/ Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures Space: Female Space: Pakistan (3,801 words) Introduction Much of the scholarship on female space in Pakistan has conceptualized and historicized the subject through the lens of nation and religion. More broadly, the trajectory of women’s spatial practices in the public realm in Pakistan is rooted in regional South Asian traditions and histories, most signiƧƬcantly in the colonial transformations of space and society. A key element of this transformation, with respect to gender, as posited by Partha Chatterjee, was the reworking of the private and public sphere and its associated meanings, in which women’s place in society was framed within the struggle between a dominant colonial modern and a resistant native traditional (Chatterjee 1989). The resultant social space, with its corresponding spatial elements, was delineated into an inside (andar) and an outside (bahir). Chatterjee also points out that while the distinction between a male public sphere and a female domestic sphere is of course not exclusive to South Asia, what is signiƧƬcant is the way in which women’s place in the home became a central site of struggle over meanings of sovereignty and nationhood. Thus, carried over from colonial times, the andar/bahir distinction has dominated discourses and practices associated with female space in Pakistan. For Indian Muslim communities who migrated in large numbers to Pakistan, and whose cultural narratives signiƧƬcantly shaped female space in Pakistan, the segregation and seclusion of women was a key element of their distinct identity as Muslims. Muslim respectability was contingent upon the way women appeared (or did not appear) in public and the extent to which they were seen as occupying the “protected” space of the home (Rouse 1996). Consequently, as Ayesha Jalal points out, the stability of the family unit became a core element of maintaining the Article Table of Contents Introduction Urban Space Rural Space Spaces of Sociality Space, Sexuality, and Entertainment The Politics of Women-Only Spaces Feminist Activism and Reclaiming Public Spaces Conclusion Bibliography