated in the exchange. Conclusion The exigencies of kinship as a cultural prac(cid:415)ce connec(cid:415)ng people living near each other shaped the use of digital technologies and digital communica(cid:415)on with rela(cid:415)ves and friends 151 abroad. These best prac(cid:415)ces included, for example, establishing presence by trying to connect in real (cid:415)me, reinforcing virtual presence by sharing in(cid:415)mate details about everyday life as well as sharing visual materials such as family pictures and videos, and taking care to establish reciprocity by connec(cid:415)ng regularly and responding to the other person. Digital communica(cid:415)on with kin and friends was understood as embedded within kinship rela(cid:415)ons, and the exchange of digital ar(cid:415)facts with kin or friends was understood in the logic of gi(cid:332) exchange. The exchange of digital ar(cid:415)facts took place with people one knew and was close to, and digital ar(cid:415)facts were seen in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve value for kinship. This some(cid:415)mes meant a decontextualiza(cid:415)on of the visual digital ar(cid:415)fact and its recontextualiza(cid:415)on within specific rela(cid:415)onships to make it do the work of kinship. However, digital connec(cid:415)vity alone with rela(cid:415)ves abroad did not lead to strong emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons. The prac(cid:415)ce of kinship via digital communica(cid:415)on technologies had to be supplemented with in person interac(cid:415)ons for long periods of (cid:415)me to establish deep emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons. 152 CHAPTER 6: MAINTAINING KINSHIP VIA CONSUMPTION AND MATERIAL EXCHANGE Introduc(cid:415)on This chapter shi(cid:332)s the lens to the workings of a global capitalist economy in Pakistan which is accompanied by the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture as a counter-commodity. It looks at how the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture in Pakistan enables local businesses to carve a niche in the global capitalist economy by the produc(cid:415)on and circula(cid:415)on of cultural commodi(cid:415)es, par(cid:415)cularly in the circuits established with diasporic communi(cid:415)es from Pakistan. The hyper produc(cid:415)on, circula(cid:415)on, and exchange of cultural commodi(cid:415)es builds, and reinforces, a global neoliberal percep(cid:415)on of Pakistan as the place of culture among diasporic communi(cid:415)es. Next, this chapter explores what global consump(cid:415)on prac(cid:415)ces, and the circula(cid:415)on of commodi(cid:415)es, mean for the poli(cid:415)cs of place in a global neoliberal order. Lastly, this chapter looks at gi(cid:332) exchange between people in Lahore and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad to understand the emergence of an affec(cid:415)ve economy of kinship. Globaliza(cid:415)on in Pakistan and the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture With globaliza(cid:415)on imploding in Pakistan through the inroads made by the global capitalist economy, and the emergence of local retail brands and shopping malls, the way people in Pakistan relate to material things has also undergone transforma(cid:415)ons over the years. Over (cid:415)me, developments in the global capitalist economy, whereby produc(cid:415)on became outsourced to developing countries, has led to the dominance of mul(cid:415)na(cid:415)onal companies and an influx of commodi(cid:415)es in local markets. In more recent years, the mushrooming of Chinese low-cost retail stores, such as Miniso, and the opening of small-scale local businesses have made commodi(cid:415)es increasingly accessible to a growing new middle class in South Asia. In the 153 shopping malls of Lahore, where the older established upper and upper-middle classes come to shop, it is an interes(cid:415)ng sight to witness people from even lower socioeconomic classes roaming around and thus partaking in the experience of shopping as leisure even if they cannot afford to buy anything. The development of a commodity market in Pakistan has therefore brought with it the values of a global capitalist economy centered around individual choice and consump(cid:415)on as an end in itself. William Mazzarella’s work on consumerism and adver(cid:415)sing in India demonstrates how this has s(cid:415)mulated local producers to develop culture as a counter commodity to maintain their edge in a global capitalist economy where they must compete with giant mul(cid:415)na(cid:415)onal corpora(cid:415)ons (Mazzarella 2003; 2004). Hence, we see the precipita(cid:415)on in Pakistan of certain types of industries such as large-scale retail brands for tradi(cid:415)onal clothes, restaurants and businesses related to food, and businesses providing beauty services such as salons (known as beauty parlors in local parlance). The development of culture as a counter commodity in a globalizing Pakistan implies the commodifica(cid:415)on of those aspects of culture that are tangible and easily objec(cid:415)fiable, such as clothes, food, language, etc. The commodifica(cid:415)on of culture in Pakistan results in the accelerated produc(cid:415)on, purchase, and exchange of cultural commodi(cid:415)es, reifying and reinforcing the percep(cid:415)on of Pakistan as the place of one’s culture. The commodifica(cid:415)on of certain aspects of culture not only enables local businesses to create a niche for themselves in the global capitalist economy, but also facilitates par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in the culture of global consumerism alongside the reenactment of cultural iden(cid:415)ty via the consump(cid:415)on of culture. Moreover, in a globalizing economy, the sphere of influence of cultural commodi(cid:415)es is 154 not just limited to people in a par(cid:415)cular place. Rather it expands to cater to the needs of diasporic counterparts around the world. Over the years, brand names in Pakistan such as Junaid Jamshed or Shan have developed product lines for export, opened global branches of their store in different countries, or established interna(cid:415)onal shipping rates to cater to people living abroad. However, access to these cultural commodi(cid:415)es from Pakistan is regulated by factors, such as the price at which they are sold abroad, which vary from country to country. Hence, only people from a specific socioeconomic class, in a specific place, can afford these commodi(cid:415)es. Purnima Mankekar has discussed the reifica(cid:415)on of Indian culture and iden(cid:415)ty via people’s associa(cid:415)on with affec(cid:415)ve objects sold in Indian grocery stores in the San Franciso Bay area. She states that in a diasporic se(cid:427)ng, even a mundane everyday object, such as a shampoo from India, can enable people to live out their iden(cid:415)ty as Indian and feel closer to their culture. In India, a shampoo is just a shampoo, but abroad it is the very symbol of one’s iden(cid:415)ty as Indian and one’s par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in Indian culture (Mankekar 2015). When I asked my respondents in Lahore what type of things their rela(cid:415)ves took with them when they came for a visit to Pakistan, they named cultural commodi(cid:415)es such as tradi(cid:415)onal clothes and jewelry, tradi(cid:415)onal footwear, as well as cultural foodstuff. I remember a friend of mine at Michigan State showing off a ‘kurta’ (Urdu word for tradi(cid:415)onal long shirt) emblazoned with a sentence in the Urdu script. Laughing, she told me that she had requested her parents in Pakistan to send this to her, and they had been horrified at this new trend in clothing! Indeed, once I liked a page on Instagram adver(cid:415)sing tradi(cid:415)onal clothes, my newsfeed became flooded with Pakistani models decked in the most beau(cid:415)ful ou(cid:414)its, making me want to buy them even if I did not usually 155 spend on such consumer items. This illustrates the significance of cultural commodi(cid:415)es for diasporic communi(cid:415)es in reenac(cid:415)ng their cultural selves via consump(cid:415)on. The poli(cid:415)cs of place and consump(cid:415)on in a global neoliberal order; changing regimes of value and fric(cid:415)on in a globalizing world I met Naila during my (cid:415)me as visi(cid:415)ng faculty at the Informa(cid:415)on Technology University (ITU) in Lahore. During one of our chats as we waited for students to show up, I told her about my research project and its criteria for selec(cid:415)ng research par(cid:415)cipants. An introverted personality with a bold sense of style and curly brown hair made her conspicuous and appear as an undergraduate student, I found Naila to be a kind and understanding soul who empathized