Dr Zaib un Nisa Aziz

My current book project Nations Ascendant: The Global Struggle Against Empire and The Making of Our World (under advanced contract with Yale University Press), is based on my doctoral work and presents a new history of the rise of national self-determination in the twentieth century. The book tells the story an international movement against imperialism which centers the political thought and practice of Indian anti-colonialists. Focusing on international networks, which appeared during the interwar years, this book reveals a story about revolutionary internationalists – especially from South Asia and across the British Empire – who championed national self-determination. The book will show the existence of a global public sphere, whose members, though not always proximate, framed a common political community striving against imperialism. I center the political thought and practice of Indian anti-colonialists and demonstrate how these actors played a pivotal role in shaping anti-colonial nationalism, transforming it into a global cause by challenging and reimagining nationalist ideas to promote universal liberation and progress. My research draws from my long-standing interest in studying the history of the subcontinent in global and regional contexts. I have published on global anti-colonialism, international feminist thought and practice and intellectual exchange between South Asian leftists and their counterparts at the turn of the twentieth century, I am currently working on multiple research projects. My second book tentatively titled, “Toil and Trouble: Indian Workers, Citizenship and the Afterlives of Empire examines the political discourse on overseas Indian labour in the British Empire from the late 19th to the late 20th century. Taking an intergenerational view, this book will examine the lives of families and communities who went through these forced and voluntary labor migrations and who were embroiled in, impacted by, and crucially shaped debates on imperial subjecthood, national belonging, and eventually on modern citizenship during this extended period. This book length study will thus meditate on the relationship between labor rights and political belonging in the twentieth century. I am also developing a project on General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship in Pakistan between 1978-1988. This project will examine the rapid rise of Islamic fundamentalist movements in Pakistan and the state’s appropriation of their discourse. It will also analyze how Pakistani feminists, lawyers, and journalists developed and mobilized emerging human rights frameworks to resist military rule.