Komal Raja

She is an artist and scholar from Poonch, Azad Jammu & Kashmir. Currently, she is pursuing a doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. Her research title is “Contesting Terrain of Natural Resources in Azad Kashmir: Ethnography of Emotional and Political Ecology”. One of her research focuses explores how political-economic development projects in (Azad) Kashmir affect its people/residents on an emotional level. How do people negotiate their cultural as well as emotional identification in response to larger economic development projects, like big dams, aimed at altering their environmental habitat? Being an anthropologist researcher and a Kashmiri native poet, she investigates her topic through academic tools and poetic narrations

Cultural History

During a conversation with us, she recalled the cultural history of J&K as a metaphor of love and peace. She said, “Land of Jammu & Kashmir is a distinct historical habitat for versatile Sufi saints, poets, writers and artists who always coped with their sociopolitical conditions through the ideology of peace and love depicted in their teachings, writings and poetry. I wish and hope, in contemporary times too, art would serve as the strongest genre in bringing peace and love for the people of Jammu & Kashmir.”

Her Prominent Work