An Ethnographic History of Manchar Lake, in Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

This article explores the ways Manchar Lake, one of the oldest and largest freshwater lakes of South Asia, shapes and reshapes the making of the history of itself as well as people and other-than-human beings that inhabit the lake. Going beyond anthropocentric accounts of settlement, fishing, hunting, and livelihood, the article examines how the life of the lake has shaped the political, economic, and cultural worlds of the people who live with it. Drawing on Hugh Raffles’ idea of writing “historically with ethnography and ethnographically with history,” the article illustrates an ethnographic history of Manchar Lake. In doing so, the article challenges the historiography that privileges humans in history-making, while overlooking the role of other-than-human actors in the history-making processes. By treating the lake as an active participant in shaping the lives and livelihoods of humans and other-than-human beings, this article treats the lake as more than a mere landscape. Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork with the lake, fish, waterfowl, and people who inhabit the lake, this article recommends exploring the world, in this case, the lake, as a multispecies life where meaning-making and history-making are processes in which both humans and nonhumans equally participate. In this sense, the history of Manchar Lake is not only a history of people around water, but of water itself as a historical agent.