Questioning Migrants

"The Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), propelled by ethnic violence and led by university students with lower-middle-class backgrounds, transformed the cities of the southern Pakistani province of Sindh into an ethnic majoritarian stronghold at the unlikely height of a military dictatorship. The more novel aspect of the MQM's platform was its demand for the recognition of Muhajirs as a separate, "oppressed nationality" within Pakistan. Questioning Migrants is a granular historical and ethnographic study of the MQM's capacity to think beyond the exclusivism of Muhajir nationalism toward its contingency and toward a more plural and subaltern framing of the universal. It speaks to significant themes in Pakistan studies: the legacies of Partition, the rise of the martial state, and the dynamics of urbanization and democracy"--