A De Montfort University (DMU) historian has been awarded more than €48,500 (approximately £41,400) to carry out research on the history of gender politics in Pakistan.
Dr Pippa Virdee, Senior Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at DMU in Leicester, has received a two year grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation as part of its focus on the modern nation state of Islam and transnational movements.
The project will look specifically at Muslim women’s history from the late colonial period to present day Pakistan.
“From a position of strength in the late colonial period, women’s position in Pakistan has undergone vast change, yet very little is written about this,” said Dr Virdee.
“The status and influence of women in Pakistan has gone through enormous change since the Pakistan separatist movement started in colonial India. This project will investigate how women’s position in Pakistan has changed over the past 60 years and to what extent Islam has been invoked in mobilising and shaping women’s identity in Pakistan.
“My research will investigate Muslim women’s history in the making of the modern Pakistan nation state. It will explore the transformation of women in Pakistan, beginning with the colonial era and the impact of the separatist movement, before comparing these processes with the women’s movement in the 1980s and more recently the Al-Huda movement.”
Dr Virdee has previously conducted research on Muslim women’s experiences of migration and resettlement following the partition of the Punjab, India, in 1947.
