- Urban Planning (Urban Studies), Gender And Violence, Cities, Urban Anthropology, Utopian Planning, Architecture, and 116 moreBuilt Environment, Human Geography, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Migration, Transnationalism, Border Studies, Environmental Sustainability, Infrastructure, Asian cities, Asian Port Cities, South African cities, Land tenure, South Asian History, Debates on public space and public life, urban design theory, urban culture and history, Urban Theory History, Urban Design, Urban Ecology, Urbanization in Developing Countries, Housing Issues, Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Planning, Political Geography and Geopolitics, South Asia, Urban And Regional Planning, Urban Governance, Urban History, Urbanism, Infrastructure Planning, Urban Politics, Urban Design, Urban Development, Urban Sociology, Infrastructure Development, Social Repair, Humanitarianism, Pakistan, Visual Research, Resistance (Social), Humanitarian Intervention, Anthropology of Development, Disaster Culture, Disaster Studies, Anthropology of Violence, Critical Ecology, Environmental Humanities, Social Resilience, 2010 Pakistan Floods, Anthropology of War, International Development, Social Suffering, Natural Disasters, Disaster, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Crisis/disaster Management, Everyday Life, Anthropology of Disaster, Anthropology of Social Repair, Precariousness, Anthropology of Space, Urban Sociology, Cultural Geography, Cultural Geography, Globalization, Cultural Globalization, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Cities and globalization/Global cities, Globalization and Transnationalism, City and Regional Planning, City and Consumption, Critical Infrastructure Systems, Sustainable Urban Environments, Urban Design (Urban Studies), Architecture and Urban Planning, Urbanization in Developing Areas, Urbanization and Environmental Issues, Urbanization In Sourth Asia, Public Space, Pedestrian Walkability (Architecture and public spaces), Climate Change Adaptation, Climate change policy, Climate Change in Developing Countries, Climate Change and Food Security, Architecture and urbanism, New Urbanism, Urbanization, Urbanization and Environments Issues, Gender Studies, Gender and Development, Women and Gender Studies, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, Gender violence and urban planning, Gender based violence, Public Policy, Public Administration and Policy, South Asian Studies, Commons, Agrarian Studies, Agrarian Change, Agrarian transition, Disasters, Environmental Hazards and Disasters, Environmental Hazards, Human vulnerability to natural hazards and environmental change, Natural hazards and disasters, especially vulnerability analysis, Disaster risk reduction, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Slums Studies, Urban Slums, Slums and informal settlements, Transportation Planning, Urban Development, Slums and Informal settlements etc., Poverty, Urbanization, Global Slums, Sustainable Housing in Bilated Areas, Slums and Squatter Settlements, Informal Economy, Informal Sector, Informality, Urban Informality, Informality and Housing, Urban theory, theories of urban informality, urban studies, Land Tenure and Informality, Informality/Illegality, and Planning and informalityedit
- Director, Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) and Professor City & Regional Planning, School of Economics & Social Sciences, IBA,... moreDirector, Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) and Professor City & Regional Planning, School of Economics & Social Sciences, IBA, Karachi, Pakistan. I received my PhD from the Urban Planning Program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP); I also hold a MIA from Columbia University's School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA). I have held post-doctoral positions at Harvard University, and at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore. My research looks at the interactions between vulnerability, climate change impacts - e.g. heat (extreme, chronic), urban flooding - and post-colonial histories/contexts of infrastructural violence, land displacement and anti-poor urban planning in the urban Global South. I am particularly interested in understanding the multi-dimensional risks and uncertainties that arise from these interactions, and the gendered/intersectional implications and impacts on public health. I am also interested in understanding how the environment/climate has been represented in post-colonial, mid-20th century, modern architectural practice/thought. I am the recipient of grants from various institutions: IDRC, UKRI/GCRF, ESRC-AHRC, British Academy, ICRC, RSA. I have published widely in academic journals such as Antipode, Urban Studies, South Asian History & Culture, EPW and Political Geography; and written articles for national and international media such as Dawn, Prism, MIT Technology Review Pakistan and Huffington Post.
As Director of the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL), I am collaborating with colleagues to facilitate an experiment in creative and critical thinking about cities, urban research, teaching, and training students and a new generation of urban professionals. The KUL’s mission is to nurture and develop ideas that enable explorations and connections between research, teaching, public policy dialogue and advocacy.edit
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Pakistan is home to diverse geographies of land displacement, which are accelerating in an era of rapid urban development. This paper summarises the findings and recommendations from a 28-month research project which charts-for the first... more
Pakistan is home to diverse geographies of land displacement, which are accelerating in an era of rapid urban development. This paper summarises the findings and recommendations from a 28-month research project which charts-for the first time-the contemporary context of land displacement in urban Pakistan, through the lens of its largest city, Karachi. At least 62% of Karachi's residents live in 'katchi abadis', or informal settlements, a majority of which are situated on public land owned by a variety of local, federal and provincial institutions. 1 Many of these have existed since Pakistan's independence, so they vary in their level of 'regularisation'.
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In the past two decades of intensified mega-infrastructural and urban development projects in Karachi, an estimated 600,000 urban poor, low-income, working class and marginalized communities have been displaced with less than 33 percent... more
In the past two decades of intensified mega-infrastructural and urban development projects in Karachi, an estimated 600,000 urban poor, low-income, working class and marginalized communities have been displaced with less than 33 percent of them receiving any form of resettlement or cash compensation. This report documents how land is governed and acquired for infrastructure and urban development projects; how land displacements impact people’s lives and their communities; and how people resist displacement in Pakistan's largest metropolis. The findings emerge from a 24-month project covering 16 study sites in Karachi, called Land, Governance & the Gendered Politics of Displacement in Urban Pakistan, and funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). What makes this present moment of land displacements and struggles particularly complex, is the interlocking of emergent neoliberal policies with colonial genealogies of managing and appropriating land, as well as post-Partition legacies of housing crisis and land informalization that dovetail today with the emergence of the courts as key sites of urban planning and governance in a bid to restore law and order in the city. Land displacements have severe consequences: loss of home, livelihoods, community, and social networks; engendering a permanent state of anxiety and uncertainty; increasing physical, social, and environmental vulnerabilities; compounding gender inequalities; and irrevocably damaging social and economic mobility. These effects are especially pernicious because displacement is not a one-time event. Displacement is an intensely traumatic and violent experience with differentiated impacts on men and women, and the wellbeing related consequences for those who have experienced displacement or are at risk of losing their land. The report also charts the complex, evolving and rich terrain of solidarities, protests, and grassroots activism that is gradually shaping resistance against land displacements in Karachi. We place this complex process of resistance in shifting atmospheres of hope, and expectation that can quickly dissolve into despair and waiting. These shifts epitomize the extensive labors of ordinary women and men who come together in given moments, to forge connections in their common struggles to achieve the same goal. The contestations and conflicts over displacement demonstrate how the right to land as a right to citizenship, remains differentiated and unacknowledged by the Pakistani state. With future displacements anticipated in the context of new urban planning, infrastructure development, and disaster risk management interventions in Karachi, we offer recommendations for addressing the exclusions that arise from land displacement.
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Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potential defence against contracting Covid-19. In the early months of the pandemic studies of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus is transmitted... more
Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potential defence against contracting Covid-19. In the early months of the pandemic studies of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus is transmitted less efficiently in higher temperatures or at higher rates of humidity, leading to encouraging newspaper headlines around the world, from London to Jakarta....
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In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the... more
In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the commercial hub of the country, Islamabad is the federal capital, and Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the all- powerful Pakistani military. By “mobility” we mean not only the literal physical movement of transportation, but also the contextualised activity in urban space that is imbued with meaning and power (Bondi 2005 ; Uteng 2009 ; Uteng and Cresswell 2008 ), and thus we also use “mobilities” to mark this plurality of meaning. The concept entails the potential for movement or the knowledge that potential trips can (or cannot) be made, due to various constraining factors. These range from poor infrastructure to cultural norms that dictate the mobility of different genders.
