Tag Archives: Conflict

Book: Karachi. The Land Issue by Arif Hasan, Noman Ahmed, Mansoor Raza et al

Arif Hasan, Noman Ahmed, Mansoor Raza, Asiya Sadiq-Polack,  Saeed Uddin Ahmed, and Moizza B. Sarwar, Karachi: The Land Issue, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2015.

“Karachi is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. It is Pakistan’s only port and the major contributor to the country’s economy. In addition, it is also a diverse city with its population politically divided along ethnic lines. These three factors make the urban land and that on the city’s fringe a highly contested commodity: federal, provincial, and local land-owning agencies, corporate sector interests, formal and Continue reading Book: Karachi. The Land Issue by Arif Hasan, Noman Ahmed, Mansoor Raza et al

Book: Karachi. Order Disorder and the Struggle for the City by Laurent Gayer

Laurent Gayer, Karachi: Order Disorder and the Struggle for the City, London: Hurst, 2014.

Laurent Gayer is a  Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), currently posted at the Centre de sciences humaines (CSH), Delhi. He is also Research Associate at the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris.

“With an official population approaching fifteen million, Karachi is one of the largest cities in the world. It is also the most violent. Since the mid-1980s, it has endured endemic political conflict and criminal violence, which revolve around control of the city and its resources (votes, land and bhatta—‘protection’ money). These struggles for the city have become ethnicised. Karachi, often referred to as a ‘Pakistan in miniature,’ has become increasingly fragmented, socially as well as territorially. Continue reading Book: Karachi. Order Disorder and the Struggle for the City by Laurent Gayer