Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South

Towards Safe and Inclusive Cities

Jennifer Erin Salahub, Markus Gottsbacher, John de Boer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815368397
• eBook ISBN: 9781351254700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

While cities often act as the engines of economic growth for developing countries, they are also frequently the site of growing violence, poverty, and inequality. Yet, social theory, largely developed and tested in the Global North, is often inadequate in tackling the realities of life in the dangerous parts of cities in the Global South. Drawing on the findings of an ambitious five-year, 15-project research programme, Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South offers a uniquely Southern perspective on the violence–poverty–inequalities dynamics in cities of the Global South.

Through their research, urban violence experts based in low- and middle-income countries demonstrate how "urban violence" means different things to different people in different places. While some researchers adopt or adapt existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks, others develop and test new theories, each interpreting and operationalizing the concept of urban violence in the particular context in which they work. In particular, the book highlights the links between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities based on income, class, gender, and other social cleavages.

Providing important new perspectives from the Global South, this book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and students with an interest in violence and exclusion in the cities of developing countries.

Part I

Gendered violences

1Intersections of gender, mobility, and violence in urban Pakistan

Nausheen H. Anwar, Sarwat Viqar, and Daanish Mustafa

Introduction

In this chapter we explore the intersections of gender, mobility, and violence by analysing gender as a key mediator of mobility in two urban areas of Pakistan: Karachi and the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad (R-I). Karachi is the commercial hub of the country, Islamabad is the federal capital, and Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the all-powerful Pakistani military. By “mobility” we mean not only the literal physical movement of transportation, but also the contextualised activity in urban space that is imbued with meaning and power (Bondi 2005; Uteng 2009; Uteng and Cresswell 2008), and thus we also use “mobilities” to mark this plurality of meaning. The concept entails the potential for movement or the knowledge that potential trips can (or cannot) be made, due to various constraining factors. These range from poor infrastructure to cultural norms that dictate the mobility of different genders.

In particular, we situate the inhibited mobility of women within the larger context of the gendered power relations that generate and maintain a dominant masculinity, leading to claims about what is proper behaviour for men and women in public and private spaces (Srivastava 2012; Hsu 2011; Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2009). Violence against women in public spaces often relates to ideas of “natural” claims to such spaces, following the popular perception that there are specific conditions under which men and women may access public spaces. How, then, do Pakistani women and men cope with spatial inequalities, and manage their mobility, in Karachi and R-I? How might this generate perceptions of fear and violence? How differentiated are physical and gendered mobilities between diverse neighbourhoods and across cities?

The research on which this chapter is based consists of intensive studies conducted across 12 low-income neighbourhoods in Karachi and R-I. In the course of our work, we analysed the responses to more than 2,400 questionnaires and 90 personal interviews; we also used participant photography. To present our findings, we first offer a brief sketch of our conceptual framework; this identifies the meanings of mobility and the notions of gendered processes in South Asia, and a conceptualisation of gendered violence. We then provide a summary of the city contexts. In the next section, we use quantitative and qualitative data to describe the state of access to transport in different neighbourhoods and cities. (In the poorer neighbourhoods of Karachi, access is inferior to that in R-I.) Next we discuss how the discursive and the material interact to conflate mobility and masculinity in a broader context of violence across the putative public–private divide. A key point we make is that gender-based violence is often experienced as a punishment for anyone who transgresses gender norms, with women’s mobility further restricted in masculinised spaces—those deemed to be only for men—where intimidation or the threat of violence is always imminent. Finally, at the end of the chapter, we draw some conclusions based on our research.

Theoretical framework

Much journalistic, and some academic, attention has been paid to the various kinds of violence in Karachi: terrorist activity, ethnic violence, and extrajudicial killings by law-enforcement agencies (Verkaaik 2004; Gayer 2014; Chaudhry 2014; Ring 2006). However, everyday violence has not received much analysis. Scholars have identified many different forms of violence, including structural violence (Galtung 1969; Farmer 2004; Scheper-Hughes 1993), symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Wacqant 2001), epistemic violence (Taussig 1984), and discursive violence (MacKinnon 1993). However, there is no general theory of violence. We generally consider it a tactic of power involving physical coercion or the threat thereof; and, for the perpetrator, this acting-out of violence may be more the compensatory result of a loss of social power than a way to achieve it (Arendt 1969). According to various studies in Pakistan (Zulfiqar and Hasan 2012; Rozan 2007), the discourses of masculinity are deeply insecure about their control over female bodies, and hence prone to violence. This male insecurity is couched in terms of men’s roles as the upholders of decency in society; therefore, violence is viewed as a necessary measure to maintain morality and tradition.

Given the power relationships inherent in gender-based violence, certain dominant ideals of manhood have an impact on women. Some scholars (Srivastava 2012) observe that gender norms and categories are directly related to the distribution of power, and that applies to control over symbolic as well as material goods—in other words, our ideas about the “appropriate” roles, capacities, and characteristics of men and women. For instance, masculinity refers to the socially produced but embodied ways of being male, and it manifests itself in speech, behaviour, gestures, social interaction, and the division of tasks thought proper for men and women in the home and in public. As a result, masculinity often stands as the binary opposite of feminine identity, being essentially an entitlement to power. The tension between that sense of entitlement, and the loss of social power, often contributes to the violence in which men and women find themselves caught up. Men in Karachi are often victims of direct state violence (Kirmani 2015) and differentiated forms of violence are interlinked across the public–private divide. Given Karachi’s (and Pakistan’s) lengthy and complex history of state violence, young men of a certain age and background can often simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that masculinity must be continually reinforced illustrates the tenuous and fragile nature of gender identity (Srivastava 2012).