Research Interests: Sociology, Gender Studies, Mobility/Mobilities, Transportation Studies, Gender, and 14 moreMasculinity, Gender and Development, Urban Sociology, Gender And Violence, Urban mobility, Women and Gender Studies, Mobility, Mobilities, Gender violence and urban planning, Ethnic Group, Gender and Transport, Routledge, Social Moblility, and Sexual and Gender Based Violence
Research Interests: Sociology, Human Geography, Ethnography, Geopolitics, Political Science, and 14 morePolitical Violence and Terrorism, Gender, Pakistan, Urban Studies, Masculinities, Gender and Development, Political Geography, Constructions of femininity, Everyday Life, Islamabad, Karachi, Public Administration and Policy, Pashtuns, and Rohingya
Pakistan’s urban transformations are rarely discussed in relation to its changing political-economic conjunctures and new aesthetic sensibilities. Over the past decade, Pakistan’s leading metropolis, Karachi, has witnessed the impact of... more
Pakistan’s urban transformations are rarely discussed in relation to its changing political-economic conjunctures and new aesthetic sensibilities. Over the past decade, Pakistan’s leading metropolis, Karachi, has witnessed the impact of numerous projects that have sought to mould a new avatar backed by corporatist visions of a world-class city. These configurations articulate not only a new architectural aesthetic but also a state-nationalist vision of a consuming Pakistani modernity. In this article, we focus on how developments such as the widely acclaimed eco-friendly retail and entertainment complex the Port Grand, whose construction was conceived and led by a corporate-cultural entrepreneur and the Karachi Port Trust (KPT), are transforming decaying waterfronts, reimagining Karachi’s history and directing new urban futures in Pakistan. We argue that the emergent activities of urban redevelopment function on the basis of a new spatial logic that endeavours to produce a ‘sanitized’ and ‘secure’ cosmopolitan city through which a proactive desire for modernity is expressed. But this process also eliminates the undesirable and underprivileged from the new image of the world-class city. Such urban experiments reinvent the city by reinforcing a spatial partitioning of the landscape and by commodifying history now staged as ‘colonial nostalgia’ in spaces recreated for corporate taste and the metro elite.
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Research Interests:
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Research Interests: Urban Geography, Climate Change, Urban History, South Asian Studies, Global cities, and 15 moreGovernance, South Asia, Politics, Pakistan, Urban Studies, Ecology, Negotiation, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Urban Sociology, Urban Environmental History, Urban And Regional Planning, Cities, Urban Design, Sustainable Cities, and Urban Development and Urban Governance
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Multi-country, remote survey to evaluate the interplay between COVID-19 mitigation measures, heat-health, and livelihoods for populations living in densely populated urban areas. Survey data available for Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and... more
Multi-country, remote survey to evaluate the interplay between COVID-19 mitigation measures, heat-health, and livelihoods for populations living in densely populated urban areas. Survey data available for Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and Cameroon. Data collected remotely via mobile phone survey with ~4400 randomly identified respondents. Answers to open questions have been cleaned, coded, and grouped within a common thematic coding framework. Temperature and humidity data sourced from www.dataandtime.com to correspond to survey dates. Heat Index (HI) calculation added to determine the incorporated effects. English language translations of answers to open questions provided by Aalok Khandekar (India), Anindrya Nastiti and Wika Maulany Fatimah (Indonesia); Kirsten Campbell (Cameroon); and Adam Abdullah (Pakistan). Data available in CSV file format. Data generated as part of the ESRC/GCRF project "Cool Infrastructures: Life with heat in the Off Grid City (ES/T008091/1), with additi...
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Section 1: Introduction Pakistan is one of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries. It has experienced various disasters in recent decades, including floods, droughts and heatwaves. This is due to its location in one of the hottest... more
Section 1: Introduction Pakistan is one of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries. It has experienced various disasters in recent decades, including floods, droughts and heatwaves. This is due to its location in one of the hottest climactic zones, its diverse geographical and ecosystem features and its political economic challenges. The 2010 ‘mega floods’ across Sindh and Punjab provinces led to 20 million people displaced, 90 million food insecure and 20% of the country’s land area under water. Disasters, both rapid and slow onset have had severe, lasting, impacts on infrastructure and livelihoods, especially of some of the poorest and most marginalised groups.
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Every few years, Karachi floods during the summer monsoon. The flooding brings latent manoeuvrings by political actors looking to establish their hold over the city to the surface. Politicians, urban administrators, and relevant state and... more
Every few years, Karachi floods during the summer monsoon. The flooding brings latent manoeuvrings by political actors looking to establish their hold over the city to the surface. Politicians, urban administrators, and relevant state and non-state institutions blame historical planning failures, informal and illegal constructions, institutional conflict, incapable municipal governance, and widespread corruption for the flooding. They move quickly to establish authority and consolidate power while offering ‘fixes’. Eviction drives against ‘illegal settlements’ built along storm-water drains, heavy taxes, fines, and demolitions of non-conforming constructions, institutional reforms, budget allocations, and project approvals for new infrastructure all happen at once. Once the emergency ceases, key players in urban politics – resident groups, community associations, political parties, municipal authorities, land developers, planners, international non-governmental organisations, and military institutions – start working on projects of accumulation and entrenchment, in preparation for the next crisis. In this paper, we look at the space–time of Karachi's certain and yet uncertain flooding crisis as a moment to study the politics of the maybe in the Pakistani megacity. Outlining marginal and affluent residents' lived experiences in a flooding city and relating their politics with governmental responses to immediate and possible future floods, we study the conditions of inhabitation, citizenship claims, and governmental relations in Karachi. We argue that the monsoon's expectant arrival becomes a locus for articulating and modulating different kinds of popular vernaculars, governmental practices, and political manoeuvrings for institutional and individual actors seeking profit and power in and through Karachi. The politics of the maybe hinges on actors entrenching their political positions without care, taking away any possibility for a shared, coherent worldview for all Karachiites. In conclusion, we argue that distant interests and logics of this politics of governance and inhabitation are inherently exploitative, threatening to pull apart the very city they thrive on.
Research Interests: Urban Geography, Climate Change, Urban History, South Asian Studies, Global cities, and 15 moreGovernance, South Asia, Politics, Pakistan, Urban Studies, Ecology, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Urban Sociology, Urban Environmental History, Urban And Regional Planning, Cities (Sociology), Cities, Urban Design, Sustainable Cities, and Urban Development and Urban Governance
Multi-country, remote survey to evaluate the interplay between COVID-19 mitigation measures, heat-health and livelihoods for populations living in densely populated urban areas. Survey data available for Pakistan, India, Indonesia and... more
Multi-country, remote survey to evaluate the interplay between COVID-19 mitigation measures, heat-health and livelihoods for populations living in densely populated urban areas. Survey data available for Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Cameroon. Data collected remotely via mobile phone survey with ~4400 randomly identified respondents. Data available in CSV file format. Data generated as part of the ESRC/GCRF project "Cool Infrastructures: Life with heat in the Off Grid City (ES/T008091/1), with additional funding from the Scottish Funding Council.
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Pakistan is home to diverse geographies of land displacement, which are accelerating in an era of rapid urban development. This paper summarises the findings and recommendations from a 28-month research project which charts-for the first... more
Pakistan is home to diverse geographies of land displacement, which are accelerating in an era of rapid urban development. This paper summarises the findings and recommendations from a 28-month research project which charts-for the first time-the contemporary context of land displacement in urban Pakistan, through the lens of its largest city, Karachi. At least 62% of Karachi's residents live in 'katchi abadis', or informal settlements, a majority of which are situated on public land owned by a variety of local, federal and provincial institutions. 1 Many of these have existed since Pakistan's independence, so they vary in their level of 'regularisation'.
