Zaman Muhammad

Project at the MaCI

January - July 2026

This project explores how cousin, exchange and early marriage system are transplanted into European diasporas and reshaped by new cultural, legal and emotional environment. It draws on over fifteen years of empirical work on kinship in Pakistan and extends it into a comparative ethnography of South Asian communities in France and UK. At its core is the question of how families and youth negotiate between inherited obligations and host society expectations under multiculturalism in the UK and laïcité in France.

This research combines ethnography, intergenerational interviews, genealogical mapping and digital ethnography of rishta practices on WhatsApp, matrimonial apps and family social media. Participants across two generations will provide narratives of marriage, conflict and belonging. Planned activities include fieldwork in both countries, workshop at MaCI on kinship and digital culture and the production of comparative case studies.
Expected output is a peer reviewed article, a policy oriented paper on integration and family situating South Asian kinship practices within the broader debates of migration, digital intimacy and emotional belonging. This project’s interdisciplinary resonance spans sociology, anthropology, childhood studies, digital culture and migration law, aligning directly with MaCI’s focus on creativity, interdisciplinarity and emotional transformation.
 

My motivation for joining MaCI lies in the promise of an intellectual space where emotion, kinship and migration can be rethought beyond disciplinary silos. This fellowship offers possibility to deepen my comparative work on cousin, exchange and early marriage by embedding them in European context marked by multiculturalism and laïcité. During my residency, I aim to carry out fieldwork in the UK and France, experiment with digital ethnography of rishta practices and engage in collaborative workshop with scholars of family, migration and digital culture. Prime objective is not only to produce publication but also to open new conversation on how diasporic families negotiate belonging through emotional logic. At MaCI, I intend to contribute to its interdisciplinary seminar life and build long term collaboration that link South Asian kinship studies to European debate on identity, intimacy and integration.