with my research troubles. To my surprise, I found out that she was an MPhil student at the Forman Chris(cid:415)an University (FCU), and in her early 30s like me. She immediately agreed to an interview. On the day we had scheduled the interview, she led me to a quite spot in the university parking structure to make sure that we would not be interrupted and would be able to get a clear recording. Standing, we leaned against the concrete, and looked at the road far down below us, as an occasional light breeze swept our faces as they sweat in the dry Lahore summer heat. I found Naila to be a forthcoming respondent with keen observa(cid:415)ons and an ability to ar(cid:415)culate them well. Naila had several rela(cid:415)ves abroad, a maternal aunt and her family in Dubai, a paternal uncle and his family in Australia, and a paternal uncle who had migrated to Italy. Speaking of her maternal aunt living in Dubai, Naila stated that some(cid:415)mes rela(cid:415)ves abroad had a superiority complex. When I prodded her as to what she meant by that, she clarified that although it was not generalizable across all her rela(cid:415)ves abroad, she did get this feeling of being patronized 156 from her maternal aunt and cousins in Dubai. If they were able to afford designer clothes from Pakistan, like those designed by Sania Maska(cid:415)ya (a high fashion brand), and she chose to wear clothes from retail brands like Khaadi or Sapphire, they would make her feel as if she was not as elite as them. Similarly, if she had a cellphone from another brand that was not as pres(cid:415)gious or expensive as their Apple Iphone, her cousins thought she was not ‘cool’ enough. When I asked her what exactly they would say to her, she explained that they never said these things explicitly, but their insinua(cid:415)ons were present in the o(cid:301)and comments they made, and the intense reac(cid:415)ons they had on visi(cid:415)ng Pakistan and encountering the difference in lifestyle there. Her maternal aunt’s family would comment on how poor Pakistan was, on the shortage of electricity in the country, its lack of development, its lack of cleanliness, and so on and so forth. Naila related to me how over (cid:415)me she had come to make peace with their a(cid:427)tude as something stemming from their lack of awareness of how things worked in a third world country such as Pakistan. The early years of her rela(cid:415)onship with them, however, she confessed, had been sacrificed to their condescension and the damage it had done to her self-esteem. Naila shared that even her not being able to gain acceptance at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), one of the country’s most pres(cid:415)gious universi(cid:415)es, was seen as a mark of her lack of dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)on. Her maternal aunt and her kids in Dubai seemed to have this idea that you could not be elite unless you went to LUMS, never mind that she had only applied there under peer pressure from her friends who were trying to get admi(cid:425)ed there. Furthermore, she could only apply in economics at LUMS, as that was the only major the university offered which was remotely connected to her interest in public policy. In Lahore, only Forman Chris(cid:415)an University (FCU), another well-known university but lacking the pres(cid:415)ge that 157 was accorded to LUMS, offered a major in public policy. Naila told me that she was glad that she got admi(cid:425)ed at FCU rather than at LUMS. Her aunt and her cousins, however, failed to see this as a ma(cid:425)er of her choice and instead linked it to her failure to measure up to elite standards. Naila, thereby, countered her aunt’s judgment by emphasizing the primacy of her choice and autonomy as an individual, values associated with a global neoliberal order and capitalist economy. Her rela(cid:415)ves’ condescension of everything she did, from the type of clothes she wore to the university she a(cid:425)ended, seemed to her to blend seamlessly with their contempt for Pakistan as a place. Spaces within Pakistan such as LUMS and designer brands such as Sania Maska(cid:415)ya were so far removed from the global consensus on Pakistan as a place that they were seen as spaces of excep(cid:415)on and o(cid:332)en associated with diaspora/global space/abroad instead. Similarly, her rela(cid:415)ve’s sense of superiority aligned with the concep(cid:415)ons of a par(cid:415)cular class about what Dubai was like as a place, a place where her rela(cid:415)ves now lived and which they could now lay claim to. Judging by the way Naila dressed, and following her wedding pictures on Instagram, I concluded that her family would classify as upper middle class. I asked her if there really was a huge financial difference between her family and her maternal aunt’s family in Dubai? She responded that more than economic difference it was just that they lived in Dubai, and that too in a villa, that made them feel as if they were superior. They had the label of being from Dubai and that gave them the impunity to act this way. This example illustrates the pres(cid:415)ge value associated with going abroad to places such as Dubai which is associated, for specific classes in Pakistan, with ideas about the good life in terms of high living standards accompanied by the comfort and familiarity of religious and 158 cultural similari(cid:415)es. Going abroad to such places provided an opportunity to earn pres(cid:415)ge and transform one’s social rank among rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan. Indeed, work on the circula(cid:415)on of capital, gi(cid:332)s, and offerings among the Pakistani diaspora in Britain and their rela(cid:415)ves in Pakistan has indicated the opera(cid:415)on of a pres(cid:415)ge economy where migra(cid:415)on entails access to economic capital and higher quality consumer goods (Werbner 1990). In response to her cousins’ condescension for Pakistan as a place, Naila responded with her own judgment of their ignorance about how things worked in third world countries, taking ownership of a global imperial discourse that divides the world and ranks its different parts according to a linear scale of progression based on the degree to which a country has achieved the markers of development; provision of infrastructure, scien(cid:415)fic and technological achievements, reduc(cid:415)on in poverty, etc. By employing the language of a global imperial discourse about the third world and employing it as an a(cid:425)ack on the naivety of her cousins from the first world, Naila made use of the discursive regimes in a global neoliberal order to defend herself. It is interes(cid:415)ng that Naila used the term first world to apply to the UAE, which although associated with the good life in the imagina(cid:415)on of par(cid:415)cular classes in Pakistan, is s(cid:415)ll not considered at par with western countries in the global neoliberal order that remains indeterminate about whether to place it in the first or second world category. Moreover, what made the UAE characteris(cid:415)cally first world for Naila was the ability of her cousins in Dubai to afford and access American brands such as Apple. This illustrates the hierarchies that structure percep(cid:415)on of places in the global neoliberal order. The fact that Naila felt a judgment of her consumer choices and choice of university as an a(cid:425)ack on her personhood and sense of place by her rela(cid:415)ves in Dubai points to how the poli(cid:415)cs of place are intertwined with the poli(cid:415)cs of the circula(cid:415)on of commodi(cid:415)es in a global capitalist 159 economy. Hence, the type of commodi(cid:415)es that people prefer to buy from different places plays an integral role in making meaning of that place in a globalizing world. In other words, how we make meaning of a place in a globalizing world affects our percep(cid:415)on of things from that place, and consequently what we buy from that place. Consump(cid:415)on prac(cid:415)ces in the global neoliberal order are thus influenced by (and also influence) people’s ideas about different places. However, the rela(cid:415)onship between commodi(cid:415)es and ideas about place in the global neoliberal order intersect with other social factors such as class. The UAE, par(cid:415)cularly Dubai, is associated with a luxurious life for certain classes in Pakistan, which correlates with the most popular types of commodi(cid:415)es that people buy from there such as luxury consumer items like electronics, perfumes, chocolates, jewelry, and interna(cid:415)onal brand name clothes. America is associated with technological prowess, consumerism, and ideas about the American life. Hence, the global predilec(cid:415)on for Apple products, and the popularity of dis(cid:415)nctly