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Paper short abstract:

I would bring perspectives from the remote and rural areas of northern Pakistan. I will show how development projects ignite nostalgia and futurist aspirations in rural communities whilst converging past and future, and make it challenging to locate authenticity and indigeneity in rural areas.

Paper long abstract:

In November 2023, BBC revealed a list of 100 influential women of 2023 from around the world. The list includes Afroze-Numa, a Wakhi shepherdess from the remote and mountainous Shimshal Valley in northern Pakistan. Afroze-Numa is one of the last Wakhi Shepherdesses in the region, who has been taking care of goats, yaks, and sheep for almost three decades. Recently, there have been changes in rural landscapes and ecology, particularly after the construction of the Shimshal link road which connects the valley with urban areas and the rest of the world.

Following the story of Afroze-Numa and the development of the Shimshal link road in northern Pakistan, this paper revolves around some of the key themes in contemporary development research, such as past, future, and their interconnectedness in changing rural societies. I argue that local development actors like Shimshal Nature Trust and Aga Khan Rural Support Programme constantly strive to bridge tradition and modern, local and global, and nostalgia and future, through development projects like the Shimshal link road in rural communities. However, given the increasing socio-cultural exchange and out migration because of these development projects, researchers and locals struggle to locate ‘authenticity’ and indigeneity in rural communities. The problem persists as a gap in contemporary development research and calls for the reconsideration of how we define authenticity and can sustain indigeneity in rapidly changing rural societies. Thus, the discussion also presents potential challenges and questions related to the past and future that require further attention in development research.