While we envision violence as symptomatic of a loss of power, mobility can defy coercion. However, the exact way that personal mobility is actualised can either empower or disempower, depending on gender and its actualisation in urban spaces. Even though there is no strict geography of the public and private, certain behavioural norms still view the public domain as the natural preserve of men (Srivastava 2012). Men are expected to move easily between the public and private, yet women’s mobility may be interpreted as transgression. In Pakistan, men generally have a greater sway over public spaces than women, and linked with this is the popular perception that men need not have any specific purpose to be in public spaces. They may loiter or hang out if they choose—but the idea of women doing so is generally inconceivable. Many feminists have questioned the relationship between masculinised places and gender inequality, including Hsu (2011), Monahan (2009), Valentine (1989), and Wesely and Gaarder (2004). Such studies show that highly masculinised spaces facilitate men’s aggression towards women. When women do enter such spaces, they often rely on a set of coping strategies to negotiate the unequal treatment. This means that the relationship between mobility and space is constructed and experienced in a deeply gendered way, and this contributes to the reproduction of gender itself—as a social construct whose meanings are constantly remade and transformed within a given social context.

Since public and private spheres are not separate but intimately entwined, what happens in one always informs the other. In light of this, the dichotomy between young men’s attitudes towards women within their homes, and towards women outside of their homes, makes a certain sense. Women at home are in their “proper” place, according to the gender codes. In the public sphere, they are perceived as constantly “transgressing” and hence must be policed in order to safeguard the masculinity of public spaces. For that reason, this chapter’s conceptual discussion of mobility will focus on the public sphere and links between the public and private because the household scale requires different conceptual frameworks and methodologies.

We should point out that for society in Pakistan to become more socially just, a re-coding of these two spheres is required. In the urban context of our study, this is already happening to varying degrees: women are questioning their cultural relegation to the home and deliberately “transgressing” in public. This may be done out of economic compulsion: the necessity, in Pakistan’s modern monetised society, for women to enter the salaried labour market. It may also happen out of political defiance, as when women engage in activism against regressive laws, such as when they seek justice for rape victims. Pakistani women might well look to the future and hope for state-supported policies to break down gender stereotypes and enhance women’s ability to be mobile. It would be especially welcome if such policies could disrupt the perception that gender-based violence is merely a woman’s problem. However, in this study, we focus on existing dynamics rather than potential ones.

City contexts

Pakistan has the highest annual rate of urbanisation (3.06 per cent) in South Asia and its current population (189 million) is projected to almost double by 2050, reaching 335 million. As Pakistan’s largest city, and its centre of finance and commerce, Karachi is wealthy. But there are vast disparities in the distribution of its resources with 60 per cent of the population living in informal settlements and neighbourhoods (Hasan et al. 2013). These types of settlements exist in Rawalpindi, too, and the lowest-income earners live there along with ethnic and religious minorities (Mustafa 2005).

In these cities, the development of infrastructure has not kept pace with urbanisation and they have accumulated huge deficits in public services such as public transport, which adversely affect quality of life for the poorest residents (GOP 2011; Haider and Badami 2010). Most working-class residents of Karachi and R-I must rely on public transport, and R-I recently bought a very expensive state-of-the-art bus system. However, this has not helped women to increase their mobility: the issue is not the physical condition of the network, but the prevailing social attitudes. For the wealthy, private car ownership is constantly increasing. Public transport—especially in Karachi—has deteriorated rapidly to the detriment of the working classes (Hasan and Raza 2015). With continuous urban expansion, and the increase in informal settlements at the cities’ peripheries, a significant disconnect now exists between the government’s knowledge of its transportation networks and the mounting demands for such infrastructure in new settlements. In a recent study on the state of transport in Karachi (Hasan and Raza 2015), the authors note that, with the city’s continued expansion, average commutes for the working class are now in the range of 20 to 40 kilometres.

The challenges of poor infrastructure are further exacerbated by the violent political economies. This is especially the case in Karachi, where political and state violence stems from deeply embedded historical tensions between the country’s various ethnic groups (the Muhajirs and the Pakhtuns, for instance). Ethnic strife today is also driven by socioeconomic antagonisms.¹ Ethnic differences seem to be instrumental in facilitating access to power and resources and in making claims on the state. The complexity of this type of violence frequently feeds into the larger dynamic of spatial inequality in Karachi to the point that certain parts of the city have been deemed “no-go zones” for law enforcement.

Within this fractured urban context, class also plays a significant role in intensifying or mitigating the violence experienced by women and men. Rising inequality and income disparity has meant that working-class and low-income women have had to take on the role of family providers, forcing them into public spaces. Yet such women are precisely those most vulnerable to harassment and threats of violence. For them, taking public transportation is an undertaking fraught with danger—as we show in the following sections.

Physical mobility

Our analyses of the restrictions on men’s and women’s attitudes, perceptions, and practices of mobility in each city reveal that these depend on a combination of factors: access to transport, income levels, location of home neighbourhood, and the overall political-economic conditions. Religion was also a factor: women from some households, such as those in Karachi’s Christian Colony, reported fewer restrictions on their mobility. As one female respondent explained, “We feel the difference from being more liberal.” Although our respondents belonged to roughly the same income class, mobility still varied between neighbourhoods and cities. In the absence of access to private transport, most respondents depended on buses since other forms of public transport are restricted to rickshaws and taxi cabs—which are too expensive for most working-class people on a daily basis.

Since buses in urban Pakistan are always overcrowded—especially at rush hour—people are forced into close physical proximity with one another, making it impossible for women to keep the personal space necessary for modes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Introduction: Global South theories of urban violence, poverty, and inequalities
• Part I Gendered violences
• Part II State violence
• Part III Exclusion and violences
• Part IV Interpersonal violence
• Index