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As the cities in South Asia transform into global or “world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct, repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia, we... more
As the cities in South Asia transform into global or “world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct, repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia, we foreground how the repairers and maintainers of Kolkata, Karachi, and Mumbai—including bicycle and construction machinery repairers, and waste removal and health workers— experience and contribute to the changing urban landscape. As this collection of essays shows, the lives and struggles of these repair workers make cities functional and set their economies into motion
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As we brace ourselves for the Covid-19 epidemic in Pakistan, we are being told to wash our hands and self-isolate. What if you are unable to do any of these things? According to the Census 2017, Pakistan's population is 207.8... more
As we brace ourselves for the Covid-19 epidemic in Pakistan, we are being told to wash our hands and self-isolate. What if you are unable to do any of these things? According to the Census 2017, Pakistan's population is 207.8 million with an urban share of 75.6 million. The United Nations asserts that in 2015, 45.5% of Pakistan's urban population was living in informal settlements. Thus, an estimated 34 million people in Pakistan live in katchi abadis or urban informal settlements, where water is scarce for the most basic of needs. In Karachi — a city of over 16 million — approximately 60% of the population lives in informal settlements with limited or no access to clean water and sanitation. Let us compare this — for a moment — with countries being devastated by Covid-19. For example, Italy and Spain, where there is almost universal access to clean water, sanitation, soap and antibacterial gels. Even with their comparatively tiny populations, the virus has spread and killed at a pace no one could imagine. So with northern health systems on the brink of collapse, will the spread of Covid-19 in Pakistan bring urban informal settlements to the frontline of the crisis?
In the past two decades of intensified mega-infrastructural and urban development projects in Karachi, an estimated 600,000 urban poor, low-income, working class and marginalized communities have been displaced with less than 33 percent... more
In the past two decades of intensified mega-infrastructural and urban development projects in Karachi, an estimated 600,000 urban poor, low-income, working class and marginalized communities have been displaced with less than 33 percent of them receiving any form of resettlement or cash compensation. This report documents how land is governed and acquired for infrastructure and urban development projects; how land displacements impact people’s lives and their communities; and how people resist displacement in Pakistan's largest metropolis. The findings emerge from a 24-month project covering 16 study sites in Karachi, called Land, Governance & the Gendered Politics of Displacement in Urban Pakistan, and funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). What makes this present moment of land displacements and struggles particularly complex, is the interlocking of emergent neoliberal policies with colonial genealogies of managing and appropriating land, as well as post-Partition legacies of housing crisis and land informalization that dovetail today with the emergence of the courts as key sites of urban planning and governance in a bid to restore law and order in the city. The research covered three case studies of displacement: people living in fear of displacement as in the case of the Karachi Circular Railway informal settlements; those who were resettled after displacement but face new vulnerabilities as in the case of Lyari Basti, Taiser Town; and those who are displaced and relegated to an endless period of waiting as in the case of Salai Para, in Hasan Auliya Village, Lyari. We used an embedded, triangulated research method, including 670 household surveys, 30 in depth interviews, numerous focus group discussions, community workshops, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, analysis of media and secondary data, and court cases. Displacements have severe consequences: loss of home, livelihoods, community, and social networks; engendering a permanent state of anxiety and uncertainty; increasing physical, social, and environmental vulnerabilities; compounding gender inequalities; and irrevocably damaging social and economic mobility. These effects are especially pernicious because displacement is not a one-time event. Displacement is an intensely traumatic and violent experience with differentiated impacts on men and women, and the wellbeing related consequences for those who have experienced displacement or are at risk of losing their land. The report also charts the complex, evolving and rich terrain of solidarities, protests, and grassroots activism that is gradually shaping resistance against land displacements in Karachi. We place this complex process of resistance in shifting atmospheres of hope, and expectation that can quickly dissolve into despair and waiting. These shifts epitomize the extensive labors of ordinary women and men who come together in given moments, to forge connections in their common struggles to achieve the same goal. The contestations and conflicts over displacement demonstrate how the right to land as a right to citizenship, remains differentiated and unacknowledged by the Pakistani state. With future displacements anticipated in the context of new urban planning, infrastructure development, and disaster risk management interventions in Karachi, we offer recommendations for addressing the exclusions that arise from land displacement, and place these in the broader context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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ABSTRACT makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no... more
ABSTRACT makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
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ABSTRACT In this article, I examine aspects of recent shifts in Pakistani citizenship norms and the implications for migrant populations. In doing so, I investigate how the coalescing of national security concerns with broader issues of... more
ABSTRACT In this article, I examine aspects of recent shifts in Pakistani citizenship norms and the implications for migrant populations. In doing so, I investigate how the coalescing of national security concerns with broader issues of immigration has brought ‘illegal’ migrants like the Burmese-Rohingya and Bangladeshis into the state's documented embrace. My purpose is threefold: to record the modalities of change through the discourse of ‘illegality’ which articulate the exigencies of the ‘war on terror’; to explore the implications of such change on certain Muslim migrant populations resident in Pakistan for several decades; and, through these discussions, to show how citizenship and belonging have played out in a very different way for them. The subject of immigration/migration and illegality in Pakistan, especially in the post-9/11 frame, has remained largely below the threshold of academic attention.
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Research Interests:
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How to stay cool during Ramzan? The holy month of Ramzan (also spelled Ramadan) is a medium for Muslims around the world to rejuvenate their piety to the Creator. Each year, somewhere in the world, the month of Ramzan coincides with a... more
How to stay cool during Ramzan? The holy month of Ramzan (also spelled Ramadan) is a medium for Muslims around the world to rejuvenate their piety to the Creator. Each year, somewhere in the world, the month of Ramzan coincides with a period of seasonal or unseasonal heat. Against the backdrop of rising global temperatures, this collection asks: how do people and institutions manage the heat of Ramzan while fasting?
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This report presents the results of a large scale, multi country survey that was intended to understand the effects of COVID-19 on heat exposure, perceptions of heat and vulnerability for low-income urban residents in southeast Asia,... more
This report presents the results of a large scale, multi country survey that was intended to understand the effects of COVID-19 on heat exposure, perceptions of heat and vulnerability for low-income urban residents in southeast Asia, south Asia, and west Africa. Across these regions, this report shows that COVID-19 amplified the existing vulnerabilities of low-income urban communities in Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Cameroon to heat.
The study was funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council / Global Challenges Research Fund (as part of a multi-country study on ‘Cool infrastructures’) with additional support from the Scottish Funding Council’s Global Challenges
Research Fund.
The survey data includes responses from 4564 low-income urban residents across 4 cities in India, Pakistan, Cameroon and Indonesia, collected via mobile phone in July and August 2020. Our analysis includes four detailed, city level case studies that analyse this data against the backdrop of national and city specific measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Our analysis shows how pandemic response created different magnitudes of disruption to everyday practices and sources of vulnerability and exposure to heat, that were highly context specific. Responses to the pandemic undermined residents’ abilities to stay cool or otherwise manage heat stress in low-income areas. The survey reveals high levels of exposure to heat as the result of poor-quality housing, and vulnerability as a result of limited affordability, reliability, and access to, electricity and water for low-income communities.
The study was funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council / Global Challenges Research Fund (as part of a multi-country study on ‘Cool infrastructures’) with additional support from the Scottish Funding Council’s Global Challenges
Research Fund.
The survey data includes responses from 4564 low-income urban residents across 4 cities in India, Pakistan, Cameroon and Indonesia, collected via mobile phone in July and August 2020. Our analysis includes four detailed, city level case studies that analyse this data against the backdrop of national and city specific measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Our analysis shows how pandemic response created different magnitudes of disruption to everyday practices and sources of vulnerability and exposure to heat, that were highly context specific. Responses to the pandemic undermined residents’ abilities to stay cool or otherwise manage heat stress in low-income areas. The survey reveals high levels of exposure to heat as the result of poor-quality housing, and vulnerability as a result of limited affordability, reliability, and access to, electricity and water for low-income communities.