American products such as the Be(cid:425)y Crocker pancake mix or American chocolate brands such as Hershey, are especially desired. Pakistan is associated with Pakistani culture, therefore cultural commodi(cid:415)es such as tradi(cid:415)onal clothes and jewelry are generally valued, but items like truck art that embody subcultures within Pakistan, are considered more dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)ve. This illustrates the changing ways in which people construct their rela(cid:415)onship with commodi(cid:415)es and place in a global neoliberal order. Following Purnima Mankekar’s study of the global consump(cid:415)on prac(cid:415)ces of the Indian diaspora in San Francisco, my research also finds that in a world where an increasing number of people have access to commodi(cid:415)es, commodi(cid:415)es start to be desired in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve value (Mankekar 2015). The higher the market 160 value of a commodity, the higher its affec(cid:415)ve value, and vice versa, i.e. the higher the affec(cid:415)ve value of a commodity, the higher its market value. Thus, buying an Iphone is not the same as buying a Be(cid:425)y Crocker pancake mix, although both embody the affec(cid:415)ve value of the American life. Likewise, buying clothes from Nishat Linen is not the same as buying clothes from Sania Maska(cid:415)ya, although both embody the affec(cid:415)ve value of Pakistani culture. The ability to afford high market value commodi(cid:415)es in the global neoliberal order is therefore (cid:415)ed to class. In the example of Naila’s story above, her rela(cid:415)ves from Dubai could access high market brands in the global neoliberal economy regardless of the place from where these commodi(cid:415)es were bought. They could claim not just global neoliberal iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons of Dubai as place, but also simultaneous global neoliberal iden(cid:415)fica(cid:415)ons of Pakistan as place of culture and Pakistan as place poverty, etc. Naila skillfully navigated her rela(cid:415)ves’ a(cid:425)empt to claim pres(cid:415)ge over her family by giving primacy to global neoliberal values of individual consumer choice and autonomy, demonstra(cid:415)ng the varied regimes of value opera(cid:415)ng in a global neoliberal order and the fric(cid:415)ons they can cause. Gi(cid:332) exchange with diaspora and affec(cid:415)ve kinship Alongside the spread of a global culture of consumerism, exist other ways in which people relate to commodi(cid:415)es. This becomes apparent in gi(cid:332) exchange among people in Pakistan and their diasporic rela(cid:415)ves abroad. As our conversa(cid:415)on progressed, I turned to inquiring about the type of gi(cid:332) exchange that occurred between Naveen aunty’s daughter in America and herself. I asked if her daughter in America had ever given her something she valued. She responded with enthusiasm that there was one thing that she would like to show me, it was a very li(cid:425)le thing, but she valued it very much. In her dowry, she told me, she had 161 received a Samsonite vanity box, alongside a matching set of suitcases bought from New York. Her vanity box had been stolen and she had searched all the markets of Lahore to find one in the same color and design. Although she had found other op(cid:415)ons, she was not sa(cid:415)sfied with them and had requested her daughter in America to look if the Samsonite model was available there. Her daughter had been exasperated with the request, as she thought the model was so old it seemed like a distant possibility for it to be available even in the market of the United States. Lo and behold, upon searching online, her daughter had been able to find the exact model and color and had surprised her with this gi(cid:332) on one of her return visits. Her voice laden with affec(cid:415)on and nostalgic emo(cid:415)on, my respondent told me that this gi(cid:332) was for her more valuable than even a piece of jewelry! Figure 13. Respondent showing me her valued Blue Samsonite vanity box gi(cid:332)ed to her from her daughter in America 162 Figure 14. The vanity box gi(cid:332)ed to respondent by her daughter as the same Samsonite model and color the respondent had been gi(cid:332)ed decades ago in her dowry Jewelry, especially gold jewelry, has immense cultural value in Pakistan as a liquid asset that is gi(cid:332)ed to the bride from both her natal family as well as the groom’s family. It is valued as a gi(cid:332) higher than cash, as it embodies not only genera(cid:415)onal and familial transference in terms of jewelry passing down genera(cid:415)ons, but also as an asset providing a modicum of financial security for the bride in case the couple, or the bride herself, face difficult (cid:415)mes. How was it that a banal material object such as the sky-blue Samsonite vanity box was more valuable for my respondent than gold jewelry? The value of the vanity box that was a replica of the one she had received in her dowry was in its ability to elicit a powerful nostalgia for days long gone by. The fact that the vanity box had been made by an American brand and had been brought from America signaled the class, status, and pres(cid:415)ge of her natal family. The fact that she had received it in her dowry was reminiscent of her early days of marriage when her husband and her had been at the prime of their life as a married couple; ge(cid:427)ng to know each other, 163 socializing with family, friends, and colleagues. With her husband now re(cid:415)red, one of her daughters living far away in America, and being (cid:415)ed down by the added responsibility of having to take care of not just her husband but also her eldest daughter and grandchildren who were now living with them, life was very different than what it had been when she was young. Serematakis has wri(cid:425)en about how meaning endowed material objects bear within them emo(cid:415)onal and historical sedimenta(cid:415)on that can provoke and ignite gestures, discourses, and acts which open up these objects’ stra(cid:415)graphy (Serematakis 1994). Sara Ahmed and Purnima Mankekar have wri(cid:425)en about the affec(cid:415)vity of objects and how par(cid:415)cular emo(cid:415)ons become congealed around specific objects (Ahmed 2004; 2010; Mankekar 2015). The worth of the Samsonite vanity box as a material object, therefore, lay not so much in its material worth but in its affec(cid:415)vity. For my respondent it was the Samsonite vanity box around which her nostalgia for a world of pres(cid:415)ge and kinship congealed, marking it as even more valuable than gold jewelry that was typically associated with such emo(cid:415)ons. The fact that her daughter had put in effort to obtain this for her was evidence of the strong bond between daughter and mother. The fact that a banal object such as this was considered so valuable, even at a (cid:415)me when it was of li(cid:425)le prac(cid:415)cal use, was evidence of the criteria for judging the worth of a material object in terms of its capacity to elicit sen(cid:415)ments and feelings related to pres(cid:415)ge and kinship. The affec(cid:415)ve value of gi(cid:332) exchange with diasporic rela(cid:415)ves also came to the fore in my interac(cid:415)ons with another respondent who also lived in Canal View Housing Society. All Huma aunty’s children now lived abroad in different countries while she and her husband lived in their pala(cid:415)al house in Lahore. Built on a large plot of land, the outer walls of the bounded and gated 164 area encompassed not just the imposing building of the main house, but also a spacious garage and an enormous lawn with a smaller house-like structure. I was to find out later that the smaller house like structure that stood in the lawn adjacent to the main house was for the residence of the house help which tended to all affairs of the house while its masters were away for long periods of (cid:415)me living abroad with their children. It was a clear spring a(cid:332)ernoon when Afreen aunty, my main informant, and I were led inside by the house help and seated in a si(cid:427)ng room to await the arrival of Huma aunty. The si(cid:427)ng room was in an alcove to the side of a cavernous main lounge, the arrangement and details of the la(cid:425)er were difficult to make out as we walked past given that it was obscured in shadows. The house help drew the curtains of the si(cid:427)ng room, le(cid:427)ng in light from the window which immediately lit up the smaller space giving it a warmer and cozier look. Huma aunty emerged from what seemed like a bedroom on the ground floor, ordered the house help to bring in the tea trolley, and came over to greet us. Hailing from an Urdu speaking family in Karachi, Huma aunty had moved