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,

Rights beyond property: The Boohars of Rohi

by Natasha Ansari

Natasha Ansari/Collective for Social Science Research

While issues concerning the ownership of land have been the subject of political debate and policy dialogue, much less attention has been paid to the rights of land use which may not necessarily be connected to ownership. For many of the most marginalized communities the right to use land which they may not own is a critical element of their economic and social well-being which is under threat.  I saw this at close quarters in the Rohi region of southern Punjab which I visited as part of the Collective team conducting fieldwork for a study under the research programme Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) on women’s work in agriculture.

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.