Dr Abdul Razaque Channa Profile by Sanjay Mathrani

Profile:

Prof Dr Abdul Razaque Channa  : Cultural Anthropologist

By Sanjay Mathrani (2K16-MC-151)

Most of the time people love to consider that a human being should be expert in his field rather wants to be “Har Fun Mola”, because blessing is another debate and having worth is something else. Prof Dr Razaque Channa is down to earth man, his countless struggles and efforts are the only way to note this figure, hailing from an underprivileged area of Sindh and middle class family he never disappointed. He is the inspiration for many growing souls and for those who possess the passion and love to do research with modern methodologies. He vowed to document the heritages and historical sites through his tactics.

People dream so he does. But he never afforded to dream for getting education in the high ranked universities. His beloved parents always wanted him and his siblings to get education and live decent life. It was just because his Ama and Baba couldn’t read or write and they didn’t want them to be labelled as ‘Jahil’.
Quality education, working with an international team and living in the most beautiful capitals of the world looked more like a prey to the eyes, deception to the sensibilities but not the dream for the person like him knowing the fact that he had the humble family background.
He was born in Shahdadkot town of Sindh province which is famous for high ratio of illiteracy, gender inequalities are relatively harsh, and socio-cultural and economic givens of the province are controlled by the landlord and Pirs (i.e., large landholdings and political representatives).
The majority of the population is dependent upon them. There are, therefore, yawning divides between a few privileged groups and the majority as marginalized. In this background: He lived happily, learnt from the lovely disappointments, played cricket and football like‘Junoon’, enjoyed family life, and made great friends which altogether became a proud and enriching experience of life.
He completed his first years of education in Shahdadkot; primary education in Government Mehran Primary school and government boys high school Shahdadkot.

Cultural Anthropology has remained his major field of interest throughout Masters and MPhil at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. During masters, He looked at gender construction through popular verbal discourse and discursive practices while working with ‘Bheels’ an indigenous community of a rural Sindh. During his M.Phil. He attempted to understand engendered empowered men and disempowered women through the states and civil society discourse on rehabilitation and reconstruction on earthquake hit Areas, Pakistan.

He has PhD in anthropology from the Australian National University, an academic institution that is recognised globally and has one of the highest international rankings. His thesis, titled ‘Schooling gender in rural Pakistan’, makes a unique contribution to the anthropological knowledge of how schooling effects the construction of gender. The abstract of the thesis is available on the ANU website at https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/110546.

His sound academic and professional standing has been improved and given international exposure through working with Pakistan’s federal government, national and international NGOs. Currently He is working as Assistant Professor of Anthropology as a regular faculty members in BPS 19 along with an additional charge of Head of Division at the Centre for Indus Valley Integrated Studies (CIVIS) at the University of Sindh. Although, He have almost twelve years of professional experience working with government organisations, public universities, and national and international NGOs on various projects including gender empowerment, peace and development, interfaith harmony, non-formal education, special education, humanitarian aid and disaster management, monitoring and evaluation. He was also honoured to be the official members of federal government in designing the Pakistan’s policy on the UN convention on the rights of persons with disability (UNCRDP).

Gender and visual anthropology have been and remain a dominant theme throughout his academic and professional career. Ethnographic film making and photography have remained his passion.  His visual projects are based on documenting indigenous culture, socio-cultural dynamics, children lives and their gender contestation, gender and education, folk culture, heritage and endangered musical instrument. He have received international awards for his visual media projects and his work has been showcased in various exhibitions and ethnographic film festivals screened in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan.

He have presented his anthropological research work in six countries which won me various awards like ‘Travel Grants – Pakistan, Australia, Canada, Singapore and New Zealand’, ‘Best Poster Award – Graduate & University House, Australian National University’. Besides these international recognitions, He have been awarded ‘10% award – Higher Education Commission of Pakistan’, CASS fieldwork grants, various bursaries and best emplacement awards. His research articles are published in international journals and my op-eds and blogs are published in newspapers and magazines. He is member of various international forums such as American Anthropological Association (AAA), Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) andAssociation of Critical Heritage Studies.  

  Practical work conducted under supervision of Sir Sohail Sangi 

Department of Media &Communication Studies, University of Sindh