Karkhana (کارخانہ): The conference space as a ‘place of making’

This article is based on a collective critical reflection on the conference Journeying Beyond the West : Can Psychoanalysis Take New Roots in Pakistan? Its scope is not to produce an academic account, but to reflect on the implications of fostering and inhabiting psychoanalytic spaces across national and cultural differences. Rather than producing a conventional academic account, the authors engage with what they call a karkhana way of collaborating—an iterative methodology inspired by South Asian arts laboratories, or ‘places of making’. We see this as a tool to capture the dynamic and emotionally charged exchanges at play during and after the event. Resonances with clinical work will also be explored. The article highlights how certain social identifiers shape conference participation, deciphering questions of inclusion and cross‐fertilisation within psychoanalysis and group analysis. We utilise karkhana as both method and metaphor, and we address the idea of conferences as ‘places of making’, where ideas evolve through dialogue, mutual recognition, and ongoing negotiation, extending beyond the event itself. Although grounded in a specific context, the article speaks to broader concerns about how groups think and work together, making it relevant to clinicians and scholars from any background. Considerations on postcolonial power dynamics, the creative value of ‘danger’ (vs purity) and on how commensality is conducive to relationships, point to how conferences can function as anthropological places that deepen shared experience and creative exchange.