Elisabetta IOB

• Short Bio

I am a historian of Modern South Asia, whose research interests lie in the politics of the everyday state, emotions, material culture, gender, and intimacy in Pakistan. Before joining Ca’ Foscari University as an Adjunct Professor, I taught at the University of Trieste (Department of Politics and Social Sciences) and the University of the Punjab, Pakistan (Department of Gender Studies and Institute of Social and Cultural Studies). I held Visiting Research Fellowships at the University of the Punjab, Pakistan (Department of History and Pakistan Study Centre) and Bahauddin Zakariya University, Pakistan (Department of Pakistan Studies). I completed my BA and MA in International Relations and Diplomacy at the University of Trieste before moving to Royal Holloway, University of London, to study for my Ph.D. in History under the supervision of Prof. Sarah F. D. Ansari and  Prof. Francis C. R. Robinson.

• Research interests

I have conducted extensive research into those interstices wherein the so-called ideas of state, political parties, modernity, and social change meet (or clash) with the perception and emotions of the average man and woman and are translated into everyday political and non-political practices. My book with Routledge (Royal Asiatic Society Book Series), Refugees and the Politics of the Everyday State in Pakistan: Resettlement in Punjab, 1947-62, offers fresh perspectives on the rehabilitation of upper- and middle-class Partition refugees in Pakistani Punjab. It outlines how political ideas - embodied by their everyday rituality and rites - reacted to and moulded the development of the local post-colonial state and ideas of citizenship. 

My current research project investigates the politics of intimacy, domesticity, emotions, and homes in early independent Pakistan from a gender perspective. It unlocks the doors of Pakistani houses and brings them to the forefront of the elaboration of national and state domesticities and a sense of belonging to the local political and wider international communities. Its early findings have appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2023) and Gender & History (forthcoming, 2025). 

I also seek to contribute to the decolonisation of academic curricula and courses by amplifying South Asian and Asian histories, stories and primary sources in the classroom and beyond. My short monograph, The Fear(s) of History: Emotions, Censorship, and the Decolonisation of History in Early Independent Pakistan, is currently under contract with Cambridge University Press (Element Series - Elements in the Histories of Emotions and Senses). It sheds light on political and institutional fear(s) and the early creation of Pakistani archives. In particular, it explores institutional insecurities and emotions, censorship, conspiracies and rumours, and their impact on the multi-faceted processes of record-keeping, and researching and writing history in postcolonial societies.

• Impact-related activities

Over the last decade, I have also developed more practice-based approaches to engaging with South Asian and other Asian culture(s) and history, and the postcolonial. As part of my impact-related activities, I have acted as a consultant on South Asian asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, and refugees for various private and public institutions. 

For a glimpse of these activities, see Iob E., "L’alba dentro l’imbrunire. I beni culturali come strumento di dialogo tra culture, di inclusione e supporto alla (ri)formulazione identitaria dei migranti”, in Maresia M. (a cura di), Terra di Incontro, Dialogo e Conoscenza. Esperienze di Educazione al Patrimonio Culturale in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Nardini Editore, Firenze, 2024, pp. 203-17. 

I have been asked to present my research and impact-related projects at prestigious institutions, including the British Association of South Asian Studies, Geffrye - The Museum of the Home, University of Cambridge (CRASSH), Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Aix-Marseille Université, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery, University of Bonn, and Uppsala University. 

I am utterly convinced that, as the Punjabi adage goes, one who has not seen Lahore has not been born yet.