to Lahore upon her marriage with Aslam uncle who belonged to a Punjabi family. Aslam uncle was a civil services officer in customs at the (cid:415)me and had recently re(cid:415)red from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) at a very high grade. Together they had four children, two boys and two girls, all of which had gone to the best private schools and universi(cid:415)es in Lahore and had therea(cid:332)er won pres(cid:415)gious scholarships to a(cid:425)end some of the top universi(cid:415)es in the US and Europe. Now most of her children were married and se(cid:425)led in either US or Europe, except for one son who lived in Oman with his family. For 5 to 8 months of the year, Huma aunty and Aslam uncle would live abroad with their children and their families, spli(cid:427)ng their (cid:415)me between Oman, Europe, and the United States. The remainder of the year they would live at their house in Lahore, and 165 during this (cid:415)me their children would visit them in Pakistan. I asked Huma aunty what sorts of things she exchanged with her children abroad. She laughed out loud, saying that I could not imagine the types of things she took for her children from here. She men(cid:415)oned ground spices, her own special spice mixes, and frozen homemade kebabs for her son and his family living in Muscat, Oman, where cooked and raw food was allowed via customs. Indeed, when her children came to visit them in Pakistan, the kitchen suddenly became more alive as the family’s favorite dishes were prepared and her children frequented the fridge in hopes of finding something good to eat like they did when they were younger and living with their parents. One of the ways in which kinship is prac(cid:415)ced is via the sharing of food. Sharing food with another person not only establishes communion with that person at the bodily level in terms of a sensorial experience involving smell, taste, touch, sight, and at (cid:415)mes even hearing, but also in terms of a spiritual level where handmade food made by me is akin to a giving a gi(cid:332) that embodies my spirit/substance which I now wish to transfer to you. Food acts not just as a medium of transference but also as a medium which enables sociality, par(cid:415)cularly as communi(cid:415)es have specific foods that are part of their gastronomic history at both the bodily level and at varying levels of collec(cid:415)vity (family, ethnic community, na(cid:415)onal community, regional). The potency of food in terms of its powerful mul(cid:415)-sensorial capaci(cid:415)es, as well as its capacity for sociality, makes it an especially appropriate affec(cid:415)ve substance for embodying the feelings of kinship and effec(cid:415)ng their transfer. For her 6-year-old granddaughter in the UK she liked to buy jewelry, such as lockets and bracelets, from one of Lahore’s upscale bazaars in Gulberg. This (cid:415)me, however, said Huma aunty, she had bought gi(cid:332)s for her granddaughter from the Sunday bazaar nearby that operated 166 on a weekly basis and was filled with cheap export goods from China. Excitedly, she got up and rushed inside, running back with her arms full of li(cid:425)le trinkets. These included fake pearl necklaces and rings, fancy hair (cid:415)es and hair clips, and jewelry adorned with characters of the hit Disney film Frozen. As she showed me these gi(cid:332)s, she marveled at how inexpensive they were, displaying her astonishment at how accessible consumer products, that were once open to specific classes, had now become in Pakistan. The cheaper quality of these goods did not seem to perturb Huma aunty, what ma(cid:425)ered more for her was the fact that her granddaughter would like these things as she enjoyed adorning herself with accessories to appear glamorous. 167 Figure 15. Respondent showing me the ar(cid:415)ficial jewelry and other ornamental trinkets she bought from the Sunday Bazaar for her granddaughter abroad Already having reached 70, in more recent years she had begun to distribute/pass down household items to her children. As Huma aunty and her husband spent 6 to 8 months every year circula(cid:415)ng living with their children abroad, she felt that the house remained shut and the things inside gathered dust for most of the year. Furthermore, with her husband’s re(cid:415)rement and her children having moved abroad, par(cid:415)es for colleagues, friends, and family had ceased with the dras(cid:415)c reduc(cid:415)on of avenues for professional and familial socializa(cid:415)on. Having travelled abroad extensively, their house was a collec(cid:415)on of items gathered from around the world and was reminiscent of the cosmopolitan lifestyle of an older upper class in Pakistan. Huma aunty recalled with fondness how she had given away to her daughter the crystal vases she had 168 ordered from Belgium, and the expensive crockery she had amassed since her marriage. She also expressed delight at how her daughters had liked these two lamps with hanging green crystals that she had bought at an auc(cid:415)on in America so much that they each took one and set it up in their own house. These household items not only recalled the high pres(cid:415)ge and status that she and her husband had held in society, but by passing them down to her children, Huma aunty was in effect conferring her children with the inheritance of that status and pres(cid:415)ge that they had enjoyed as a family. While Huma aunty got the chance to spend extended (cid:415)me with her children abroad and had begun to distribute the things she owned amongst them, Afreen aunty did not go abroad as o(cid:332)en to visit her three married daughters, and instead filled her house with their possessions and their pictures. Afreen aunty confessed that she terribly missed having her daughters in her house. At one point in (cid:415)me, she said, the house would be ringing with voices of ‘mama’ from all sides that she would have to figure out which daughter to a(cid:425)end to first. During one of our mee(cid:415)ngs, as she gave me a tour of her house, I couldn’t help but feel how the house throbbed with the aching absence of her daughters as their things and pictures filled up every corner. Afreen aunty confessed that she put a lot of her energy into redecora(cid:415)ng the house or switching things around to keep herself busy. Under the stairs to the second floor was a table set with picture frames displaying her daughters’ childhood pictures. In a corner of the house, she had filled up the empty space with a beau(cid:415)ful wooden carved chair and a gigan(cid:415)c pain(cid:415)ng hanging over it, both of which she explained belonged to her youngest daughter. They had been part of her daughter’s room but when she moved out Afreen aunty had held onto them. She had used them to decorate an alcove under the stairs where they remained more visible as she 169 passed by that area frequently on an everyday basis. As Afreen aunty showed me her daughters’ possessions and pictures, it seems as if there was a deep yearning (cid:415)nged with melancholy hovering in the air around us, a wis(cid:414)ulness that was contagious as I felt my own heart sink and ache for her. Figure 16. A table, under the stairs of the respondent's house, displaying pictures of her daughters who were abroad 170 Figure 17. Corner of respondent's house displaying an an(cid:415)que chair, and gigan(cid:415)c pain(cid:415)ng, that used to decorate her daughter's room when she lived at home As we stepped out to the garden, however, the energy changed. Afreen aunty perked up as she shared with me her love for gardening. Smiling, she showed me all the li(cid:425)le trinkets with which she had decorated her garden, taking great care to point out each one and give me a detailed account of where she had acquired them. Her favorite were the li(cid:425)le bird statues that her daughter had bought from the dollar store in Canada and had sent to her as a gi(cid:332). Once more, I was surprised to find how banal commodi(cid:415)es of cheap monetary value such as garden trinkets bought from the dollar store were valued by my respondent. The bird statues were valued as something given by her daughter who knew her mother’s love for her garden, as evidence of her daughter’s in(cid:415)mate knowledge of her and thereby her daughter’s acknowledgement of her personhood. 