Beyond the Mountains: Social and Political Imaginaries in Gilgit-Baltistan (Raachi, 2024) is a multilingual, indigenous volume and collaborative research endeavor with the aim of decolonizing knowledge. This talk will focus on the politics of race and anthropology historically in Gilgit-Baltistan, the necessity of local knowledges, and rethinking publishing and the academy in this historical conjuncture.

Dr. Nosheen Ali is a sociologist and co-founder of the independent press, Raachi. Her research is focused on state-making and border lives in Gilgit-Baltistan, Muslim poetic thought, and ecological futures in South Asia. She is the author of Delusional States: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan’s Northern Frontier (Cambridge University Press, 2019).