From genre to zanaana: Urdu television drama serials and women's culture in Pakistan

Abstract

Since the introduction of television to Pakistan in 1964, Urdu drama serials have enjoyed widespread popularity. This essay explores the ways in which the zanaana, or women's sphere, was negotiated by these serials, particularly during the years of General Zia ul-Haq's regime and its immediate aftermath in the 1980s and 1990s. Legislation aimed at policing women's visibility and participation in the public sphere was one of the key elements of his regime's ‘Islamisation’ project that continues to exert widespread political, social and cultural influence. However, television's domestic address and viewing context intensifies and complicates the relationship between the private and public; the very fault-line that causes patriarchal Islamism so much anxiety in relation to women. This essay focuses on the production, consumption and textuality of Urdu drama serials in the 1980s and 1990s. These narratives deal primarily with women's lives, are written mostly by women and, invariably, are viewed by a large female audience. They contribute to the development of women's culture in both private and public spaces. The essay develops the concept of zanaana to examine how these serials open up discursive sites where women resist, transgress and negotiate their prescribed limits in an Islamist patriarchal society.