Research Interests:
According to the Global Climate Risk Index (2021), Pakistan is the eighth most vulnerable country in the world, and its southern province of Sindh is one of South Asia’s ‘hotspots’ for climate change (Mani, 2018). The 2015 heatwave in... more
According to the Global Climate Risk Index (2021), Pakistan is the eighth
most vulnerable country in the world, and its southern province of Sindh is one of South Asia’s ‘hotspots’ for climate change (Mani, 2018). The 2015 heatwave in Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city – was a trigger for local action, with heatwaves becoming an object of climate governance for planners, policy makers and a large number of NGOs engaged in on-ground relief work. The resulting actions on overheating undertaken by urban governors and policy makers, remain top-down and challenged by unexamined assumptions about the vulnerabilities of poor groups. Such one-dimensional approaches to discrete climatic events led us to question whether current heat management strategies in cities like Karachi are, in fact, designed to fail in the protection of life.this scoping study underscores that the experiences
of heat must be understood as a slow onset disaster, particularly in terms of
the effects of chronic heat exposure on daily life, worker productivity, health,
and wellbeing, amongst other indicators. In doing so, this Scoping Study proposes a way forward to think about Karachi’s changing weather and the onset of chronic heat exposure in terms of ‘zones of vulnerability’.
most vulnerable country in the world, and its southern province of Sindh is one of South Asia’s ‘hotspots’ for climate change (Mani, 2018). The 2015 heatwave in Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city – was a trigger for local action, with heatwaves becoming an object of climate governance for planners, policy makers and a large number of NGOs engaged in on-ground relief work. The resulting actions on overheating undertaken by urban governors and policy makers, remain top-down and challenged by unexamined assumptions about the vulnerabilities of poor groups. Such one-dimensional approaches to discrete climatic events led us to question whether current heat management strategies in cities like Karachi are, in fact, designed to fail in the protection of life.this scoping study underscores that the experiences
of heat must be understood as a slow onset disaster, particularly in terms of
the effects of chronic heat exposure on daily life, worker productivity, health,
and wellbeing, amongst other indicators. In doing so, this Scoping Study proposes a way forward to think about Karachi’s changing weather and the onset of chronic heat exposure in terms of ‘zones of vulnerability’.
Research Interests:
This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled ‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive drivers... more
This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled ‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive drivers of gender roles and their relevance to configuring violent geographies specifically among 12 urban working class neighborhoods of Karachi and Rawalpindi-‐Islamabad. This project has investigated how frustrated gendered expectations may be complicit in driving different types of violence and how they may be tackled by addressing first, the material aspects of gender roles through improved access to public services and opportunities, and second, discursive aspects of gender roles in terms of public education and media. This report's findings are based upon approximately two thousand four hundred questionnaire surveys, close to sixty ethnographic style interviews, participant observations, participatory photographic surveys, media monitoring, secondary literature review and some key informant interviews. The findings overwhelmingly point towards access to services and vulnerability profiles of households as major drivers of violence, as they intersect with discourses surrounding masculinities, femininities and sexualities. The core discussions and analysis in this final report are anchored in the following four themes: vulnerabilities, mobilities, access to services, and violence. This was a multi-‐method research project and each of the methods was chosen to address specific types of data relevant to the specific research questions.
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In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the... more
In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the commercial hub of the country, Islamabad is the federal capital, and Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the all- powerful Pakistani military. By “mobility” we mean not only the literal physical movement of transportation, but also the contextualised activity in urban space that is imbued with meaning and power (Bondi 2005 ; Uteng 2009 ; Uteng and Cresswell 2008 ), and thus we also use “mobilities” to mark this plurality of meaning. The concept entails the potential for movement or the knowledge that potential trips can (or cannot) be made, due to various constraining factors. These range from poor infrastructure to cultural norms that dictate the mobility of different genders.
Research Interests: Sociology, Gender Studies, Mobility/Mobilities, Transportation Studies, Gender, and 11 moreGender and Development, Urban Sociology, Gender And Violence, Urban mobility, Women and Gender Studies, Mobility, Gender violence and urban planning, Gender and Transport, Routledge, Social Moblility, and Sexual and Gender Based Violence
This article provides new insights into the politics of water provisioning in Karachi’s informal settlements, where water shortages and contaminations have pushed ordinary citizens to live on the knife edge of water scarcity. We turn our... more
This article provides new insights into the politics of water provisioning in Karachi’s informal settlements, where water shortages and contaminations have pushed ordinary citizens to live on the knife edge of water scarcity. We turn our attention to the everyday practices that involve gendered insecurities of water in Karachi, which has been Pakistan’s security laboratory for decades. We explore four shifting security logics that strongly contribute to the crisis of water provisioning at the neighbourhood level and highlight an emergent landscape of ‘securitised water’. Gender maps the antagonisms between these security logics, so we discuss the impacts on ordinary women and men as they experience chronic water shortages. In Karachi, a patriarchal stereotype of the militant or terrorist-controlled water supply is wielded with the aim of upholding statist national security concerns that undermine women’s and men’s daily security in water provisioning whereby everyday issues of risk ...
Research Interests: Human Geography, Gender Studies, South Asian Studies, Infrastructure Planning, Security, and 15 morePolitical Science, Urban Planning, Security Studies, Sustainable Urban Environments, Urban Studies, Gender and Development, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Urban Sociology, Urban And Regional Planning, Applied Economics, National Security, Global CIty, Infrastructure, Right to the city, and Karachi
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In this paper, we discuss the politics of fieldwork in urban Pakistan and in doing so draw attention to the role of research assistants (RAs) in the production of knowledge. The discussion explores how the roles, reflexivity and... more
In this paper, we discuss the politics of fieldwork in urban Pakistan and in doing so draw attention to the role of research assistants (RAs) in the production of knowledge. The discussion explores how the roles, reflexivity and positionality of our three Muslim female RAs adds depth to our understanding of fieldwork in a culturally and politically charged urban setting where everyday violence combined with wealth asymmetries and anxieties over religious identity add layers of complexity in researcher–respondent working relationships. This generates a process of negotiation over ethical dilemmas that are not easily surmounted and complicates how we think about transformations in the production of knowledge. We use the notion of the ‘triple subjectivity’ of fieldwork to problematise the positionality of researchers and the people they seek to represent through translations of language, contexts and encounters. Moreover, we underscore that the positionality of our RAs was strongly influenced by religion, ethnicity and class. Notably, state directives have played an important role in the way relationships are forged in the field, whereby ethnic–religious minorities have been categorised and treated in distinct ways. Our RAs’ knowledge of marginalised communities increased significantly with time spent in the field, but they still retained specific understandings of difference. This awareness was a crucial learning experience and prompted our RAs to become mindful of their own investment and contribution to the process of ethnographic engagements. Our objective in this paper is to reveal the tensions and possibilities generated by the triple subjectivities involved in our fieldwork in terms of their implications for transformations of research. Above all, our RAs’ reflections demonstrate that we as researchers must remain sensitive to the emotions and anxieties of those we work alongside.
Research Interests: Sociology, Human Geography, Violence, Reflexivity, South Asia, and 4 morePakistan, Area, Wiley, and Research assistants
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Millennial Karachi is an “intense city” with compounding precarities of varying scales. The COVID-19 pandemic has added yet another layer of uncertainty. Through an engagement with the concept of the intense city, the pandemic’s... more
Millennial Karachi is an “intense city” with compounding precarities of varying scales. The COVID-19 pandemic has added yet another layer of uncertainty. Through an engagement with the concept of the intense city,
the pandemic’s regulation and hopeful prospects in the state’s new welfare policies are considered.
the pandemic’s regulation and hopeful prospects in the state’s new welfare policies are considered.
