114 research outputs found
Narratives of violence and resistance in Waziristan: examining the Mahsud-State engagement in post-colonial Pakistan
No full textThis thesis aims to deconstruct the Pakistani state’s militarisation to secure its western periphery from 2009 to 2023, specifically looking at two temporal developments: the post-conflict displacements in South Waziristan (2009) and the political merger of FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (2018). It does this by examining the perceptions, experiences, and responses to the state militarisation from the point of view of the Mahsud, a rural community from this region. Understanding security/insecurity, militarisation, and violence in the everyday is furthered by this original research. This research’s central question is: How has the state’s securitisation of South Waziristan impacted the Mahsud? This thesis examines violence and political developments in post-conflict Waziristan through the lens of ‘gendered experiences’ of insecurity, as proposed by Sjoberg (2016a). The gendered experience lens provides a fresh perspective on comprehending the perception and experience of security among individuals, uncovering the role of ‘gender hierarchies’ and ‘gendered hierarchies’ in shaping state policies and personal encounters with security and violence.
It argues that the state’s securitisation of the periphery (Waziristan) resulted in further insecurities and violence, exacerbating the alienation between the state and the Mahsud. The second argument traced across the four empirical chapters is that emotions significantly shape Mahsud-state relations. The emotional aspects are significant in studying state and social behaviour through the case study of the Mahsud. Third, violence by state and local power structures to subordinate people, particularly women, reinforces gendering and the use of honour and shame tied to national pride and culture. It contends that the Mahsud women demonstrate active agency in negotiating with power structures.
The thesis contributes broadly to multidisciplinary scholarship, and more specifically to feminist geopolitics, feminist works in intimate (geo)politics, area studies focusing on post-colonial states in the Global South, and security studies. It takes a spatial perspective of violence and security from the intimate microsites of the body and the home to the more significant national and international sites of militarisation and geopolitics.
The thesis provides a nuanced understanding of Pakistan’s state behaviour beyond traditional security and IR readings, challenging its representation in geopolitical and security literature. Second, it contributes to the geographies of emotions by unravelling emotions and insecurities amidst the Mahsud people’s experiences of the state. Third, the case study of Mahsud women contributes to the understanding of everyday, gendered experiences of the state and women’s agency in facing multiple forms of violence. Fourth, by focusing on women’s perspective, the research examines women-state relations in conflict areas of Pakistan’s borderlands, addressing gaps in the literature on South Asian states. Finally, it advances the understanding of honour’s gendered construct in state-society dynamics characterised by structural and cultural violence
Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research
No full textEvidence from all over the world especially developing countries have shown a rapid increase in enrolment of individuals under distance learning academic programmes. In today’s modern world, one of the most important objectives of education is to produce such learners who could be self reliant for their learning process. ODL has been an instrumental educational strategy in reaching out masses from far flung areas to build their capacities. A worth mentioning example for this very achievement of ODL in Pakistan is Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). It is quite important to explore that what are the factors which instigate the masses towards joining ODL programmes and their impact on individuals’ capacities. The paper is presenting the survey based view point of ODL students in Pakistan about a) the reasons for joining AIOU and b) the impact of this education on development of skills to organize their studies and assess the quality of their written work which enabled them to extract important themes and ideas from the specially developed printed study materials.
Findings are made on the basis of data collected through interviews of randomly selected 250 AIOU students of different levels from its 03 regions (Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Saidu Sharif). It can be concluded that distinguishing features of AIOU which turn into reasons for females to join AIOU includes; opportunity of education while staying at home, lower fee structure, study while in service, no age limits and continuation of education after breaks. AIOU offers a wide range of courses/discipline which is also an important reason behind joining the institution. A vast majority mentioned that they have learned the skill of reading, organizing their study plan and preparing lessons and can do self assessment of their written work. These skills were developed because of compulsory written assignments for each and every course of the academic programmes. An area which requires some further and specialized efforts is related to the feedback provided to students by their tutors on the written assignments. The learners can enhance their reading and self evaluative capacities up to the extent, technical feedback is being provided. So, the distance learning methodology of AIOU has been enabling its beneficiaries, through its self study model, to develop self reliance and get education which otherwise is not accessible or feasible in conventional syste
A Comparative Analysis of Mahsud and Afridi Tribe Resistance Movement Against the British 1849-1897
No full textPoor and enriched with the philosophy of Jihad bound to chivalrous culture and religious obligations; Pathans are a strange Fascination to talk about and live with. Jihad or rhetorically religious violence has a long history in frontier tribes. The tribal region comprising Northern Western Frontier Province (NWFP) was important for the British because of its strategic location which hindered British through political upheavals. Regional events were closely connected with religious doctrines. British received forceful armed religious vigour by the tribes of NWFP. British treated this pan-Islamic sentiment severely through military expeditions. This research paper aims to assess the resistance movement of Mahsud and Afridi tribes against British rule. British colonial experience (1849 to 1947) suggests interagency operation to complete a certain course of action in these areas. In this research paper, we aim to investigate the origin, culture, geography, British advent, early relations, British expeditions and their impact, Malik system setup, British strategies and the