171 Figure 18. Bird statues gi(cid:332)ed by respondent's daughter from the Dollar Store in Canada adorning the respondent's house garden Valuing the exchange of material objects with diasporic rela(cid:415)ves in terms of its affec(cid:415)ve value was not just restricted to my upper or upper-middle class respondents. The affec(cid:415)ve value of material objects was also brought home in my mee(cid:415)ng with Nadia aunty, who belonged to a different socioeconomic class compared to my upper-class respondents from Canal View Housing Society. Nadia aunty iden(cid:415)fied her family as belonging to the middle class and this fit in with my observa(cid:415)ons about their situa(cid:415)on as a family when I went to interview her. The size of their house and its locality, the way it was furnished, the size of the household which included 4 children and 1 elderly person alongside her and her husband, and the varying fortunes of her husband’s business, all pointed to the comfortable yet precarious lifestyle they 172 enjoyed. Nadia aunty had 2 sisters, both of whom lived abroad, one in the UK and the other in the US. Her eldest two daughters now lived abroad as well, one was se(cid:425)led in the US while the other had very recently gone to the UK. When I asked her what the exchange of gi(cid:332)s with her daughters and sisters meant to her, she responded; NA: “See, things…in the real sense meaning resides with a person, the real thing are human feelings. Just like my sister got things for me, I had also go(cid:425)en her clothes ready from before, her kids clothes as well. This is maybe like they say right that the Prophet (PBUH) said that keep on giving gi(cid:332)s to each other because with those the love increases/spreads. So those were her feelings, in return there were my feelings. Especially now Maham’s feelings, she is my daughter, if she brings something then in that for me liking it or not liking it is not even an op(cid:415)on for me. My daughter has worked a job and earned that money and whatever she brings for me with that money that is highly valued, that for me is an emo(cid:415)onal issue, that whatever my daughter does for me.” The meaning of gi(cid:332) exchange in terms of the affec(cid:415)ve value of material objects was underscored by Nadia aunty bringing out a giant Mother’s Day card as something she par(cid:415)cularly valued among the things gi(cid:332)ed to her by her children. With two bu(cid:425)erflies adorning the front and a generic message inside expressing apprecia(cid:415)on for a mother, each child had handwri(cid:425)en personalized messages and signed off individually to add to the affec(cid:415)ve value of the card. In their messages they expressed love for their mother, gratefulness for her guidance and support, and prayers for her long life, health, and happiness. These personalized messages and the giant size of the card had affected Nadia aunty so much that she had even held on to the gigan(cid:415)c pink envelope in which it had been delivered. 173 Figure 19. A giant Happy Mother's Day card and the pink envelope in which it was delivered to respondent from her daughters abroad Figure 20. My mother, who had accompanied me to this interview, holding the card so that I can take pictures of the respondent’s daughters' handwri(cid:425)en messages of affec(cid:415)on inside the card 174 The changing rela(cid:415)onship to material things in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve capacity for feelings of kinship is not to say that this was the only way in which people related to material objects or that this was the only role played by material exchange in rela(cid:415)ons with diasporic rela(cid:415)ves. While material objects and their exchange had the capacity to affect kinship, kinship rela(cid:415)ons also had the capacity to influence material exchange and provide access to high value market goods. During our conversa(cid:415)on, I asked Nadia aunty if she could show me some of the things her daughters and/or sisters had given her. In her enthusiasm, she called for the house help and asked her to bring a mul(cid:415)tude of things which included Guess handbags, DKNY sandals, and Gucci perfumes, among other things of everyday use. Once considered exclusive luxury brands that only the rich could afford, brands like Guess, DKNY, and Gucci have over the years become more democra(cid:415)zed as they expanded their product lines to make their products more accessible to a variety of consumer bases. Furthermore, counterfeit products displaying brand logos have enabled a rising middle class in Pakistan to display their membership of a global, mobile world where people now have disposable incomes to spend on consumer items. Figure 21. Taking a picture of the DKNY sandals gi(cid:332)ed to respondent by her daughter abroad 175 Nadia aunty related an anecdote about a (cid:415)me when she had liked a pair of sandals online in terms of their comfort, and how her daughter had immediately ordered them for her and got them delivered to her as a gi(cid:332). She related this story proudly as evidence of her daughter’s general love, care, and concern for the family as she spent her hard-earned money to buy gi(cid:332)s for all family members. This illustrates the fact that although their daughter abroad contributed to the family’s aspira(cid:415)on to maintain its status as a global middle class by providing family members access to consumer goods from the United States, this material exchange was assigned meaning in terms of gi(cid:332) exchange and the feelings of kinship. Nadia aunty emphasized that material things were not significant in and of themselves, in terms of their physical a(cid:425)ributes or use value, but rather stood in as symbols of the real thing, which were human feelings. In this social and cultural context, those human feelings were inextricably associated with maintaining kinship. For Nadia aunty, the fact that it was her daughter or sister who gave her a gi(cid:332) was sufficient for it to func(cid:415)on as a meaningful symbol of kinship (cid:415)es. It did not ma(cid:425)er to her what the gi(cid:332) in ques(cid:415)on was, as its primary purpose in her eyes was to safeguard feelings of kinship among kin. Similarly, I witnessed the presence of high market value items at Afreen aunty’s house, albeit items that were a different class of market goods than the ones I had seen at Nadia aunty’s house, hence reflec(cid:415)ng the difference in class of my two respondents. Afreen aunty drew my a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on to the smart TV and Apple watch that her daughters had given her. Although their u(cid:415)litarian quali(cid:415)es were discussed in terms of making it easier for her to count her daily steps to stay fit or making it possible for her to watch Ne(cid:414)lix shows at night to while the (cid:415)me away, she always emphasized these gi(cid:332)s as evidence of the care and a(cid:425)en(cid:415)on shown to her by 176 her daughters who lived abroad. During my visit to Huma aunty’s house, I remember how she urged Afreen aunty and I to try the ‘gajrela’ (the name in Urdu for a sweet dish made from carrots and dried evaporated milk solids) that she had made for the first (cid:415)me in her Instapot brought while visi(cid:415)ng her daughter in the UK. Her voice ringing with fascina(cid:415)on and awe, she exclaimed she no longer knew what life had been like before she had had the Instapot which made cooking so easy that it was difficult to believe unless you tried it yourself. The Instapot is a kitchen appliance that has become a much-coveted market good as it has revolu(cid:415)onized cooking by making it a low involvement endeavor and op(cid:415)mizing it for convenience and efficiency. The instapot is therefore the quintessen(cid:415)al consumer item for the type of individualis(cid:415)c lifestyle supported and propagated by a capitalist economy, a lifestyle that was very different from the slow-paced life that Huma aunty and her re(cid:415)red husband were living in their house in Lahore, Pakistan. Nevertheless, by cooking tradi(cid:415)onal food in it for the purpose of serving her guests, Huma aunty incorporated the Instapot into a value system centered around a rela(cid:415)onal sociality. These examples illustrate how the encounter of a global capitalist economy with local economies such as those of gi(cid:332) exchange lead to the forma(cid:415)on of new regimes of value, not least in terms of how people relate to material objects. During fieldwork I observed the presence of high value market goods and popular consumer items in the houses of my respondents who were elderly women belonging to the upper middle and middle class in Lahore and whose children lived abroad. This was clearly evidence of the instrumental aspect of kinship rela(cid:415)ons where these rela(cid:415)ons were the means via which people in Lahore gained access to high value market goods and consumer items from abroad. However, when accessing 177 these consumer items was embedded within exchange rela(cid:415)onships with kin, for my respondents the instrumental value of these commodi(cid:415)es was overshadowed by their affec(cid:415)ve value as material objects embodying the care