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The contents of this site is subject to the French law on intellectual property and is the exclusive property of the publisher. The works on this site can be accessed and reproduced on paper or digital media, provided that they are... more
The contents of this site is subject to the French law on intellectual property and is the exclusive property of the publisher. The works on this site can be accessed and reproduced on paper or digital media, provided that they are strictly used for personal, scientific or educational purposes excluding any commercial exploitation. Reproduction must necessarily mention the editor, the journal name, the author and the document reference. Any other reproduction is strictly forbidden without permission of the publisher, except in cases provided by legislation
Ring towns, twin-cities, city regions, peri-urban, intermediate cities and more, the vast nomenclature captures the unrelenting interest in secondary cities as 'engines of growth', capable of surmounting the challenges of... more
Ring towns, twin-cities, city regions, peri-urban, intermediate cities and more, the vast nomenclature captures the unrelenting interest in secondary cities as 'engines of growth', capable of surmounting the challenges of urbanization in Pakistan. This conceptually-driven article examines the bourgeoning interest in secondary cities and proposes alternate ways of thinking about such conurbations. It underscores the need to go beyond technocratic discourse and capitalist assumptions of infinite growth and modernization as conventionally applied in regional and urban planning discourse in Pakistan. The article calls for re-orienting planning discourse in Pakistan to incorporate tile substantive theme of 'urbanism', which is crucial for comprehending how citizens experience urban life across a diverse and shifting landscape, where the city fades into the countryside, or where 'urban sprawl' and 'ribbon developments' defy categorization.
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This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled ‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive drivers of gender roles and their relevance... more
This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled ‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive drivers of gender roles and their relevance to configuring violent geographies specifically among 12 urban working class neighborhoods of Karachi and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. This project has investigated how frustrated gendered expectations may be complicit in driving different types of violence and how they may be tackled by addressing first, the material aspects of gender roles through improved access to public services and opportunities, and second, discursive aspects of gender roles in terms of public education and media. This report's findings are based upon approximately two thousand four hundred questionnaire surveys, close to sixty ethnographic style interviews, participant observations, participatory photographic surveys, media monitoring, secondary literature review and some key informant interviews. The findings overwhelmingly point towards access to services and vulnerability profiles of households as major drivers of violence, as they intersect with discourses surrounding masculinities, femininities and sexualities. The core discussions and analysis in this final report are anchored in the following four themes: vulnerabilities, mobilities, access to services, and violence. This was a multi-method research project and each of the methods was chosen to address specific types of data relevant to the specific research questions.
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Page 1. Final Version-June 22 nd , 2010 1 Institutional Actors in Discursive Engagements: Examining Processes of Infrastructure Reform for SMEs Industrial Districts in Sialkot, Pakistan Paper Presented at the Regional Responses ...
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Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the right to stay on the land. These movements mobilize their constituencies on the basis of indigeneity, agrarian reform, and social justice, and... more
Globally, observers have witnessed the proliferation of rural social movements that demand the right to stay on the land. These movements mobilize their constituencies on the basis of indigeneity, agrarian reform, and social justice, and in so doing, counter predominant trends of rural authoritarianism, dispossession, and land speculation. In Pakistan, rural resistance exploded in a somewhat surprising location, Okara military farms, deep in what is commonly thought to be the nation’s conservative, pro-military heartland. In The Ethics of Staying, Mubbashir Rizvi documents the meteoric rise of the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (Tenant Farmers Movement, or AMP) and addresses urgent questions, such as: How did sharecroppers disarm the Pakistani Army in the midst of dictatorial rule? Why and on what basis did they risk their lives for land they didn’t legally own? How have they managed to survive in the context of extreme repression?
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The delivery of projects for the coproduction of services raises multiple questions about how different structural barriers prevent and hinder the participation of various sectors of the population. Intersectionality theory provides a... more
The delivery of projects for the coproduction of services raises multiple questions about how different structural barriers prevent and hinder the participation of various sectors of the population. Intersectionality theory provides a critical lens to examine the delivery of such coproduction projects to refine any strategies to include vulnerable perspectives or perspectives that get silenced by existing hierarchies. This paper presents an intersectionality-led analysis of the delivery of a project to improve public safety in Pakistan. The project mapped existing concerns about urban violence of different groups of the population. The project used a multilayered approach to facilitate the engagement of excluded views, both in the constitution of the research team and in the involvement of communities. An intersectionality framework is applied to analyse the deployment of the project in terms of design, innovation, planning, and signification. The analysis shows that there are limit...
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UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Manufacturers' responses to infrastructure constraints: How firms enhanced... more
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Manufacturers' responses to infrastructure constraints: How firms enhanced competitiveness in Pakistan's export industries. ...
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Marxists have long understood and emphasized the relevance of material infrastructure as constituting the basis of economic and social formations. Marx himself provided the basis for debates in the Indian Marxist tradition by suggesting... more
Marxists have long understood and emphasized the relevance of material infrastructure as constituting the basis of economic and social formations. Marx himself provided the basis for debates in the Indian Marxist tradition by suggesting that railways would be the ‘forerunner of modern industry’ (Marx 1978). The inherently linear, modernization-driven narrative underlying infrastructure’s conceptual foundations is perhaps best illustrated in the influential development discourses that emerged in the 1950s. This mode of thought about infrastructure was intimately caught up with new ideas concerning the shape and trajectory of economic development and the advancement of industrialization in so-called developing countries. With the ‘underdevelopment’ of Asia, Africa and Latin America as the major unresolved economic problem looming on the mid-20th century horizon, a new field of development economics emerged. Its ideas and theories percolated into the realm of industrial and infrastructural policy making in Pakistan. While there is no linear relationship between ideas and policy outcomes, in this specific historical conjuncture of the Pakistani state the ideas did have important bearing on official policy and planning. In Pakistan, as elsewhere in the erstwhile third world, the ideas of development economics were palpable to local planners and military rulers by giving saliency to their visions. Development economics enabled independent states, such as Pakistan, to tie infrastructure policies with a mode of rule while promising rapid material progress.
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In our modern era, infrastructure unites far-flung industrial landscapes and people into new networks of production, circulation and globalization. In the new millennium, infrastructure has become even more necessary for sustaining and... more
In our modern era, infrastructure unites far-flung industrial landscapes and people into new networks of production, circulation and globalization. In the new millennium, infrastructure has become even more necessary for sustaining and bringing to fruition the long-standing promise of modernity: progress. Industrial peripheries must remain connected or they will collapse; if the state backs off from providing infrastructure, then isolated regions will be left behind. Without the aid of infrastructure, marginalized regions and industries will become even more disconnected. In a digital age of connectivity, infrastructure becomes more salient as data must flow over cable wires and Wi-Fi signals. Whether the physical point is in the office of a CEO of a large textile firm or in the diminutive back office of a retailer, never has infrastructure been more necessary as a point of access for industrial growth and economic development.
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The focus of this book is on industrial infrastructures of production and circulation, from power distribution and roads to dry ports and airports. It looks at how these infrastructures underpin visions of progress and mediate relations... more
The focus of this book is on industrial infrastructures of production and circulation, from power distribution and roads to dry ports and airports. It looks at how these infrastructures underpin visions of progress and mediate relations between the state and capitalist firms in industrializing districts in Punjab, Pakistan.
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In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the... more
In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the commercial hub of the country, Islamabad is the federal capital, and Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the all- powerful Pakistani military. By “mobility” we mean not only the literal physical movement of transportation, but also the contextualised activity in urban space that is imbued with meaning and power (Bondi 2005 ; Uteng 2009 ; Uteng and Cresswell 2008 ), and thus we also use “mobilities” to mark this plurality of meaning. The concept entails the potential for movement or the knowledge that potential trips can (or cannot) be made, due to various constraining factors. These range from poor infrastructure to cultural norms that dictate the mobility of different genders.
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Home to more city dwellers than any other continent, and the locus of many of the world’s most populous metropolitan areas, Asia is moving to center stage in popular and academic debates about global urban futures. This volume comprises... more
Home to more city dwellers than any other continent, and the locus of many of the world’s most populous metropolitan areas, Asia is moving to center stage in popular and academic debates about global urban futures. This volume comprises essays examining the intersections of the urban and futurity. While attentive to emergent forms of urban Asia, contributors also examine futures past, the afterlives of historical projects and archaeologies of the future. Many essays provide ethnographic and field-based empirical insights into emerging urban cultures, while others explore the theoretical and political implications of the urban future in Asia.
