Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City - Softcover
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.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
'Laurent Gayer's Karachi is the best book yet published on the interplay of politics, ethnicity, religion, and criminality in one of the world's largest cities.' Source: Anatol Lieven, New York Review of Books
From the Author:
Laurent Gayer is a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), currently posted at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) in Delhi. He is also Research Associate at the Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud in Paris. He has coedited, with Christophe Jaffrelot, Armed Militias of South Asia: Fundamentalists, Maoists, and Separatists, and Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation, both of which are published by Hurst.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherC Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication date2014
- ISBN 10 1849043116
- ISBN 13 9781849043113
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages256
- Rating
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Seller Image
Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City
Published by
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
(2014)
ISBN 10: 1849043116
ISBN 13: 9781849043113
Used
Taschenbuch
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Taschenbuch. Condition: Gebraucht. Gebraucht - Gut - ungelesen,als Mängelexemplar gekennzeichnet, mit leichten Mängeln an Schnitt oder Einband durch Lager- oder Transportschaden, Cover beschädigt -Argues that within the seemingly chaotic malaise of Karachi's politics, a form of 'manageable violence' exists, on which the functioning of the city is based. 256 pp. Englisch. Seller Inventory # INF1000249030
Buy Used
£ 20.27
Convert currency
Stock Image
Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City
Published by
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
(2014)
ISBN 10: 1849043116
ISBN 13: 9781849043113
Used
Softcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within. Seller Inventory # bk1849043116xvz189zvxgdd
Buy Used
£ 60.69
Convert currency