Feeling at Home? Love, Loss and Longing in Post-Partition Pakistan
Abstract
This article takes the notion of the ‘emotional arena’ as its prompt for exploring ways in which expressions of ‘love’, ‘loss’ and ‘longing’ connected with place-making during Pakistan’s first decade (1947–58). It focuses on the new country’s then capital city of Karachi, arguably the emotional epicentre of early attempts at nation-building in the years immediately after Independence, and somewhere to which substantial numbers of migrants from different parts of India, as well as elsewhere in Pakistan, relocated thanks to Partition. In all three cases, the desire to ‘feel at home’ featured strongly, whether implicitly or more overtly.
Fields of Study & Subjects
South Asian Studies and Diaspora
Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies
South Asian Studies and Conflicts
Publication details
- Journal / source
- South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 188–207
- Publication date
- 2 January 2026
- Language
- EN