The land is eager to teach

by Haris Gazdar

image by Asif Hassan/AFP

“If consciously or otherwise you were brought up believing that Karachi in 1947 was "a land without people for a people without land" this must be a disturbing time for you.  Commiserations.
 And if in your imagination Karachi was not part of Sindh, commiserations again. Check Google Maps. What is Karachi? A settlement on the sea shore, occupying land between the Hub and Malir Rivers, to the north of the farthest reach of the Indus delta.
 
You assumed, without ever caring to actually know, that you were entitled to the water that flows down the Kirthar Range, and the Indus, but only if it comes in taps. Commiserations. Water flows down. Sometimes taps come in the way. Sometimes not.
 
Urban planners duped you into assuming that the land, its rocks, hills, riverbeds, bushes, backwaters, mangroves, the sea, its tides and currents don't matter. Omnipotence of civil engineering. Commiserations.
 
You need to lash out. Of course you do. From omnipotence to impotence. What else will you do? The word Sindh, forget Sindhis for a minute, the word Sindh, it strikes fear because it shatters the fiction of omnipotence. Commiserations, and compassion.
 
Take time out. Let things settle. A crime has been committed. Relax, you are not the criminal. But you are not the most wretched victim, certainly not the only one. Let it sink in: there is no land without people, there are no people without land.
 
You are not impotent, omnipotence was an illusion. The fear is understandable. Let it pass. Sindh will irk you less. Sindhis too. The land is eager to teach, through people who have given it the time, their stories stores of knowledge, wisdom even, will make you powerful again.”
This post is adapted from a Twitter thread by the author published on 2 September, 2020. Follow @CollectiveKHI and @HarisGazdar to stay up to date with analysis and insights on current news in Pakistan and South Asia.

Access and Empowerment in the Age of Smartphones

by Ebad Pasha

Mobile phones are increasingly becoming accessible to a wider audience.
Photocredit: greenbookblog.org

The advent of 3G and 4G technologies at affordable rates coupled with abundant availability of low price Chinese mobile phones in the market has meant that an internet capable smartphone is becoming increasingly accessible to the lower and lower-middle income groups in Pakistan. We conducted fieldwork in three low-income neighbourhoods of Lyari, Korangi and Sultanabad late last year for a project interviewing youth of the areas. It revealed that although the technology has not been completely embraced by the lower income groups in Karachi, affordability and literacy were not impediments for smartphone usage.

The chingchi's tryst with Karachi

By Kabeer Dawani

Qingqi by Carol Mitchell/Flickr

With at least 16 million people, Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan, and one of the largest in the world. Yet, it does not have a mass transit system to serve the transport needs of its residents (except motorbikes of course!). The most recent form of mass transit that was present was the Karachi Circular Railway, which was shut down in 1999. Since then, several new schemes to increase buses have failed, with the result that the total number of buses and minibuses has stayed roughly constant over the last 15 years. But with a growing population, the demand for public transport has only increased.

Hospitality: the City vs. the Village

by Ayesha Tarek

Photo credit: Eric Lafforgue/Flickr

In January of this year I was in rural Punjab conducting fieldwork on a study called Women’s Work in Agriculture and Nutrition, prior to that I was interviewing adolescents and their families in lower income areas of Karachi for a study called Being an Adolescent in Karachi. As a surveyor I was introduced to interview respondents by a local resource person in both settings and although my position as a researcher was the same in both sites I noticed a stark difference in how people treated strangers between the two sites.

Mother Karachi and the Mother

by Hussain Bux Mallah

Rent Me by Benny Lin/Flickr

Karachi is often called the mother of the poor and the indigent – she will feed and nurture those that reach her. Upon entering the city you are welcomed by billboards announcing ‘To Let’ almost inviting you to come and stay. Though it is quite another matter that you can’t find any public toilets in case of need!

I met Jumman first in 2012 when our team interviewed him as part of a longitudinal study on food security. He reminisced fondly about the time when mother Karachi had been kind to him. He had arrived a few years before, got a job through a relative, got married and regularly sent money home to his wife and his natural mother in their village in Shaheed Benazirabad. But then his fortune turned,

Engaging Disciplines

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. 

Karachi is Open to Survey

by Ilma Ghouse

 

Hussain Bux Mallah/Collective for Social Science Research

Sometimes the process of gathering data itself throws up findings about the subject that were not part of the original research questions. Recently, the Collective for Social Science Research undertook a Karachi wide data collection exercise for a study on the well-being of adolescents, supported by UNICEF and the Government of Sindh. Data were collected on over 2,800 adolescents from 120 localities in the city excluding upper income areas. The challenges faced while conducting this research provided unique opportunities for insight into the functioning of the city.

Challenges of a different kind - the role of food prices in the lives of the poorest in Pakistan

by Mysbah Balagamwala and Haris Gazdar

The mother of one of our respondents in Karachi cooks roti (flat bread). Roti made from wheat flour is the staple food in our research sites
Photo Credit: Naila Mahmood/Collective for Social Science Research 

Countries like Pakistan always appear at the global stage to be battling big challenges such as political crises, conflicts and disasters.  But the picture remains incomplete without seeing challenges of a different kind that ordinary people, particularly the poorest, face on a daily basis.  Research conducted in Pakistan, alongside nine other developing countries, for the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project provides just such a perspective.  Qualitative research was carried out by the Collective for Social Science Research in 2012 and 2013 in a cluster of villages in Dadu district and in an urban working-class neighbourhood in Karachi to explore how rising food prices were affecting the poor.  Three important themes emerged from our research in Pakistan which helps understand ways in which food inflation impacts the poor and the vulnerable.

Strikes and fuel shortages – life of a daily wage earner in Karachi

by Mysbah Balagamwala 

Photo Credit: Collective for Social Science Research - Naila Mahmood

For the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project, we visited a low-income neighborhood in Karachi to document the impact of food prices on residents and asked them about their food consumption, livelihoods and hardships faced. We found that the main source of vulnerability for households in Karachi was not a rise in prices but rather strikes in the city and fuel shortages.