Editing Women: Co-Investigating Autonomy and Sustainability in Pakistan’s Contemporary Literary Landscape

As pioneers of feminist publishing in the Global South have emphasised, South Asian women’s writing has borne powerful witness to the personal, social, economic, and political impacts of gender inequality, while at the same time demonstrating the radical potential of the literary imagination to “produce an alternative knowledge” of and for women in the region and inspire social change (Menon 2001, 177). Yet women at the forefront of dynamic contemporary print and digital publications within Pakistan, such as the editors of Pakistan-based literary magazines Aleph Review, Behenchara Magazine, Pandemonium Journal, Papercuts and The Missing Slate, face considerable challenges when it comes to maintaining aesthetic and political autonomy (Akhtar and Khan, 2021). Inviting them to participate in a series of co-produced knowledge-sharing, priority-setting and research activities aimed at establishing common aspirations, challenges and strategies, and at facilitating dialogue with key stakeholders in and beyond the publishing sector, this project aims to support women editors in investigating the impacts of gender inequalities and co-evolving effective and sustainable solutions for the retention of independence in the contemporary Pakistani literary landscape. In the process, it will also yield important research insights into enduring questions of purpose, power, and profit in South Asian women’s publishing more broadly (see Jolly, 2021).