Please join us for The Shangrila Diaries: Foreign Tourists in Hunza Valley hosted by the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences!

Speaker: Shafqat Hussain (Professor of Anthropology and George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT).

Dive into Professor Hussain’s fascinating research on foreign tourists in Gojal Valley, Pakistan. He’ll share insights from guest entry registers at local hotels, revealing tourists' thoughts, experiences, and sketches. Discover the diverse perspectives captured in these entries, from heartfelt reflections to candid critiques.

Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with initial analyses of these intriguing comments!

Hashtags: #HunzaValley #TourismResearch #CulturalAnthropology #TrinityCollege

Abstract: This presentation is about my ongoing research on foreign tourists in Gojal valley, upper Hunza, Pakistan. In the summer of 2023, while doing fieldwork for my book on Pakistani national tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, I found comments and guest entry registers kept at local hotels in Passu village in upper Hunza. There are two kinds of registers that we found. The first kind was where the guests entered their personal information such as their nationality, profession, Date of Birth, destination etc., etc., and the second, where the guests entered their comments and drew sketches. Entries in the first register were mandatory while comments in the second register were optional. These early travelers to upper Hunza took special interest in both reading and inscribing their thoughts in these registers. They passed their opinions about the hospitality or the cunning of local people, gave special and mundane advice to fellow trekkers, or scolded the behavior of fellow trekkers. They also wrote extensive and detailed directions and guidelines for fellow trekkers and inscribed sometimes soulful and romantic monologues. The tone and tenor of these comments range from satirical, witty, racist, sinophobic, enlightened and alienated. I am currently translating, transcribing and coding these comments and hope to share initial analysis with you during the presentation.  

Bio:

Shafqat Hussain is a Professor of Anthropology and George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. Shafqat obtained a Ph.D. from the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Department of Anthropology at Yale University, USA in 2009. For his doctoral research he worked in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, looking at conflict between a local yak-herding community and the government forest department over the establishment and management of a National Park. He has worked for Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Skardu and IUCN – Washington as a Ford Foundation Policy Fellow. He also runs a snow leopard conservation project in Baltistan region of northern Pakistan. He has written two books – Remoteness and Modernity: Transformation and Continuity in Northern Pakistan published by Yale University Press in 2015 and The Snow Leopard and the Goat: Politics of Conservation in the Western Himalayas Published by University of Washington Press in 2020.