Abstract:
This research emphasizes the interdisciplinary approach of Human Geography and Peace and
Conflict Studies (PCS) scholarship for developing the conceptual understanding of peace of
borderland geographies of Pakistan. A contextual understanding has been developed by
elaborating the epistemological positioning of Human Geography for exploring the research
questions pertaining to defining, conceptualizing and problematizing peace. The Human
Geography discipline has provided theoretical, methodological and conceptual support to this
research through the poststructuralist mode of inquiry to understand the nature of knowledge,
ways of production and dissemination, and the binary and representational aspects manifested in
the knowledge generation leading to the identity formation of borderlands of Pakistan. On the
same token, critical geopolitics has helped in exploring representations, processes and rhetoric.
This study has adopted discourse analysis for understanding where power resides in the
narratives of borderlands of Pakistan i.e. depicting them as peaceful or violent, prominent and
hegemonic knowledge areas and ways of legitimizing knowledge for interdisciplinarity. For the
said purpose, secondary data from the relevant peer-reviewed academic journals of the sub-fields
of Geography and Political Science and IR as approved by HEC, Pakistan through the HEC
Journal Recognition System (HJRS) stretching over time of twenty years (2000-21) has been
analysed. The research concludes that the discursive attempts by the interdisciplinary scholars
remained tilted towards developing conflict-oriented dimensions of PCS discipline and thereby
endorsed violent representations of these borderlands. Also, despite regulation of the knowledge
produced, the issue of subjectivities in knowledge construction persisted.
