The visible and invisible discourses: the securitization of Pakistan and its impact on the social construction of girls’/women education

Sameer, Ali (2020) The visible and invisible discourses: the securitization of Pakistan and its impact on the social construction of girls’/women education. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This study examines the securitization of Pakistan and its impact on the social construction of girls’/women education. The research has applied the school of Copenhagen’s securitization model to offer a constructivist analysis of Pakistan’s security struggles. Using the ideas of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, the study explores the power of both discourse and performativity to examine issues of gender and education in a religiously driven post-colonial-security state.
The study adopted a qualitative methodological approach, and twenty-eight elite interviews were conducted with officials from five cohorts: the army, religious scholars, bureaucrats, educationists, and third-sector officials. The rationale in the selection of participants was done keeping in mind the significance of their influence on the issues of security, gender, and education in Pakistan. The findings of the study suggest that the notion of discourse, which is profoundly prevalent and holds credible relevance in educational studies but needs to be extended and adapted to engage with a postcolonial context. Therefore, the thesis argues that it is not only through visible discourses that the discourse of securitization impacts girls’/women education in Pakistan. However, there exist invisible discourses, such as, the discourse of gendered ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘hidden curriculum’, which come together with the visible discourses to constitute exclusionary gendered educational practices in Pakistan. The study also illustrates that power structures contest and negotiate power within the discourse of securitization. This negotiation and contestation generate discourses that influence the inequitable constitution of the ‘girl/woman’ as subject in Pakistan. However, the thesis discerns that in a postcolonial society, such as Pakistan, the creation of subject within discourses is diverse from the creation of Foucauldian subject in European society.
Acknowledging, the diversity of discourses and the varied working ways of power among distinct societies and cultures, the research study suggests that within the realm of education, the application of theories of discourse and power have definite strengths but once applied out of their contexts can exhibit limitations as well. Hence, it argues, discourses and power should be studied and explored keeping in mind their social and cultural relevance and differences.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Foucault, power/knowledge, discourse, education, gender, postcolonial, poststructuralist feminist, Pakistan.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Murphy, Dr. Mark and Read, Dr. Barbara
• Date of Award: 2020
• Depositing User: Mr ali sameer
• Unique ID: glathesis:2020-81557
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 05 Aug 2020 11:14
• Last Modified: 15 Sep 2022 14:18
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/81557