Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
5-2018
Abstract
Studies of informal housing and urban citizenship in South Asia frequently link the precariousness of squatter life with the struggle to formalize engagement with the state. However, this article argues that the transition to a more formal mode of making claims on the state is a shift in terrain that is no less negotiated and contested. Through an ethnography of access to electrical power in Islamabad, Pakistan, this article explores the pervasiveness of informality in access to service delivery for a squatter settlement and its bourgeois neighbors. The politics of access to urban infrastructure reveal a state of pervasive predation and a collective imaginary which puts little credence in formality.
Keywords
electricity, informality, Pakistan, governance, infrastructure
Discipline
Asian Studies | Energy Policy | Urban Studies and Planning
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Urban Studies
Volume
55
Issue
6
First Page
1242
Last Page
1256
ISSN
0042-0980
Identifier
10.1177/0042098017705600
Publisher
SAGE Publications (UK and US)
Citation
NAQVI, Ijlal.(2018). Contesting access to power in urban Pakistan. Urban Studies, 55(6), 1242-1256.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2281
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017705600