by Haris Gazdar
This blog is an excerpt from a talk given at the meeting
of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies on 4 April 2015 at the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
I wish to speak about two aspects of conducting
applied social science research on the city by reflecting on some work on
Karachi that I have been involved with in the last few years, hopefully as a
way of thinking about the broader question of engagement in the production of
knowledge. Of the two things I want to
speak about the first is methodological.
I will show, through illustration, the value of working across
disciplines on urban themes. The second
is political, about how actions and actors would like to make use of knowledge
and knowledge producers, and how this is both energizing and frustrating.
There were, going back to the 1970s, detailed descriptions of how informal settlements had been established in post-1947 Karachi. What we wanted to know, however, was how laws and schemes for the regularization of informal settlements might have led to collective action among the city’s working classes for secure rights of tenure, and ultimately for their right to the city. Our empirical perspective was going to be qualitative quasi-ethnographic research in a number informal settlements across the city, representing different periods of establishment, consolidation, and regularization (including rounds of eviction in between), and diverse ethnic groups.
So, it came to be, that Kausar
Niazi Colony in the Gujjar Nala near Hyderi, an informally planned and
subsequently regularized settlement was selected among others for study. It was to meet with noted theorists of
collective action to yield some of its secrets.
Yes, much of the politics of regularization was not very different from
what had already been found elsewhere in other studies which showed up the
importance of patronage and negotiation for consolidation and regularization as
part and parcel of competitive politics.
Framing the original collective action problem in rational choice terms,
reading it in terms developed in social movement theory, and then interacting
it with individual and community histories from qualitative fieldwork produced
a textured understanding of the politics of regularization beyond simple
patronage politics. We certainly thought
that we had chanced upon some fresh insights into Kausar Niazi Colony and into
the politics of regularization within and across informal settlements in the
city. Scholarly peers appeared to agree and we published the paper in the online journal SAMAJ in 2011.
So far so good.
There was an interesting problem, an important one even. What are the
micro-politics of regularization. There
were intuitive answers floating around, variants of which were used and are
used widely in conversations about the city.
There was an opportunity to do some interesting empirical work and to
frame it across disciplines, not only to say something slightly different, and
to persuade scholarly peers that something slightly different had been said,
but also to acknowledge the complexity of the city. But we always do want more, don’t we? And one of the things we want is to know that
someone is listening.
The city does make demands on active citizens. The city speaks to the researcher through the
reporter, the political worker, the community mobiliser, the government
official, the human rights activist, the international donor, and sometimes
through another researcher. But what it
asks is rarely the same as that which persuades your scholarly peers that you
have said something slightly new. It
recognizes your skills and your work, but in the coldest way possible. You think you can interview people, so become
part of a human rights mission. We know you can write so help us put together a
report. Assemble
some facts that you have at your disposal and facilitate a dialogue for peace.
And your work clearly shows, albeit incidentally, that you can do calculations,
so show me the numbers.
Protest all you like about the nuance in your cross-disciplinary
insights into the politics of regularization, about intra-poor inequalities and
new collectivities emerging out of the struggles for tenure security. It all
falls on deaf ears until any of it is of value to the city. The city will come to it when it will. Right now it wants to know something else
that it knows you know, even if you thought that was incidental information. How many people in Karachi?
How many in unplanned areas? How many Pashtuns, how many Mohajirs, how many
Sindhis and Baloch? Now? In ten years?
How much poverty in Lyari? How many killed last year? How many this year?
But mostly, it wants to know, like the famed Gabbar Singh: kitnay aadami
thhay? How many people, Pashtuns, Mohajirs, Sindhis, Baloch, now and in ten
years?
