Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South
This article analyzes the role of collective memory in shaping mobilization for river protection in Peru and Pakistan. The question around which the discussion revolves is: how do riverine communities remember their past with their rivers when they are diverted, dammed, and polluted? This paper brings two cases from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Iquitos, Peru. In both cases, local and indigenous communities remember their rivers with memories of losses of their interaction with the rivers. Drawing on Halbwachs' work on collective memory and the emerging debate on riverhood, the paper analyzes the data collected through ethnographic fieldwork along the River Neelum and the Amazon and Nanay Rivers in Peru. The comparison of both case studies shows that reasons to river degradation in both cases varies, but the political function of memory-based resistance is the same and comparable.
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Collective Memory, River Protection, Riverhood, Muzaffarabad, River Neelum, Iquitos, Amazon and Nanay Rivers, Peru
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(1) Wasif Qayyum
Visiting Lecturer, National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
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Cite this article
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APA : Qayyum, W. (2026). Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South. Global Foreign Policies Review, IX(II), 66-77. https://doi.org/10.31703/gfpr.2026(IX-II).08
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CHICAGO : Qayyum, Wasif. 2026. "Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South." Global Foreign Policies Review, IX (II): 66-77 doi: 10.31703/gfpr.2026(IX-II).08
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HARVARD : QAYYUM, W. 2026. Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South. Global Foreign Policies Review, IX, 66-77.
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MHRA : Qayyum, Wasif. 2026. "Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South." Global Foreign Policies Review, IX: 66-77
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MLA : Qayyum, Wasif. "Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South." Global Foreign Policies Review, IX.II (2026): 66-77 Print.
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OXFORD : Qayyum, Wasif (2026), "Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South", Global Foreign Policies Review, IX (II), 66-77
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TURABIAN : Qayyum, Wasif. "Collective Memory of Rivers and Dispossession: Activism in the Global South." Global Foreign Policies Review IX, no. II (2026): 66-77. https://doi.org/10.31703/gfpr.2026(IX-II).08