Meanings of Residential Security: A Perspective from Karachi

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Meanings of Residential Security A Perspective
from Karachi

• Haris Gazdar
• Collective for Social Science Research

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Grades of citizenship

• Citizens versus non-citizens
• Unequal citizens
• Effectively unequal citizens
• Overlap between categories in case of
  marginalized irregular migrants, particularly
  non-citizens and effectively unequal citizens

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Grades in state and society
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Existing approaches to residential security

• Legal right to adequate housing
• Administrative focus on fixed abode
• Economic secure property and tenancy rights
• Social societal arrangements for access to land
  and housing networks, patriarchy

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Karachi context

• 13 million people, largest city of Pakistan, very
  ethnically diverse
• Rapid growth since 1850s (pop 60,000) due to
  migration
• Conflict-related displacement from outside 1947,
  1971, 1980s
• Conflict-related displacement within 1980s

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Quantitative versus qualitative understanding of
security

• Over two-thirds of families in Karachi report
  owning their homes
• No clear estimates but at least half of these do
  not have individual title
• Right of possession versus ownership and
  possession asserted politically
• Half of city irregular or post hoc regularization
  legacy of migration

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Vantage point

• Analysis of statistical data
• Research on range of localities across city,
  which started life as irregular settlements
• Qualitative tools oral histories, community
  histories, conflict and migration narratives
• Community profiles land, housing, amenities,
  interaction with state agencies, collective action

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Insights from qualitative research - 1

• Wide range of outcome in irregular settlements
• Security of possession seen as key issue
• Security from state freedom from vulnerability
  to eviction
• Security of contract ability to transfer
  property rights
• Both forms of security closely linked

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Insights from qualitative research - 2

• Informal provisioning dominates
• Close link between informal and formal city
  authorities and public utilities networked with
  informal providers
• Non-state contract enforcement legitimized
  violence
• Importance of social and political networks in
  mobilization

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Perspective on residential security - 1

• Legal perspective active where migrants or
  residentially vulnerable people are seen as
  political assets, or are socially connected. E.g
  property owning Muslim DPs from India, Afghan DPs
  in 1980s
• Administrative perspective two way relationship
  between residential security and other
  entitlements KEY INSIGHT

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Perspective on residential security - 2

• Economic frequency of transactions leads to
  security, but market is hierarchical, the most
  socially marginalized live in most insecure
  conditions, and often remain insecure
• Social arrangements these dominate, and
  ultimately citizenship rights are also endogenous

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Case 1 Natha Khan

• Original indigenous Sindhis displaced and
  compensated by military in 1940s
• Dominant group till 1960s when migrant Pashtuns
  with military connections arrived in large
  numbers
• Violent conflict and tables turned
• Pashtun segment regularized Sindhi segment still
  non-regularized

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Case 2 Lines Area

• Military barracks turned over to 1947 migrant
  govt employees from India, other migrants settled
  in camps around
• Frequent govt evictions from camps
• Populist govt in 1970s declared amnesty
• Militant ethnic group in 1980s carried out ethnic
  cleansing

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Case 3 Kausar Niazi Colony

• Pashtun migrant set up camp on unused govt land,
  invited networks of Pashtun and Afghan nomadic
  families
• Became local political activist linked to a party
  and began marking and selling possession rights
  to plots
• Regularization as a result of electoral promise