Research Interests: Future Studies, Human Geography, Political Geography and Geopolitics, Social Geography, Urban Geography, and 29 moreSocial Anthropology, Southeast Asian Studies, Urban History, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Infrastructure Planning, Urban Planning, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Sustainable Urban Environments, Urban Studies, Futurism, Urbanism, Urban Sociology, Urban And Regional Planning, Urban Design (Urban Studies), Infrastructure studies, Future, Urban design and planning, Infrastructure, Urban culture, urban anthropology, urban sociology, Anthropology of Space, Urban Sociology, Cultural Geography, Urban Studies: urban design & anthropology, international Planning and development, sustainable urbanisation - China, Architecture and Urban Planning, Urban Sociology and Cultural Anthropology and Urban Studies, Urban Anthroplogy, Cultural/Urban and Environmental Anthropology, Planetary urbanization, and Planetary Urbanism
As temperatures rise and heatwave alerts intensify in Karachi, air-conditioners, coolers, and fans are switched on and markets for electrical cooling appliances flourish. As researchers studying the impacts of extreme heat in urban... more
As temperatures rise and heatwave alerts intensify in Karachi, air-conditioners, coolers, and fans are switched on and markets for electrical cooling appliances flourish. As researchers studying the impacts of extreme heat in urban Pakistan, we have been exploring what it means to profit from heat, which has become a pervasive and immersive experience for people living and working across South Asia.
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As the pandemic-induced lockdown of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city of 20 million people, enters its third week, we offer some observations about the rapidly changing urban terrain. Based on our earlier research on evictions and land... more
As the pandemic-induced lockdown of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city of 20 million people, enters its third week, we offer some observations about the rapidly changing urban terrain. Based on our earlier research on evictions and land displacements in income poor informal settlements spread across the city, we consider COVID-19 as a force that not only affects the politics and governance of everyday life, but also lays bare the socio-spatial inequalities that have been central to the workings of Pakistan’s postcolonial governance.
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For a vast majority of residents in Pakistan’s cities, the process of accessing and holding on to space for shelter and for work has become a struggle to endure in the face of profound uncertainty. I am referring here not only to the... more
For a vast majority of residents in Pakistan’s cities, the process of accessing and holding on to space for shelter and for work has become a struggle to endure in the face of profound uncertainty. I am referring here not only to the poor, but also to those residents who don’t fit into neat classifications of poor or middle-class; residents that some scholars have called the “in between”......
Research Interests: Infrastructure Planning, Urban Planning, Urban Studies, Urbanism, Irregular/Informal Settlements Studies, and 13 moreUrban Sociology, Informal Economy, Urban Development, Public Space, Urban Violence, Informal Sector, Right to the City, Urban Transformation/Renewal Projects, Right to Adequate Housing, State Violence, Right to the city, Critical Infrastructures, Architecture and Public Spaces, Social Exclusion; Right to the city; Hosuing Rights, and Urban and Regional Planing
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Pakistan ranks high on the list of countries most threatened by the impending effects of climate change. Numerous studies show that temperatures in certain parts of Asia will exceed habitable levels by end of the 21st century.
Pakistan's affordable housing crisis is a definitive instance of both market and government failure. Slums, katchi abadis, unplanned or informal, illegal settlements proliferate because the market and government have failed repeatedly to... more
Pakistan's affordable housing crisis is a definitive instance of both market and government failure. Slums, katchi abadis, unplanned or informal, illegal settlements proliferate because the market and government have failed repeatedly to provide adequate housing to low-wage workers and their families. In Karachi alone, nearly 60 per cent of the city's population resides in informal settlements. The country's housing problem was predicted long ago by renowned urban planner Constantinos Doxiadis, who was hired in the 1950s by the government of Pakistan to design a new capital and reconstruct Karachi. As Doxiadis observed the massive migrations, staggering post-Partition overcrowding and ensuing challenges of shelter for thousands of people in Karachi, he correctly foresaw the issue of livable shelter would become a colossal challenge for cities across Pakistan, unless a comprehensive housing plan was put in place.
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NOWADAYS in Karachi one only has to invoke the spectre of terrorism to clarify how and why violence is enacted. 'Terror talk' has subsumed the virtual space of media and the everyday space of living where people can accuse neighbours of... more
NOWADAYS in Karachi one only has to invoke the spectre of terrorism to clarify how and why violence is enacted. 'Terror talk' has subsumed the virtual space of media and the everyday space of living where people can accuse neighbours of being Taliban, being their informants, or having being seen in their company. The state plays a central role in contributing to this talk as it conveniently blames most violent acts, from assassinations, kidnappings to extortion on this elusive enemy. We do not whitewash the very real violence of mass murder and bombings visited upon Karachi, but question the way a certain kind of violence and its alleged perpetrators become shorthand for everything that is wrong with Karachi. When terror talk permeates public and private space, it provides a readymade scapegoat for the city's troubles. This discourse shifts attention away from everyday terrors rooted in long-standing issues that remain unaddressed in Pakistan's 65-year history. In public discourse, this terror is presented as irrational, without an understandable cause and is easier to accept than the terror of crippling poverty, unemployment and exploitation; consequences of class oppressions a majority of Karachi's residents experience daily. The violence visited by the state remains invisible as the violence of the 'other'. The terrorist becomes the ultimate threat to the nation, to civilisation itself. This terror is a handy justification for a violent state response and for greater application of state control. It facilitates distinction between those who present themselves as sane, secular and liberal and those who are not, though not for any clear reason we can understand. One needs to listen to the diverse ways people experience violence on ground. Moreover, to understand how the 'war on terror' generates new geographies of despair and scarcity where people fleeing conflict seek refuge in the city where they face precarious conditions. Terror talk takes over
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On September 11, 2018, the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) held an event at the Center for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) at IBA where we presented findings of our empirical work conducted over the past 18 months in Bahawalpur, Punjab and Thar,... more
On September 11, 2018, the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) held an event at the Center for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) at IBA where we presented findings of our empirical work conducted over the past 18 months in Bahawalpur, Punjab and Thar, Sindh on large-scale fossil fuel and green energy projects and impacts on land access and livelihoods of ordinary citizens. While these projects aim to facilitate Pakistan’s national development goals, particularly for overcoming the energy crisis, there are significant and disconcerting issues emerging with respect to the process of land acquisition on which such projects rely. Key questions posed were: What is the relevance of 21st century legal mechanisms, such as the Right To Information Act (RTI), to land acquisition in mega-projects? What is the colonial context of land acquisition in which such legal mechanisms operate, for instance the role of the Land Acquisition Act 1894? What is the role of the media in reporting on land acquisition and legal processes? Is the media a neutral observer or an activist? We aimed to have an open discussion on how to report on land acquisition for mega-projects in future. We also touched on the broader, intersecting issues of climate change, energy and security in Pakistan and why nuanced journalism matters to keep citizens up to date and duty-bearers accountable.
Research Interests: Law, Media Studies, Digital Media, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, and 15 moreMedia, Land Law, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Megaprojects, Property Ownership and Land Acquisition, Land Acquisition, Land Acqusition Act 1894, Megaprojects; strategic management; decision making, Land Acquisition Act India, Peasant Resistance, Land Acquisition, Landscape and Land-use-history, environmental and social impacts of Megaprojects, Socio- Economic Effects of Land Acquisition, Comparison Between Land Acquisition Act 1894 and New Larr Act 2013, and Large scale agricultural land acquisitions
The XQs (Ten Questions) series is a conversation with the author of new and exciting works in South Asian Studies, whose aim is not to “review” but to contextualize, historicize and promote new scholarship.
