The negotiations of Pakistani mothers’ agency with structure: towards a research practice of hearing ‘silences’ as a strategy

Aliya Khalid

doi:10.1080/09540253.2022.2027888

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research shows that in Pakistan, daughters of educated mothers are likely to be enrolled in school, thus proposing a decontextualised relationship between mothers and their daughters’ education. This article draws on interview data to narratively analyse the situated experiences of Pakistani mothers for supporting their daughters’ education. When mothers’ life stories are analysed, a lifelong strategy of silences is revealed. Through the construct of silences, I challenge myself and other educational researchers to ‘unlearn’ the hegemonic epistemic cues that bind us to certain ways of knowing instead develop a critical openness to the perspectives of mothers and become ‘hearers’. This article situates itself within the debates on epistemic justice – proposing a practice of critical ‘hearing’ to understand the lifelong situated experiences of mothers in Pakistan.

Highlights

In Pakistan, a global focus on girls’ education has translated into commitments made by the state to ensure gender equality in education (Government of Pakistan 2017)
While the aspirations guide the agencystructure relationship strategically used silences act as the vehicles through which emotional capital is transformed into the ability to pursue goals
Nusrat’s story shows how silences are enacted as a corollary of the embodied experiences of agency as it functions alongside a dynamic structure

Summary

Introduction

In Pakistan, a global focus on girls’ education has translated into commitments made by the state to ensure gender equality in education (Government of Pakistan 2017). Previous scholarship has placed mothers’ schooling and autonomy at the epicentre for their daughters’ educational achievement My interactions with these women showed that their ability to aspire and enact their agency was not necessarily related to their own experience of formal learning or the power they wielded in their own families. Mothers navigate this third space in their daily life decisions in contexts of disadvantage and deprivation, whilst maintaining their ability to imagine and enact transformative aspirations for their daughters. In the section that follows, I discuss the weave of life by exploring the theoretical connections between the agency and structures within which mothers function

The shifting relationship between agency and structure

Moving beyond the conceptions of silences as paradoxical

Conclusion

Notes on contributor