Presentation short abstract

Using a Foucauldian discard studies lens, we study why waste plays a central role in the dispossession of Karachi's indigenous fisherfolk, and how dumping of urban solid waste leads to loss of livelihoods and traditional fishing grounds at the coasts and in the mangrove ecosystems of Karachi.

Presentation long abstract

Indigenous Sindhi fisherfolk’s livelihoods and well-being in Karachi, Pakistan have been worsening substantially since the early 2000s due to urban solid waste and effluent dumping, land reclamation from the seas by the land mafia, and the resultant deterioration in socio-ecological conditions. By adopting a discard studies approach to analyze this case from a relatively understudied region in the Global South, this paper focuses on the wider context around waste entailing the specific power relations that uphold the dominant economic system leading to discard at Korangi (of urban and industrial solid waste) and of Korangi itself (its mangrove ecosystems, fisherfolk, fishing livelihoods, and culture). By analyzing the qualitative data we collected on the two fishing villages in Korangi—Ibrahim Hyderi and Rehri Goth—via in-depth interviews with key members of the fishing community, participant observation, and analysis of gray literature, the paper provides evidence for the changing relationships of the fisherfolk with the sea, their repression through consistently shifting definitions of legality, and their peaceful resistance. A Foucauldian lens adds to our analysis on power relations by identifying the state’s and economic elite’s top-down sanitation-based narratives, which “other” the fisherfolk as “unhygienic” and “aliens” to be discarded in favor of the “greater good” of maritime economic development and the Blue Revolution.