Custom cover image
Custom cover image

Karachi Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City

By: Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Publication details: London : C.Hurst & Co., c2014Description: xxv, 336 p. : illISBN:
  • 9781849043113
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 954.9183 GAY
Online resources: Summary: Summary 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. Despite this chronic state of urban political warfare, Karachi is the cornerstone of the economy of Pakistan. Gayer’s book is an attempt to elucidate this conundrum. Against journalistic accounts describing Karachi as chaotic and ungovernable, he argues that there is indeed order of a kind in the city’s permanent civil war. Far from being entropic, Karachi’s polity is predicated upon organisational, interpretative and pragmatic routines that have made violence ‘manageable’ for its populations. Whether such ‘ordered disorder’ is viable in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Karachi works despite—and sometimes through—violence.
Holdings
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Rent (Rs. 400) Book Bank Book Bank 954.9183GAY Available B52730
Rent (Rs. 400) Book Bank Book Bank 954.9183GAY Available B52731
Rent (Rs. 400) Book Bank Book Bank 954.9183GAY Available B52729

Laurent Gayer
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

Summary
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.

Despite this chronic state of urban political warfare, Karachi is the cornerstone of the economy of Pakistan. Gayer’s book is an attempt to elucidate this conundrum. Against journalistic accounts describing Karachi as chaotic and ungovernable, he argues that there is indeed order of a kind in the city’s permanent civil war. Far from being entropic, Karachi’s polity is predicated upon organisational, interpretative and pragmatic routines that have made violence ‘manageable’ for its populations. Whether such ‘ordered disorder’ is viable in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Karachi works despite—and sometimes through—violence.