Shadowlands (Film Screening)

Shadowlands: Life After Conflict in Lyari, Karachi follows the stories of two residents of the area of Lyari in Karachi, Nawaz Laasi and Amna Baloch. Lyari is one of Karachi’s oldest settlements and is home to approximately 1.5 million people. It has also been labelled one of the city’s ‘no-go areas’ because of the on-going conflicts that have taken place there. Both Amna and Nawaz have lost family members as a result of the conflict. Nawaz has lost four sons, two to gang violence and two at the hands of the police, and Amna’s husband was killed by the police. Through telling their stories, this documentary sheds light on the on-going ramifications of violence and questions whether peace has truly been achieved for the people of Lyari.

​​​​Bio: 
Nida Kirmani is the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Associate Professor of South Asian Studies for the 2022 – 2023 academic year at Brandeis University’s South Asian Studies Program.  At Brandeis, Professor Kirmani continues her research and writing on urban violence, gender, and insecurity in Lyari in Karachi Pakistan.  Dr. Kirmani is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, and coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Minor.  Prof. Kirmani is a feminist public intellectual who has published widely on issues related to gender, Islam, women’s movements, development, and urban studies in India and Pakistan. She completed her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Manchester in Sociology. Her book, Questioning ‘the Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality, was published in 2013 by Routledge.

Discussant: Dr Zoha Waseem, University of Warwick. 
Introduction by Prof. Navtej Purewal, SOAS University of London.