response of Mahsud and Afridi tribes. This research describes the economic, social and political organizations of these two tribes along with their cultural attention which reflects rivalry, patriarchal parallels and egalitarian ethos. British always regarded Mahsud raiding a threat and persistent problem which lead British to lead with the tribal belt by imposing tribal responsibility, indirect subsidies and improved position but interestingly the tension within the tribes' lead to “Second Anglo-Afghan War”. Earlier efforts brought fruitful outcomes where Darvish Khel Wazirs started cultivating the land in Bannu and graze flocks but British clumsy handling attributed to a serious crisis in the 1870s. British furthered the process of better tribal management. This research analyzes the strategic, economic, social, political and cultural influences on Mahsud and Afridi tribes for their effectiveness. The significance of the Northern Western Frontier region has always centred around its culture and politico-militia. Government of India (GOI) tried to control tribal issues through civilization influence by motivating tribes to start trade with British, join military and use other public departments in their benefit. British Pashtun civilization model was very different than their culture to wane Pashtuns towards the century but the response of Pashtuns turned more ambivalent. British found Pashtun vengeful fanatics and treacherous; whereas, British also admired them for their resourceful character, bravery and for their stand for what they spoke. Tribes may not fit into stereotype perceptions called noble savages while living in their splendid isolation but they remained consistent to Pashtunwali code. British Officials remained engaged with both the tribes for better tribal management by establishing their control across the frontier zone. Tribes managed to rule out the barbarous tactics of Sikhs and vigorous response to the limit of insult but the importance of social and economic tribal organization was also an important parallel with the honour and prestige of the government. Independent tribes got engaged with the British along with negotiation and agreements with Mahsud and Afridi tribe
National space legislation: A dire need for Pakistan
No full textThe world is advancing at a great pace in space related activities. Space use has expanded, pushing more and more countries and private commercial operations towards launching different projects. Space agencies across the world are playing a progressively vital role in different activities such as environmental management, meteorology, communications, navigation, resource surveying, global positioning and disaster monitoring etc. Space science and research has tremendous potential and can be developed for solutions of problems. Remote sensing, a satellite and aircraft-based sensor technology used to spot and categorize objects on Earth, can be used in Earth Science disciplines such as geography, ecology, and land surveying etc. Based on these useful applications of remote sensing, we propose that this technology may be used for dispute resolution of the land demarcations and fragmentation issues. Many countries have already entered into all the five space treaties and are taking further steps to consolidate their respective space law and policy. It is required that the government of Pakistan together with the national space agency work on formulating an effective space legislation for e country
SCIENTIFIC VIEWS ON THE GEOMETRIC MODELING OF THE OPTIMAL DESIGN OF ENCLOSURES FOR SPATIAL SHELLS, COATINGS
No full textThis article presents thoughts and comments on some studies on geometric modeling of the optimal design of structures for spatial shells of coatings
Fatigue Behavior Of Continuous Fiber-Reinforced Composite Beams
No full textA study has been taken to evaluate the fatigue behavior of glass fiber-reinforced composite beams. Due to their highly anisotropic properties, composite beams have different failure modes at different stages of fatigue life. The results of the four-point bending fatigue tests show that the material follows different failure mechanisms depending on the stress level applied to the beam and failure mode changes from compressive failure at high stresses to tensile failure at low stresses. Accordingly, the stress vs. number of cycles curve has different slopes at high and low cycle fatigue regions. Two different fatigue damage models, which are used with similar damage mechanisms, were selected. The combination of these two models was applied to composite beam. The methodology of life prediction and calculations are presented. The numerical results are compared to experimental data. The predicted fatigue lives agree with experimental observations very well
Academic libraries and the pandemic: lessons learned and future plans
No full textIn this video poster presentation, the presenters will discuss how their library, at an overseas Canadian university, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as share what their “new normal” looks like.
While our library’s function as a physical hub was severely hampered, it continued to play its role as a resource and saw more and more patrons turn to it for academic support. Given the disruption of normal library services, including the opportunity to seek information through the physical library help desk, blended services were offered through restricted physical library access and digital resources. Parallel to online class delivery, the library introduced an increased number of electronic devices, discussion forums, course-specific digital resources and chat services for engaging our university community.
Even though we are now once again engaging face-to-face, there remains a need for instruction and resources to navigate an online environment (Ziv & Bene, 2022). In the case of students, especially those suffering from social inequalities, it can be harmful to buy into the myth that they are digital natives (Enyon, 2020), with the know-how to operate in and analyze online environments. Similarly, faculty may no longer need the level of support they did during emergency remote teaching, but there is always room for improving teaching-with-technology methods. The pandemic cemented the core role libraries play in promoting and supporting information and digital literacy.
The presentation will discuss the practices that the library is consciously continuing with post-pandemic.
References
Enyon, R. (2020). The myth of the digital native: Why it persists and the harm it inflicts. In Burns, T. and F. Gottschalk (Eds.), Education in the Digital Age: Healthy and Happy Children (pp. 131 - 143). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/1209166a-en
Ziv, N., & Bene, E. (2022). Preparing College Students for a Digital Age: A Survey of Instructional Approaches to Spotting Misinformation. College & Research Libraries, 83(6), 905–925. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.83.6.90
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