Presentation short abstract

In order to demonstrate how mediated networks influence access, inequality, and daily urban metabolisms, this study examines water governance in Karachi's informal settlements using Urban Political Ecology and linking social capital.

Presentation long abstract

In the Global South's fast urbanizing cities, informal settlements are frequently found on the outskirts of state planning, where complex social and political relationships govern access to basic utilities like water. To better understand how water moves through Khawaja Ajmair Nagri, an informal settlement in Karachi, this research examines urban metabolism by emphasizing the linking of social capital—the vertical relationships that connect communities with political brokers, local authorities, and non-state actors. Using the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) framework, the study sees water as a socio-political process influenced by selective inclusion, reliance, and negotiation within disjointed governance structures rather than as a neutral utility.

Using a mixed-methods approach, the study investigates how power is embedded in the social system of service delivery through everyday mediation by peti-leaders, local council members, and informal operators, which results in both access and inequality. The analysis shows a mediated type of governance where linking interactions turn water provision into a realm of everyday politics, as opposed to perceiving informality as the absence of the state.

The study contributes to knowledge of how informal institutions maintain urban life while perpetuating structural injustices by placing these dynamics within UPE's emphasis on power and urban metabolism. It makes the case that understanding and interacting with the mediated networks that really enact infrastructure and citizenship in places like Karachi is necessary for inclusive and resilient water governance.