Papers by Mubbashir Rizvi
Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the ri... more Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the right to stay on the land. These movements mobilize on the basis of indigeneity, agrarian reform, and social justice, and in so doing, counter predominant trends of rural authoritarianism, dispossession, and land speculation. In Pakistan, rural resistance exploded in a somewhat surprising location, Okara military farms, deep in what is commonly thought to be the nation's conservative, pro-military heartland. In The Ethics of Staying, Mubbashir Rizvi documents the meteoric rise of the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (Tenant Farmers Movement, or AMP) and addresses urgent questions, such as: How did sharecroppers disarm the Pakistani Army in the midst of dictatorial rule? Why and on what basis did they risk their lives for land they didn't legally own? How have they managed to survive in the context of extreme repression?
Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2020
Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the ri... more Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the right to stay on the land. These movements mobilize on the basis of indigeneity, agrarian reform, and social justice, and in so doing, counter predominant trends of rural authoritarianism, dispossession, and land speculation. In Pakistan, rural resistance exploded in a somewhat surprising location, Okara military farms, deep in what is commonly thought to be the nation's conservative, pro-military heartland. In The Ethics of Staying, Mubbashir Rizvi documents the meteoric rise of the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (Tenant Farmers Movement, or AMP) and addresses urgent questions, such as: How did sharecroppers disarm the Pakistani Army in the midst of dictatorial rule? Why and on what basis did they risk their lives for land they didn't legally own? How have they managed to survive in the context of extreme repression?
Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 2020
South Asian History and Culture, 2019
Contemporary rural social movements in South Asia are increasingly dependent on NGOs and urban ci... more Contemporary rural social movements in South Asia are increasingly dependent on NGOs and urban civil society networks to expand their local struggle to the national and even international levels. This development has shifted the political dynamics of rural social movements in unexpected ways as NGOs and urban activists affiliated with civil society organizations have supplanted older Left oriented political parties and local elites as the primary media for funding, communication and outreach for livelihood struggles. This article analyzes the dramatic rise of the Punjab Tenants Association (hereafter AMP), the land rights movement that is resisting the Pakistan military's policy to monetize stateowned military farmland in Punjab. The aim is to underscore the new possibilities of such a movement and highlight the contradictions that were experienced by AMP as a result of its close association with NGOs, urban activists and civil society networks.
History and Anthropology, 2016
For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on... more For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on its military farms in central Punjab. In this article, I analyse the historical and cultural significance of this contested land by using insights from recent literature on the politics of infrastructure to examine the contingency of rule in Pakistan, a postcolonial state, which is dominated by its army. I illustrate these dynamics by exploring the challenge brought up by a peasant movement to tacit cultural understandings about land and political subjectivity in central Punjab, the folkloric heartland of Pakistani nationalism. I argue that place-based movements, like the Punjab Tenants Association, can radically challenge our sense of place by giving a relational account of land as both a material substance and a crucial link in the set of relations that define moral, economic and political life. This approach broadens the emerging study of infrastructures by engaging insights from science/technology studies and subaltern studies to examine how cultural legacies of colonial infrastructure projects shape state-society relations in Pakistan.
ACMCU, 2020
This article aims to go behind and beyond the debate on the "Muslim ban" to argue that the most e... more This article aims to go behind and beyond the debate on the "Muslim ban" to argue that the most effective challenge to the ban will not emerge in the courtroom litigation but through a sustained cultural and political engagement with the overlooked cultural history of Islam in America. In taking this approach I take inspiration from the scholarship on African American Islam and the tradition of black internationalism in challenging the tenets of racial capitalism. The "Muslim ban" will remain in place as long as Islam is viewed through the Orientalist lens as a menacing foreign religion that cannot be assimilated into American society. This narrative has been reinforced through the power/knowledge nexus of media networks, and counterterrorism experts. Legal challenges to the Muslim ban will fail as long as the national security myth behind the cultural logic of "Good Muslim" versus "Bad Muslim" is not challenged by a historical examination of Islam in America.
Rizvi, M., 2019. A divided movement: urban activists, NGOs, and the fault-lines of a peasant struggle. South Asian History and Culture, 10(3), pp.295-308., 2019
Contemporary rural social movements in South Asia are increasingly dependent on NGOs and urban ci... more Contemporary rural social movements in South Asia are increasingly dependent on NGOs and urban civil society networks to expand their local struggle to the national and even international levels. This development has shifted the political dynamics of rural social movements in unexpected ways as NGOs and urban activists affiliated with civil society organizations have supplanted older Left oriented political parties and local elites as the primary media for funding, communication and out-reach for livelihood struggles. This article analyzes the dramatic rise of the Punjab Tenants Association (hereafter AMP), the land rights movement that is resisting the Pakistan military's policy to monetize state-owned military farmland in Punjab. The aim is to underscore the new possibilities of such a movement and highlight the contradictions that were experienced by AMP as a result of its close association with NGOs, urban activists and civil society networks.
Anthropology Today. Vol 34, No 3, 15-18
For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on... more For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on its military farms in central Punjab. In this article, I analyse the historical and cultural significance of this contested land by using insights from recent literature on the politics of infrastructure to examine the contingency of rule in Pakistan, a postcolonial state, which is dominated by its army. I illustrate these dynamics by exploring the challenge brought up by a peasant movement to tacit cultural understandings about land and political subjectivity in central Punjab, the folkloric heartland of Pakistani nationalism. I argue that place-based movements, like the Punjab Tenants Association, can radically challenge our sense of place by giving a relational account of land as both a material substance and a crucial link in the set of relations that define moral, economic and political life. This approach broadens the emerging study of infrastructures by engaging insights from science/technology studies and subaltern studies to examine how cultural legacies of colonial infrastructure projects shape state–society relations in Pakistan.
This article counters prevailing assessments of hip-hop that offer very essentialist readings of ... more This article counters prevailing assessments of hip-hop that offer very essentialist readings of the genre. Too often there is a ready willingness to conflate aesthetics with ‘reality’, the tendency to confuse form with content, and the insistence by both critics and practitioners to fuse behavior with spectacle. Locating myself within the hip hop universe I will trace the shadowy figure of Black-Atlantic Islam to see how multiple cultural meanings and political significations are emergent in the social life of hip-hop.
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Papers by Mubbashir Rizvi