Research Interests: Urban Geography, Southeast Asian Studies, Infrastructure Planning, Urban And Regional Planning, Regional economic development, and 8 morePakistan Studies, Infrastructure Development, Development Infrastructure, Globalization and Technology in Pakistan, The Roles of Infrastructure on Economic Development in Nigeria, Energy Crises in Pakistan, Anthropology of Infrastructure, and Infrastructure Development and Economic Growth
Filtering through the towns of Mirjaveh, Taftan, Maskhel and Quetta, and heading toward large urban centers like Karachi, Irani oil quietly flows across the Pak-Iran border through a complex grid of human and non-human infrastructures... more
Filtering through the towns of Mirjaveh, Taftan, Maskhel and Quetta, and heading toward large urban centers like Karachi, Irani oil quietly flows across the Pak-Iran border through a complex grid of human and non-human infrastructures that respond to state policies regarding the lucrative, albeit ‘illicit’ commodity. These highly speculative infrastructures of mobility animate the imaginations, aspirations and daily lives of local actors (border guards, highway patrol, customs officials, small time financiers, petrol station owners, truck drivers, young Baloch men and women) who control the storage, transportation, circulation and exchange of oil across overland routes, and into markets in various cities and towns in Pakistan, Afghanistan and wider supra-regional economic networks in Central Asia. In this presentation, I consider oil flows in terms of three dynamics: disruption, excess and mediation. These dynamics hinder and facilitate the movement of bodies across risky spaces and times. Oil mediates between risk and uncertainty; as excess it augments the potentiality for limitless individual and urban-national economic growth; and as disruption it sets limits on a notion of progress tied to a fossilized and decaying future. I engage these ideas through ethnography in the border towns of Iran and Pakistan to consider how contested, cross-border and trans-urban flows of oil are molded into the everyday and around the intersections of markets, state and ethnicity. I propose these transformations that link up certain small towns and urbanizing regions across South-Central Asia through historical, contemporary and differentiated political spaces have come together in the early 21st century to form a postcolonial/postindustrial frontier zone of a speculative ‘carbonized urbanity’.
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InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), December 4–7, 2018 As China's Belt Road Initiative materializes across Asia's diverse and uneven landscape, what are the emerging impacts of infrastructure... more
InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), December 4–7, 2018 As China's Belt Road Initiative materializes across Asia's diverse and uneven landscape, what are the emerging impacts of infrastructure projects in countries like Pakistan, which is deeply ensconced in the construction of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated the ways in which these socio-technical systems offer potent spaces for thinking about networks of connectivity and as emerging sites of political discontent. Although these new infrastructural networks are premised on the creation of smooth networks of interconnection, studies suggest that close attention to the contestations on ground reveal the terms upon which new connections are being forged. Based on 15-months of fieldwork in Pakistan's hinterland regions of Thar and Cholistan deserts where large-scale CPEC-backed fossil fuel and renewable energy projects are underway, I argue these projects constitute a vision of fast-tracking Pakistan's grid modernity, where the grid indexes a relationship to land, common property resources, human/non-humans and a politics of (dis)connectivity with struggles for entitlements, rights and recognition. The grid assigns specific meanings to spaces – fences, lines, boundaries-to control the human/nonhuman social and physical worlds, and this instigates localized understandings of economic and social uncertainty. Even though these infrastructure projects herald an alternative future of national energy self-sufficiency, they are also potent sites for a politics that incorporates the promise of progress amid anxieties of displacement, dispossession and ecological degradation.
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Histories of the Present: Gendered Violence in South Asia, University of Cambridge, June 23rd, 2017 Millennial Pakistan is experiencing an unabashed mega-infrastructure moment. With the onset of the USD $57 billion China Pakistan... more
Histories of the Present: Gendered Violence in South Asia, University of Cambridge, June 23rd, 2017
Millennial Pakistan is experiencing an unabashed mega-infrastructure moment. With the onset of the USD $57 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) positioned as the proverbial ‘jewel in the crown’ of China’s Belt & Road initiative, Pakistan’s bureaucrats and policymakers have found novel footings in discussions concerning the nation’s future. The allure of mega-infrastructural initiatives like the CPEC lies in their capacity to mediate between a nation’s ‘backward’ past and a shiny future; a process that marks a new threshold in which the promise of modernization and state sovereignty will finally materialize. But infrastructure is not only Pakistan’s future; it is also its past. In Pakistan, infrastructure symbolizes decay, the death of development; it signifies deficiency and plenitude; crisis and progress. In the immediate aftermath of independence in 1947, the Pakistani state’s modernist aspirations for national development were predicated upon a state-led infrastructural planning logic for industrialization that symbolized post-independence success. However, in the past several decades, the shifting terrains of economic restructuring, fast-paced urbanization and infrastructural contractions present a different story of state disconnect and development ‘failures’.
Where should we place infrastructure in the current story of millennial Pakistan’s modernist aspirations? In my work (Anwar 2015), I have endeavored to situate the story of Pakistan’s infrastructure crisis within a bigger story of the ways in which infrastructure itself has been historically transformed; as a developmental concept, a policy tool and as a technology of rule. A key issue that I have explored is how, in the messy terrain of constructing state-firm/state-society relations and the accompanying symbolic aspects of infrastructure, it is important to investigate both the marginalizing and liberating powers of such technologies. If infrastructures (water, electricity, land, roads, transport) marginalize (symbolic, material), then with what effects? More pertinently, in what ways does this process relate to gendered violence in Pakistan? How does the complexity of gendered violence change due to the ‘deepening’ of specific kinds of infrastructural interventions? These are some questions that I will attempt to explore in my talk.
Millennial Pakistan is experiencing an unabashed mega-infrastructure moment. With the onset of the USD $57 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) positioned as the proverbial ‘jewel in the crown’ of China’s Belt & Road initiative, Pakistan’s bureaucrats and policymakers have found novel footings in discussions concerning the nation’s future. The allure of mega-infrastructural initiatives like the CPEC lies in their capacity to mediate between a nation’s ‘backward’ past and a shiny future; a process that marks a new threshold in which the promise of modernization and state sovereignty will finally materialize. But infrastructure is not only Pakistan’s future; it is also its past. In Pakistan, infrastructure symbolizes decay, the death of development; it signifies deficiency and plenitude; crisis and progress. In the immediate aftermath of independence in 1947, the Pakistani state’s modernist aspirations for national development were predicated upon a state-led infrastructural planning logic for industrialization that symbolized post-independence success. However, in the past several decades, the shifting terrains of economic restructuring, fast-paced urbanization and infrastructural contractions present a different story of state disconnect and development ‘failures’.
Where should we place infrastructure in the current story of millennial Pakistan’s modernist aspirations? In my work (Anwar 2015), I have endeavored to situate the story of Pakistan’s infrastructure crisis within a bigger story of the ways in which infrastructure itself has been historically transformed; as a developmental concept, a policy tool and as a technology of rule. A key issue that I have explored is how, in the messy terrain of constructing state-firm/state-society relations and the accompanying symbolic aspects of infrastructure, it is important to investigate both the marginalizing and liberating powers of such technologies. If infrastructures (water, electricity, land, roads, transport) marginalize (symbolic, material), then with what effects? More pertinently, in what ways does this process relate to gendered violence in Pakistan? How does the complexity of gendered violence change due to the ‘deepening’ of specific kinds of infrastructural interventions? These are some questions that I will attempt to explore in my talk.
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A series of emerging developments in Asia such as China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project, Turkey’s neo-Ottomanism, Iran’s Shi’a Crescent, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union, Gulf states’ sectarian outreach, and reconnection of Indian... more
A series of emerging developments in Asia such as China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project, Turkey’s neo-Ottomanism, Iran’s Shi’a Crescent, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union, Gulf states’ sectarian outreach, and reconnection of Indian diasporas evince increasing regionalism across Asia. Many of these new regionalisms depend on channeling histories and memories of oceanic and territorial routes carved over centuries by movements of people, ideas, and goods across the interconnected terrain of Eurasia and Indian Ocean. Central to bringing this past to the present are transnational networks of trade, trade, religion, kinship, and labor constituted over the longue durée. This interdisciplinary conference brings together anthropologists, historians, sociologists and political scientists to conceptualize emerging regional political aspirations and infrastructure projects through the past of networks. By bringing regions separated in space and pasts disconnected in time, this conference looks to conceptualize how order is constructed beyond borders.
