Writing Regional Histories Workshop

The Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature hosted a two-day interdisciplinary workshop titled Writing Regional Histories: Theorizing Environment, Peripheries, Histories, and Space on December 20–21, 2025. The workshop brought together scholars working across history, geography, literary studies, anthropology, and environmental studies to reflect collectively on the conceptual, methodological, and archival challenges involved in writing regional histories in South Asia, with a particular emphasis on Pakistan.

The workshop functioned as an intensive intellectual forum that enabled sustained and generative conversations across disciplinary boundaries. Participants engaged with a wide range of theoretical frameworks and research practices, including spatial history, environmental history, digital cartography, microhistory, archival studies, literary theory, and human geography. The discussions not only introduced new conceptual vocabularies but also challenged established historiographical assumptions about scale, region, and the relationship between place and historical narration.

A central concern that emerged across the sessions was the analytical significance of space in historical inquiry. Rather than treating regions, cities, or landscapes as passive backdrops, participants explored how spatial formations actively shape historical processes, social relations, and cultural imaginaries. The notion of chronotopes proved particularly productive in thinking through the entanglement of space and time in historical narratives, while cartography—both digital and conceptual—was examined as a methodological tool for visualizing environmental change, mobility, and the layered histories of regions.

Considerable attention was also devoted to the question of archives and their role in producing regional histories. Discussions highlighted the constraints and possibilities of working with colonial and postcolonial archives, especially in relation to the silences, exclusions, and epistemic assumptions embedded within official records. Police files, administrative documents, and other institutional sources were examined not only for the information they contain but also for what they obscure, thereby opening up broader questions about state power, violence, and historical representation. At the same time, participants reflected on the potential of non-traditional sources and alternative archival practices to write histories of regions and cities that remain marginal within dominant historiographical frameworks.

The relationship between literature and the region constituted another major axis of discussion. Literary texts were approached as critical sites through which space, memory, violence, and everyday life can be apprehended in ways that often elude conventional historical narratives. Engagements with literary theory foregrounded questions of narrative form, voice, and ethical representation, particularly in relation to minor histories, subaltern spaces, and the affective dimensions of place. These discussions underscored the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue between history and literary studies in developing more nuanced and reflexive accounts of regional pasts.

Each participant contributed a distinct scholarly perspective that significantly enriched the collective conversation. Dr. Shafiq’s work on digital cartography and environmental history demonstrated how spatial visualization can transform the study of local and regional histories. Dr. Malik’s and Shandana Waheed’s research on neighborhood-level microhistories foregrounded the analytical value of everyday life, community practices, and localized religious cultures.

Dr. Chattha’s engagement with archival sources, particularly police records, prompted critical reflections on methodologies for studying violence and the state. Dr. Aijaz’s interventions, grounded in literary theory and human geography, provided conceptual tools for interrogating narrative, space, and the ethics of historical writing. The discussion comprehensively ranged from foundational texts in environmental and spatial history to works on chronotopes, archival critique, microhistory, and patchwork ethnography, which played an important role in facilitating a shared analytical framework.

Many of the ideas and arguments developed during the sessions require further refinement, elaboration, and sustained engagement. Accordingly, the workshop was widely understood not as a self-contained event but as the beginning of a longer intellectual process. As collectively agreed, participants will revise their ongoing projects and papers in light of the discussions and resubmit them for further engagement. Future possibilities include follow-up workshops, thematic panels, and the development of an edited volume or special journal issue emerging from the workshop’s core concerns.

The workshop was a genuine intellectual tour de force, marked by critical openness, methodological experimentation, and a shared commitment to rethinking how regional histories are written. The Centre looks forward to building on this momentum and continuing to foster interdisciplinary scholarship on language, literature, history, and space