Activism, knowledge and publishing: some views from Pakistan and Afghanistan

How can academic publishers support the study of regions and fields that receive comparatively little attention within South Asia-related humanities and social sciences? Approaching this question with regard to Pakistan and Afghanistan opens a series of conceptual questions that are useful beyond these cases. Above all, we contend that support to marginal specializations, particularly in service of making them less marginal, must involve an openness to the world beyond professional academic life. By this, we first mean an openness to different purposes for knowledge that are related to political and social stakes in countries other than India. Second, we suggest the need for a greater openness to different sources and forms of knowledge than have traditionally been admitted into academic conversation in the global north.