University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 A Study on Mobility: Pakistani-Origin Muslim Youth in Higher Education Mariam Durrani University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons, Higher Education and Teaching Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Durrani, Mariam, "A Study on Mobility: Pakistani-Origin Muslim Youth in Higher Education" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1694. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1694 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1694 For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Study on Mobility: Pakistani-Origin Muslim Youth in Higher Education Abstract My dissertation is a multi-sited ethnography that investigates the gendered lifeworlds of transnational Pakistani-origin, Muslim college students in New York City and in Lahore, Pakistan. My ethnographic approach follows the multiple and overlapping mobility trajectories of transnational youth as marked by particular, semiotic practices and narratives. During the 16 months of fieldwork, my focal fieldsites—the hallways, dorms, student club- rooms, cafeterias, and libraries at two comparable college campuses—provided the interactional spaces where I could observe students developing their social and cultural selves. In my research, I found that the rural to urban migration pattern and concomitant imaginaries remained significant for both intra- and inter-national movements. My research examined students’ narratives about these multiscalar mobilities, analyzing emergent and locale-specific discursive and embodied practices in relation to transnational and piety-based markers of belonging. In this, I found that these practices both reified and critiqued traditional and modern notions of patriarchy. My study shows that mobility offers an ideal construct to ethnographically observe Pakistani-origin Muslim youth subject-making and to understand how transnational youth re-fashion their social identities and professional aspirations given contemporary post-9/11 political and social climate. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Anthropology First Advisor Asif Agha Second Advisor Stanton E. Wortham Keywords Mobility, Muslim Youth, Pakistan, Semiotic anthropology, South Asian Youth, Transnational ethnography Subject Categories Education | Higher Education Administration | Higher Education and Teaching | Social and Cultural Anthropology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1694 A STUDY ON MOBILITY: PAKISTANI-ORIGIN MUSLIM YOUTH IN HIGHER EDUCATION Mariam Durrani A DISSERTATION in Education and Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation: Co-Supervisor of Dissertation _____________________________________ __________________________________ Asif Agha, Professor of Anthropology Stanton E.F. Wortham, Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education Graduate Group Chairperson, Education Graduate Group Chairperson, Anthropology ______________________________________ __________________________________ J. Matthew Hartley, Professor of Education Deborah A. Thomas, Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies Dissertation Committee: Asif Agha, Professor of Anthropology Stanton E.F. Wortham, Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education John L. Jackson, Jr., Richard Perry Professor of Communication, Anthropology, & Africana Studies Miyako Inoue, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University Angela Reyes, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Hunter College A STUDY ON MOBILITY: PAKISTANI-ORIGIN MUSLIM YOUTH IN HIGHER EDUCATION COPYRIGHT 2016 Mariam Durrani This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ For Nadine Noor Jabran iii Acknowledgements My journey through a joint doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania would have been inconceivable without the support, guidance, and love I have received from friends, colleagues, mentors, and family. In this short note, I hope to express a small portion of my sincere gratitude to these wonderful people. At the University of Pennsylvania, I was blessed to have the most inspiring professors/mentors. I want to begin by giving my thanks to my advisor and dissertation committee chair, Dr. Asif Agha, whose intellectual brilliance and profound empathy at just the right moments gave me the push I needed to finish this PhD. Dr. Agha’s scholarship on the anthropology of social relations has been the foundational pillar for my work and I feel immensely privileged to have had the opportunity to receive his counsel during my scholarly endeavors at Penn. Thank you to Dr. John Jackson, whose radical pedagogical methods and ethically rooted anthropological imagination and work has been a constant source of intellectual relief and inspiration. Becoming friends with John profoundly changed the direction of my scholarship and gave me the confidence to simultaneously pursue the life of a public intellectual and an academic of color at a PWI. I first read Dr. Wortham’s annual review on “Linguistic anthropology of education” while working in Karachi, years before I have benefitted from working and studying with him at Penn. As a co- chair on my committee, Dr. Wortham’s incisive comments and provocations to think more critically about my research approach have found their way to my final dissertation, substantively polishing my analyses and research findings. From Dr. Angela Reyes, I have learned the profound importance and delight of building a scholarly community beyond my home institution. Her research on bilingual Asian-American youth and ongoing work in the Philippines have provided two brilliant examples of how to bring the personal and political to bear on rigorous scholarly work. I met Dr. Deborah Thomas after I had completed required coursework, and yet in iv our relationship, I found a mentor, a friend, and an inspiration for how to be a gifted and generous feminist scholar. My heartfelt thank you to Dr. Miyako Inoue, whose praise and encouragement of my dissertation proposal began one of my most cherished relationships in the university and whose book on Japanese women’s language motivates me to do right by my participants and to push my work towards a more ethically sound anthropology of gender. Thank you to all my professors at Penn GSE and the Anthropology department: Dr. Nancy Hornberger, Dr. Kathy Howard, Dr. Betsy Rymes, Dr. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, Dr. Robert Moore, Dr. Greg Urban, Dr. Tad Schurr, and Dr. Kathy Hall who have all provided direction and encouragement during both formidable times and joyous moments. This project would never had been without the support and generosity of all my participants across Lahore and New York City. As they journeyed on their own academic and mobility trajectories, each of them gave unselfishly to helping me understand what it means to be a Pakistani-origin Muslim transnational youth subject. They welcomed me into their lives, shared intimate details about their pasts, and shared future imaginings of the world they aspired to help create some day. In all this, I can confidently say I have benefitted more than they possibly could have and I hope that one day I can return the favor in some way. I am humbled by their commitment to furthering my ethnographic endeavors and hope this dissertation does some justice to the time we spent—aspiring, learning, and sharing—together. Funding for this project came from many sources: the Penn GSE Dean’s Fellowship, the Zwicker Fund through the Penn anthropology department, the Penn SAS Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Critical Writing Teaching Fellowship through the Critical Writing Program at Penn, and the Experimental Ethnography Fellowship through the Penn anthropology department. v I also must thank the Penn GAPSA, Fontaine Society, and GSE student government for providing travel funds over the years so that I may take part in academic conferences. Many of my colleagues at Penn have become part of my chosen family, and thus I must thank them accordingly. My best friend, Dr. Arjun Shankar, has believed in me when I felt the task was impossible, generously offering loving support as well as gentle critique, and most endearingly Arjun cared for my daughter so that I could focus more on my work—a debt that can never be repaid. A big thanks to my cohort ‘wifey’, Dr. Cecile Evers. I love that we have had each other over the ups and downs, growings, and learnings of this PhD, while trying to keep each other sane and smiling. I am thankful to my good friend, Dr. E. Gabriel Dattatreyan, who challenged my project in the best ways, rooted for me during the most tumultuous moments, and whose family I have grown to love as my own during our time in Philadelphia. I also wish to thank my close friends and colleagues: Dr. Roseann Liu, the soon-to-be Dr. Matthew Tarditi, Madeline Boyer, Dr. Krystal Smalls, Tali Ziv, Aparna Wilder, who showed up with gifts, hugs, and an attentive ear at various times during this seven-year process. Also thank you to my friends at camra—Sandra,