Issues of gender and violence are often dismissed as women's-only issues. Our panel challenges this perspective by discussing different types of violence faced by gender and sexual minorities who do not conform to social expectations and rules, and whose experiences are often erased.
Moderated by Dr. Naveen Zehra Minai.
In English and Urdu, with Sign Language translation available.
Suitable for all ages.
Dr. Naveen Zehra Minai holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles and teaches in the Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at IBA, Karachi. Her research is interdisciplinary and focuses on representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in film, television, and literature.
Shahana Rajani is an artist and educator based in Karachi. Her recent work explores the politics of development and displacement in the city using interdisciplinary methods and media. She is a co-founder of the Karachi LaJamia, an experimental project seeking to politicise art education and explore new radical pedagogies and art practices, and currently teaches at IBA's department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts.
Nausheen H. Anwar is Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning in the department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at IBA, Karachi. She received her PhD from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University. Nausheen also holds a MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University. Her work focuses on the role policymaking and planning processes play in sustaining urban and regional inequality in the production of space/place. She has authored a book: Infrastructure Redux: Crisis, Progress in Industrial Pakistan & Beyond (2015, Palgrave Macmillan), and numerous journal articles and media publications. Nausheen recently co-authored a research report on Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan funded by a three-year grant from Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC).
Mehlab Jameel is a researcher and an activist based in Lahore and works on issues pertaining to rights of gender and sexual minorities in Pakistan. She is training to be an anthropologist and her research is located at the intersection of feminist, queer and postcolonial theories. She often writes about cultural politics, particularly in the Global South, and takes a keen interest in leftist political movements in postcolonial contexts. Currently, she is working with a community-based technical support agency that does advocacy and rights based work for LGBT/MSM/hijra communities in Pakistan.