The Dance of Transculturation David Butz Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1 Canada The essay is an autoethnographic account of my relationship with Abdul Qayum, a long-time friend from Gilgit, northern Pakistan. The story conveys some of the many ways Qayum constitutes himself as a transcultural subject, as well as my own intimate involvement in his process of self-constitution. I present the narrative as a way to refute notions of “civilization identity” and the so-called “clash of civilizations,” which in the present context continue to nourish one-dimensional geographical imag- inations and offer stereotyped portrayals of Islamic subjects and cultural forms. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self- knowledge or informed analysis. “The Clash of Civilizations” thesis is a gimmick like “The War of the Worlds,” better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time (Said, 1991, 13). As I sit down to write this essay, I’m thinking of this morning’s phone conversation with our friend Abdul Qayum. He called to say that some money Nancy and I sent him the other day had arrived. This was the first time we used Western Union to wire money to Qayum, so I was relieved to hear he had received it without difficulty. Our usual method has been to wire funds bank-to-bank, but Canadian banks’ increasing suspicion of transfers to Pakistan makes the process slower and more irritating each time; happily, we found Western Union to be cheaper, faster and less aggravating at both ends of the transaction. More options would be available if Qayum lived down- country, but Gilgit, his hometown and capital city of Pakistan’s peripheral Gilgit-Baltistan province, is poorly-equipped with transnational banking and telecommunications infrastructure; even Western Union is a novel resource, and I wasn’t sure of its reliability. We have been sending small sums to Qayum now and then for about 20 years, initially to help him purchase a plot of land on the outskirts of Gilgit where he has since built a small guesthouse, more recently to help with house- hold expenses or support some of the social and spiritual care work he does. As is often the case, it was the latter that animated Qayum’s conversation this morning. He filled me in on recent repairs to a small, ancient, non-sectarian The Arab World Geographer / Le Géographe du monde arabe Vol 19, no 3-4 (2016) 168-183 © 2016 Geo Publishing, Toronto Canada