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InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), December 4–7, 2018 As China's Belt Road Initiative materializes across Asia's diverse and uneven landscape, what are the emerging impacts of infrastructure... more
InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), December 4–7, 2018
As China's Belt Road Initiative materializes across Asia's diverse and uneven landscape, what are the emerging impacts of infrastructure projects in countries like Pakistan, which is deeply ensconced in the construction of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated the ways in which these socio-technical systems offer potent spaces for thinking about networks of connectivity and as emerging sites of political discontent. Although these new infrastructural networks are premised on the creation of smooth networks of interconnection, studies suggest that close attention to the contestations on ground reveal the terms upon which new connections are being forged. Based on 15-months of fieldwork in Pakistan's hinterland regions of Thar and Cholistan deserts where large-scale CPEC-backed fossil fuel and renewable energy projects are underway, I argue these projects constitute a vision of fast-tracking Pakistan's grid modernity, where the grid indexes a relationship to land, common property resources, human/non-humans and a politics of (dis)connectivity with struggles for entitlements, rights and recognition. The grid assigns specific meanings to spaces – fences, lines, boundaries-to control the human/nonhuman social and physical worlds, and this instigates localized understandings of economic and social uncertainty. Even though these infrastructure projects herald an alternative future of national energy self-sufficiency, they are also potent sites for a politics that incorporates the promise of progress amid anxieties of displacement, dispossession and ecological degradation.
As China's Belt Road Initiative materializes across Asia's diverse and uneven landscape, what are the emerging impacts of infrastructure projects in countries like Pakistan, which is deeply ensconced in the construction of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated the ways in which these socio-technical systems offer potent spaces for thinking about networks of connectivity and as emerging sites of political discontent. Although these new infrastructural networks are premised on the creation of smooth networks of interconnection, studies suggest that close attention to the contestations on ground reveal the terms upon which new connections are being forged. Based on 15-months of fieldwork in Pakistan's hinterland regions of Thar and Cholistan deserts where large-scale CPEC-backed fossil fuel and renewable energy projects are underway, I argue these projects constitute a vision of fast-tracking Pakistan's grid modernity, where the grid indexes a relationship to land, common property resources, human/non-humans and a politics of (dis)connectivity with struggles for entitlements, rights and recognition. The grid assigns specific meanings to spaces – fences, lines, boundaries-to control the human/nonhuman social and physical worlds, and this instigates localized understandings of economic and social uncertainty. Even though these infrastructure projects herald an alternative future of national energy self-sufficiency, they are also potent sites for a politics that incorporates the promise of progress amid anxieties of displacement, dispossession and ecological degradation.
Research Interests:
This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled ‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive drivers of... more
This report is the final output of the Safe and Inclusive Cities Programme (SAIC) project entitled
‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive
drivers of gender roles and their relevance to configuring violent geographies specifically among 12
urban working class neighborhoods of Karachi and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. This project has
investigated how frustrated gendered expectations may be complicit in driving different types of
violence and how they may be tackled by addressing first, the material aspects of gender roles
through improved access to public services and opportunities, and second, discursive aspects of
gender roles in terms of public education and media. This report's findings are based upon
approximately two thousand four hundred questionnaire surveys, close to sixty ethnographic style
interviews, participant observations, participatory photographic surveys, media monitoring,
secondary literature review and some key informant interviews. The findings overwhelmingly point
towards access to services and vulnerability profiles of households as major drivers of violence, as
they intersect with discourses surrounding masculinities, femininities and sexualities. The core
discussions and analysis in this final report are anchored in the following four themes: vulnerabilities,
mobilities, access to services, and violence. This was a multi-method research project and each of the
methods was chosen to address specific types of data relevant to the specific research questions.
‘Gender and Violence in Urban Pakistan’. The project has focused on the material and discursive
drivers of gender roles and their relevance to configuring violent geographies specifically among 12
urban working class neighborhoods of Karachi and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. This project has
investigated how frustrated gendered expectations may be complicit in driving different types of
violence and how they may be tackled by addressing first, the material aspects of gender roles
through improved access to public services and opportunities, and second, discursive aspects of
gender roles in terms of public education and media. This report's findings are based upon
approximately two thousand four hundred questionnaire surveys, close to sixty ethnographic style
interviews, participant observations, participatory photographic surveys, media monitoring,
secondary literature review and some key informant interviews. The findings overwhelmingly point
towards access to services and vulnerability profiles of households as major drivers of violence, as
they intersect with discourses surrounding masculinities, femininities and sexualities. The core
discussions and analysis in this final report are anchored in the following four themes: vulnerabilities,
mobilities, access to services, and violence. This was a multi-method research project and each of the
methods was chosen to address specific types of data relevant to the specific research questions.
Research Interests:
Until recently, there has been limited in-depth and qualitatively rich research on extreme heat and its impacts on cities and vulnerable inhabitants. But the frequency of annual extreme temperatures, heatwaves, and related deaths across... more
Until recently, there has been limited in-depth and qualitatively rich research on extreme heat and its impacts on cities and vulnerable inhabitants. But the frequency of annual extreme temperatures, heatwaves, and related deaths across the world, is increasing and can no longer be ignored. The IPCC Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability has emphasized that if greenhouse gas emissions are not rapidly eliminated, increasing heat and humidity will create conditions that test human tolerance. This means greater exposure to dangerous thresholds of excessive heat, and the human body’s physiological capacity to regulate temperatures compromised by the rapid increases in heat gain.
Research Interests:
Until recently, there has been limited in-depth and qualitatively rich research on extreme heat and its impacts on cities and vulnerable inhabitants. But the frequency of annual extreme temperatures, heatwaves, and related deaths across... more
Until recently, there has been limited in-depth and qualitatively rich research on extreme heat and its impacts on cities and vulnerable inhabitants. But the frequency of annual extreme temperatures, heatwaves, and related deaths across the world, is increasing and can no longer be ignored. The IPCC Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability has emphasized that if greenhouse gas emissions are not rapidly eliminated, increasing heat and humidity will create conditions that test human tolerance. This means greater exposure to dangerous thresholds of excessive heat, and the human body’s physiological capacity to regulate temperatures compromised by the rapid increases in heat gain.
Research Interests:
Although the climate has admittedly always been hot and humid in cities like Karachi, increasingly hotter temperatures are exacerbating the impact of heat on informal, precariously employed outdoor workers such as street vendors, guards... more
Although the climate has admittedly always been hot and humid in cities like Karachi, increasingly hotter temperatures are exacerbating the impact of heat on informal, precariously employed outdoor workers such as street vendors, guards and rickshaw drivers, who must negotiate their right and access to shade at the everyday scale. Recalling Mike Davis’ radical, political claim that shade is an inalienable human right, this paper proposes that few people working in the outdoor spaces of the South Asian city today understand or experience shade in these terms. Rather shade is something that must be claimed, alongside other rights and entitlements. Moreover, shade alone is insufficient as it cannot reduce the exposure of bodies to harmful ambient radiations and overall thermal discomfort. This paper makes three broad propositions for outlining a theory for the social study of shade in the South Asian city. By paying closer attention to the ways that outdoor workers negotiate shade in Karachi, this paper opens up for analysis a wider spectrum of claims-making activity in changing South Asian urban climates. It places workers’ search for shade in the broader context of shade policing and urban management aimed at creating spatial as well as social order. Finally, this article emphasises key directions and questions for future research.
Research Interests:
As the cities in South Asia transform into global or “world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct, repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia, we... more
As the cities in South Asia transform into global or
“world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct,
repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this
collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia,
we foreground how the repairers and maintainers of Kolkata,
Karachi, and Mumbai—including bicycle and construction
machinery repairers, and waste removal and health workers—
experience and contribute to the changing urban landscape.
As this collection of essays shows, the lives and struggles of
these repair workers make cities functional and set their
economies into motion.
“world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct,
repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this
collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia,
we foreground how the repairers and maintainers of Kolkata,
Karachi, and Mumbai—including bicycle and construction
machinery repairers, and waste removal and health workers—
experience and contribute to the changing urban landscape.
As this collection of essays shows, the lives and struggles of
these repair workers make cities functional and set their
economies into motion.