and love shown to them by their kin. While the use value of some consumer items lent them more easily for use in a socio-cultural context of rela(cid:415)onal sociality (e.g. the Instapot), even those consumer items that lent themselves to individual use alone (e.g. Apple watch, Gucci perfume, branded handbags) were incorporated into a value system centered on kinship by assigning them an affec(cid:415)ve value of kinship. Some(cid:415)mes the valua(cid:415)on of material objects in terms of pres(cid:415)ge came into fric(cid:415)on with the valua(cid:415)on of material objects in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve capacity for kinship. More than once, I witnessed a rela(cid:415)ve abroad expressing their disappointment with the tradi(cid:415)onal clothes brought as a gi(cid:332) for them by rela(cid:415)ves from Pakistan as the clothes did not match their expecta(cid:415)ons in some way or another. Maybe the color was not exactly the shade they had wanted, or the quality of the cloth was not what they had imagined, or the design was not as beau(cid:415)ful as they had thought it was when they saw it online. The subsequent hurt the giver felt in the gi(cid:332) not being recognized as a symbol of kinship (cid:415)es was expressed as resentment against their rela(cid:415)ve abroad who did not value all the effort and thought they had put into giving them this gi(cid:332). When I asked Naila what material exchange with her rela(cid:415)ves abroad looked like, she explained that when they were deciding on gi(cid:332)s for rela(cid:415)ves abroad, they found it easier to just ask them what they wanted. This was because they appreciated those gi(cid:332)s that added the most value to their life. For example, since they were unable to replicate the type of community they had in Pakistan, they valued tradi(cid:415)onal clothing because it enabled them to reenact their 178 cultural selves abroad. In rela(cid:415)onships among people in Pakistan and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad, therefore, we see that values of all sorts slide into one another, some(cid:415)mes fi(cid:427)ng neatly while at other (cid:415)mes causing fric(cid:415)on. Alongside the opera(cid:415)on of the capitalist consumer economy as an affec(cid:415)ve order, we also see the more local economies of pres(cid:415)ge and affec(cid:415)ve economy of kinship at play. The tension among these diverse meanings a(cid:425)ributed to gi(cid:332) exchange came through in my conversa(cid:415)on with Naila about what material exchange meant for her rela(cid:415)onship with her rela(cid:415)ves abroad. NS: “So in terms of the things we give them, our dynamic with them is such we ask them what they need, it is about value addi(cid:415)on for us, instead of giving them random things that they would never use or they would not [value?] them, we think it is be(cid:425)er to ask them what they want. In both there is a commonality that they miss the sense of community that we have in Pakistan. So like they wish to wear fancy clothes on Eid, Eastern clothes, clothes with embroidery, that they don’t get over there.... so they try to replicate the community model that we have here. So they want to have those ghagra choli, suits with dupa(cid:425)as, chiffon dupa(cid:425)as, khussay, dupa(cid:425)as with (cid:415)llay work etc. So both (rela(cid:415)ves in Dubai and rela(cid:415)ves in Australia) have this commonality that both want tradi(cid:415)onal stuff. And in terms of me a(cid:425)aching value or uhhh meaning to these material things, I don’t think I a(cid:425)ach anything. I mean sure they give me material things and they give me like branded and imported and expensive stuff, sure, but I think it doesn’t mean anything to me, if they give it to me than I am grateful, if they don’t then it is not a problem, they are kind and gracious enough to think of me every (cid:415)me they come.” Conclusion The produc(cid:415)on, exchange, and circula(cid:415)on of cultural commodi(cid:415)es in Pakistan and among diasporic communi(cid:415)es abroad reifies the percep(cid:415)on of Pakistan as the place of culture. This enables people in Pakistan and diasporic communi(cid:415)es from Pakistan to partake in cultural iden(cid:415)ty via the consump(cid:415)on of culture, while simultaneously enabling their par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in the culture of global consumerism. In the global neoliberal order, the produc(cid:415)on, circula(cid:415)on, and exchange of commodi(cid:415)es, therefore, is also central to how people make sense of place(s), 179 par(cid:415)cularly places they have never been to or no longer visit. In addi(cid:415)on to the opera(cid:415)on of a global neoliberal economy, this chapter also highlights the opera(cid:415)on of other economies at play. While gi(cid:332) exchange with diasporic rela(cid:415)ves enabled access to high value market commodi(cid:415)es that were (cid:415)ed to class iden(cid:415)ty, research respondents emphasized the meaning of material exchanges with diasporic rela(cid:415)ves in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve value for kinship. 180 CONCLUSION A globalizing world and the mobili(cid:415)es that accompany it are changing the way people in Pakistan and abroad relate to it as a place. While kinship as an everyday cultural prac(cid:415)ce permits flexibility in terms of the possibili(cid:415)es it embodies for the forma(cid:415)on of new rela(cid:415)onal (cid:415)es and new a(cid:425)achments to place, the unraveling of older disposi(cid:415)ons is keenly felt as if one’s very cultural being is under assault. Therefore, in reconfiguring their rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as the place of kinship and the place that enables the doing of kinship, my respondents are not just calling for holding onto a place but for holding on to a way of life. In wrestling with the many faces of the neoliberal empire, both at home and abroad, they are trying to hold on to kinship as a norma(cid:415)ve social and cultural prac(cid:415)ce in a globalizing world. Chapter three turns to the experiences and narra(cid:415)ves of young college educated people in Lahore in their quest for higher educa(cid:415)on abroad. It delineates how the global neoliberal order shapes their concep(cid:415)on of abroad as pertaining to western countries, and how that shapes their ideals to a(cid:425)ain higher educa(cid:415)on from western countries. The chapter shows how the United States is the topmost preferred des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on for higher educa(cid:415)on, indica(cid:415)ng the significance of young college educated people’s ideas about place in their decisions about higher educa(cid:415)on abroad. Young college educated people in Lahore cited Hollywood movies, interac(cid:415)ons with US-trained professors, encouragement from diasporic rela(cid:415)ves, and visits to the US on educa(cid:415)onal or cultural exchange programs as having formed their image of the US as place. Furthermore, they expressed the desire to go abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on as being more than just about academic a(cid:425)ainment. Going abroad to a western country for higher educa(cid:415)on was understood by young college educated people in Lahore as a rite of passage to a(cid:425)aining 181 a(cid:425)ributes such as professional a(cid:427)tude and ethics, financial independence, flexibility, ease of mobility, self-confidence, individual autonomy, and self-sufficiency. All these a(cid:425)ributes are championed by the global capitalist economy that operates according to neoliberal values which are part of an economic and poli(cid:415)cal ideology of a free market that emerged in the United States and was imposed globally. The United States, being a paragon of these a(cid:425)ributes and affording a dis(cid:415)nc(cid:415)ve cultural experience, was therefore the ideal des(cid:415)na(cid:415)on for young college educated people in Pakistan to a(cid:425)ain a global neoliberal personhood. Moreover, there was an understanding among young college educated people in Pakistan that these a(cid:425)ributes could only be a(cid:425)ained by effec(cid:415)ng a temporary distance from familial protec(cid:415)on, surveillance, and obliga(cid:415)ons in Pakistan. This underscores their quest for a global neoliberal personhood in rela(cid:415)on to local social rela(cid:415)ons and not an unanchored, blind following of the west. Further evidence of the embeddedness of research par(cid:415)cipants in their local social and cultural context is provided by their gendered experiences and fric(cid:415)ons with local personhood in embarking on the quest for a global neoliberal personhood. As the path to a(cid:425)aining higher educa(cid:415)on abroad could o(cid:332)en be long drawn out, it endangered the prospects of entering an arranged marriage for young men and women which required in person mee(cid:415)ngs to vet the union of the poten(cid:415)al spouses and their respec(cid:415)ve families. However, it was young college educated women who expressed the fric(cid:415)on between having to choose between going abroad for higher educa(cid:415)on or marrying and se(cid:425)ling down in Pakistan. Young college educated men, on the other hand, expressed feeling stuck in having to choose between earning a sufficient income to support family or to spend on higher educa(cid:415)on abroad and live in financial precarity on student s(cid:415)pends. This discrepancy in their experiences illustrates the gendered ways in 182 which the dictates of local and global personhood converge and come into fric(cid:415)on for people occupying different social loca(cid:415)ons. Class loca(cid:415)on and family situa(cid:415)on also played a significant role in opening or obstruc(cid:415)ng the path to global mobility through higher educa(cid:415)on. To show how class shapes the experience of mobility in a global neoliberal order, chapter three turns to the experiences of the new middle class in Lahore and their quest to go abroad to earn money. Ammara Maqsood has elucidated the characteris(cid:415)cs of a new middle class in Lahore as rela(cid:415)vely recent migrants to the city who have taken up work as teachers, engineers, and government service workers in the city. She claims this new middle class differs from the established middle and upper middle classes in Lahore in terms of their increased religiosity and emphasis on religious ra(cid:415)onaliza(cid:415)on (Maqsood 2017). Unlike their college educated counterparts, whose desires for going abroad were geared towards western countries and jus(cid:415)fied on grounds for a(cid:425)aining a global neoliberal personhood, professionals from the new middle class in Lahore desired to go abroad to earn money for family and inves(cid:415)ng in business in Pakistan upon return. However, given that higher educa(cid:415)on abroad was only a means for young Pakistani urbanites to a(cid:425)ain the status of a United States professional that would enable them to earn enough money to support a family, their aspira(cid:415)ons for the maintenance of family actually converged with their middle-class counterparts. What did differ between these two sets of respondents was the orienta(cid:415)on in the middle class to a global Muslim personhood. However, these respondents subscribed to a global Muslim personhood from their vantage point of being a Pakistani Muslim, expressing solidarity with other Muslim majority na(cid:415)on- states and employing their interpreta(cid:415)on of religious injunc(cid:415)ons to jus(cid:415)fy emigra(cid:415)on from Pakistan and the desire for global mobility. The obstruc(cid:415)ons they faced in global mobility to 183 both Muslim and non-Muslim na(cid:415)on-states provides further evidence of the opera(cid:415)on of an imperial global neoliberal order that regulates movement according to class, race, na(cid:415)onality, religion etc. For example, respondents men(cid:415)oned the obstruc(cid:415)on posed to the global mobility of Muslims by western immigra(cid:415)on regimes and stated their desire to move to Muslim countries like Turkey. A respondent’s experience of dissonance at the Turkish embassy where his visa was refused due to a minor spelling mistake sheds light on the ways the imperial global neoliberal order regulates the movement of individuals by their segmenta(cid:415)on according to factors such as religion, na(cid:415)onality, race, and class. Chapter four illustrates the changing experience of place for people in Lahore whose rela(cid:415)ves had moved abroad. It shows their nostalgia for an ideal joint family system and family values which structured kinship rela(cid:415)ons, and the emo(cid:415)ons associated with them, and provided a suppor(cid:415)ve social network for living out their everyday lives. The chapter then turns to how, despite the breakup and sca(cid:425)ering of the joint family (co-residence of brothers, their wives, and children with their parents and grandparents) and nuclear family, developments in communica(cid:415)on technology and transport enable the re-establishment of (cid:415)es between kin rela(cid:415)ons in different places. It follows the story of a young woman from an upper-middle class family in Lahore as she tries to navigate the experience of her family being sponsored for an American Green Card by her paternal aunt in the United States. Her experience of giving up her Green Card at the US consulate in Pakistan and facing patroniza(cid:415)on from actors as diverse as a US immigra(cid:415)on officer, her uncle in the United States, her parents, and her peers at university in Pakistan reveal the convergence of global and local personhood in maintaining the hierarchies that structure a global world. Her story illuminates how discursive regimes of US immigra(cid:415)on 184 and its ideas about Pakistan as place works together with the striving for social mobility inherent to kinship prac(cid:415)ces to propel people towards emigra(cid:415)ng from Pakistan. These discursive regimes work via language and its embodiment, and the genera(cid:415)on and circula(cid:415)on of affect by mul(cid:415)ple actors at both global and local levels. The migra(cid:415)on of rela(cid:415)ves abroad, and aspira(cid:415)ons to migrate from Pakistan for educa(cid:415)on or work, operate to produce people’s rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as the place of kinship. The la(cid:425)er half of this chapter delineates this rela(cid:415)onship to Pakistan as place through the experiences and narra(cid:415)ves of return migrants in Lahore by delving into how people in Pakistan relate to place through a logic of kinship. The chapter shows that despite ar(cid:415)cula(cid:415)ng their rela(cid:415)onship to the place of Pakistan in terms of the na(cid:415)onalis(cid:415)c discourse of kinship, respondents pointed to the everyday rela(cid:415)onal sociali(cid:415)es with family, friends, and neighbors living close by to explain their a(cid:425)achments to Pakistan as place. This finding demonstrates the need to privilege experien(cid:415)al rela(cid:415)ons of place, and to inves(cid:415)gate the extent of their imbrica(cid:415)on with na(cid:415)onal modes of belonging to a territorial na(cid:415)on-state. Chapter five traverses the emergence and development of communica(cid:415)on and digital technologies in Pakistan as a rela(cid:415)vely recent phenomenon that enables connec(cid:415)vity among rela(cid:415)ves sca(cid:425)ered around the world. Contrary to popular global discourses about the availability of digital technologies having democra(cid:415)zed access to communica(cid:415)on technologies, this chapter sheds light on the many barriers to digital connec(cid:415)vity. Digital connec(cid:415)vity depends on governmental regula(cid:415)ons and policies, life stage, age, individual ease with the use of technology, digital literacy, and cultural factors such as gender and genera(cid:415)onal hierarchies affec(cid:415)ng the use of technology. The predominant genera(cid:415)onal discourse on digital technologies 185 among respondents in Lahore in the 50-70 age range varied between labelling them as a blessing or a curse. Even as they harnessed the affordances of digital communica(cid:415)on technologies to establish and maintain connec(cid:415)ons with rela(cid:415)ves abroad and social networks in Pakistan, older people con(cid:415)nued to view the use of digital technologies by younger people with suspicion. The affordances of digital communica(cid:415)on technologies were harnessed to engage in kinship prac(cid:415)ces with family and friends abroad, and in Pakistan. For example, WhatsApp family groups were a ubiquitous occurrence among research par(cid:415)cipants. However, establishing and maintaining digital connec(cid:415)vity with rela(cid:415)ves abroad took on greater significance because digital connec(cid:415)vity was one of the few ways to a(cid:425)enuate the gap of physical presence. The exigencies of kinship as a cultural prac(cid:415)ce connec(cid:415)ng people living near each other shaped the use of digital technologies and digital communica(cid:415)on with rela(cid:415)ves and friends abroad. Certain ways of using digital communica(cid:415)on technologies became widespread and were understood as the norma(cid:415)ve ways of maintaining kinship via digital technology. These prac(cid:415)ces included, for example, establishing presence by trying to connect in real (cid:415)me, reinforcing virtual presence by sharing in(cid:415)mate details about everyday life as well as sharing visual materials such as family pictures and videos, and taking care to establish reciprocity by connec(cid:415)ng regularly and responding to the other person. Digital communica(cid:415)on with kin and close friends was harnessed to establish affec(cid:415)ve bonds of kinship, and the exchange of digital ar(cid:415)facts with them was structured according to a logic of gi(cid:332) exchange. The exchange of digital ar(cid:415)facts took place with people one knew and was close to, and digital ar(cid:415)facts were seen in terms of their affec(cid:415)ve value for kinship. This some(cid:415)mes meant a decontextualiza(cid:415)on of the visual digital ar(cid:415)fact and its recontextualiza(cid:415)on within specific rela(cid:415)onships to make it do the work of 186 kinship. However, digital connec(cid:415)vity alone with rela(cid:415)ves and close friends abroad did not lead to strong emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons. The prac(cid:415)ce of kinship via digital communica(cid:415)on technologies had to be supplemented with in person interac(cid:415)ons (past or future) for long periods of (cid:415)me to establish deep emo(cid:415)onal connec(cid:415)ons. Chapter six looks at globaliza(cid:415)on in Pakistan through the lens of the commodifica(cid:415)on of culture and material exchange between people in Pakistan and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad. The produc(cid:415)on, exchange, and circula(cid:415)on of cultural commodi(cid:415)es among people in Pakistan and diasporic communi(cid:415)es abroad contributes to the reifica(cid:415)on of Pakistan as a place of culture. This enables people in Pakistan and diasporic communi(cid:415)es to partake in cultural iden(cid:415)ty via the consump(cid:415)on of culture, while simultaneously enabling their par(cid:415)cipa(cid:415)on in the culture of global consumerism. In the global neoliberal order, produc(cid:415)on, circula(cid:415)on, and exchange of commodi(cid:415)es also shapes people’s general percep(cid:415)ons about places they have never been to or no longer return to. Furthermore, the reverse is also true; people’s general percep(cid:415)ons of places in a global neoliberal order shapes the way they relate to commodi(cid:415)es from that place. In the material exchange that occurs among people in Pakistan and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad, this chapter finds the opera(cid:415)on of a poli(cid:415)cs of place and consump(cid:415)on. For example, the chapter explores the story of an upper middle-class woman in her early thir(cid:415)es in Lahore and her rela(cid:415)onship with her rela(cid:415)ves in Dubai. Her rela(cid:415)ves’ access to pres(cid:415)gious consumer goods in Dubai enables them to display and establish their pres(cid:415)ge in rela(cid:415)on to her own family via affec(cid:415)ve reac(cid:415)ons to her material possessions and their expression of ideas of Pakistan as place. She counters their affec(cid:415)ve reac(cid:415)on by an affec(cid:415)ve embodiment of the language of a global neoliberal economy about individual (consumer) 187 choice, autonomy, and convenience, sta(cid:415)ng that her choice to buy retail rather than designer brands was willfully made and was not a reflec(cid:415)on of her family’s economic status vis a vis the status of her aunt’s family in Dubai. Chapter six also delineates how the poli(cid:415)cs of place and consump(cid:415)on entered the exchange of gi(cid:332)s among people in Pakistan and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad, elucida(cid:415)ng the complicated rela(cid:415)onship between class and kinship. While gi(cid:332) exchange between rela(cid:415)ves abroad and people in Pakistan provided access to high value market commodi(cid:415)es and the associated class iden(cid:415)ty, respondents in Lahore found meaning in the gi(cid:332) exchange in terms of its affec(cid:415)ve value of kinship. The meaning of gi(cid:332) exchange with rela(cid:415)ves abroad in terms of its affec(cid:415)ve value of kinship could be mobilized by people in Pakistan to gain access to social mobility, to maintain class status in Pakistan, or to outmaneuver the efforts of rela(cid:415)ves abroad to claim pres(cid:415)ge over them. Contribu(cid:415)ons to literature By focusing on the mo(cid:415)va(cid:415)ons of people in Pakistan for migra(cid:415)ng/going abroad, and their transna(cid:415)onal social rela(cid:415)ons with rela(cid:415)ves abroad, this disserta(cid:415)on sheds light on the maintenance of kinship as a central aspira(cid:415)on that structures the way people in Pakistan, and even some of their diasporic counterparts, find meaning in global mobility. This is indica(cid:415)ve of the changing material reali(cid:415)es in a globalizing world where the material basis for engaging in kinship as a prac(cid:415)ce that maintains a social support network based on genealogical (cid:415)es is undergoing transforma(cid:415)on. While people in South Asia have always been mobile, emigra(cid:415)ng to various corners of the world and forming diasporic communi(cid:415)es as early as the colonial period (Amrith 2011), and while families in South Asia have historically experienced ruptures as in the 188 case of Par(cid:415)(cid:415)on (Zamindar 2007), the current transforma(cid:415)ons of the family in South Asia are occurring in a new context and have different repercussions. The contemporary period is characterized by an increase in global migra(cid:415)on, the development of communica(cid:415)on technologies and transport, the integra(cid:415)on of a global commodity market that is structured according to a capitalist system, and the consolida(cid:415)on of the na(cid:415)on-state as a governing en(cid:415)ty and basis for modern iden(cid:415)ty. All these developments facilitate the working of a new global order that is organized hierarchically according to the interests of global imperial power. By conceptualizing the imperial global neoliberal order as a Bourdieusian social field, this disserta(cid:415)on illustrates the working of this global social order via discursive regimes and the genera(cid:415)on and circula(cid:415)on of affect in the embodiment of discursive regimes by various actors at different levels. A significant actor in this global neoliberal order is the family. This disserta(cid:415)on employs Bourdieu’s insight into thinking about the family as a group formed by a system of rela(cid:415)onships that are mobilized to sa(cid:415)sfy symbolic and material interests shaped by wider social and economic condi(cid:415)ons. Therefore, contrary to the moral panic of the breakdown of the family in the contemporary period, this disserta(cid:415)on elucidates how the family is being reconfigured as it is cons(cid:415)tuted by, and par(cid:415)cipates in, wider social and economic transforma(cid:415)ons. By illustra(cid:415)ng how digital communica(cid:415)on and gi(cid:332) exchange with rela(cid:415)ves abroad are harnessed to prac(cid:415)ce transna(cid:415)onal kinship, this disserta(cid:415)on points to the emergence of an affec(cid:415)ve kinship network in the form of the global family. Even as increased global mobility and connec(cid:415)vity engenders a new forma(cid:415)on of the family, and new ways of doing kinship, the deterritorializa(cid:415)on of the kin network alters the very experience of space and place for individuals and families in South Asia, 189 and those who have emigrated. The sca(cid:425)ering of the spa(cid:415)ally integrated family i.e. the family in place has also led to the fervent forma(cid:415)on of prac(cid:415)cal rela(cid:415)onships with non-kin who live within spa(cid:415)al proximity and con(cid:415)guity. These prac(cid:415)cal rela(cid:415)onships or prac(cid:415)ces of fic(cid:415)ve kinship are also affec(cid:415)ve in nature, contribu(cid:415)ng to the hyposta(cid:415)za(cid:415)on of kinship locally, and enabling the circula(cid:415)on of kinship affect among the spa(cid:415)ally dispersed kin network. This enables the affec(cid:415)ve experience of Pakistan as the place of kinship, and the forma(cid:415)on of affec(cid:415)ve a(cid:425)achments to the place of Pakistan, that exert a pull on people living there and their rela(cid:415)ves abroad. 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2002.“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflec(cid:415)ons on Cultural Rela(cid:415)vism and Its Others.” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3: 783–90. h(cid:425)p://www.jstor.org/stable/3567256. Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Poli(cid:415)cs of Emo(cid:415)on. Edinburgh University Press. Ahmed, Sara. 2010. “Happy Objects”. 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