During the course of this study, much of the development of the methods and data used has been the outcome of one major factor, the dearth of accurate, detailed ethnographic data. Whilst considerable information related to the initial settlement patterns of the community were found in the form of anecdotal and historical accounts and various development reports referencing the early post-Partition development of Karachi, little documentation was available on the current spatiality of the Muhajir community. As has been seen in the preceding discussion, some official data sources that could provide broad mappable statistical data pertaining to the Muhajir community were available in the form of census data and electoral results, but little else could be found. As will be illustrated in this study, these broad sources have been useful in charting and establishing changes in the city’s demographic make-up and voting patterns but, due to the scale at which it was aggregated and the fact that the most recent census is quite outdated having been conducted in 1998, it was of little use in providing a detailed understanding of the spatialisation of Muhajir presence in the city. This resulted in the development of a methodology that identified and utilised alternative identity-markers as the primary means of tracking the Muhajir community. As mentioned earlier, Vertovec refers to the
80 establishment of socio-cultural institutions as an essential part of the process of migration and resettlement and both Vertovec and Coakley speak of the politicisation of migrant identities as a key step to resettlement. Additionally Waterman and Kosmin (1987) refer to the mapping of socio-cultural features such as synagogues and food stores particular to a minority as a means of tracking the presence of minority community as a form of ‘surrogate data’ or
‘mappable proxies’ as they will be referred to in the context of this study - to be used in lieu of detailed ethnographic data. As a result, the mapping of ethno-religious and ethno-political communal institutions became the primary means of locating the Muhajir community in the city today.
It should be noted that due to the processes by which these communal institutions have been mapped – using open-content data sources, on-site observations and local municipal maps – the cataloguing of institutions is unlikely to be exhaustive. Additionally this mapping should be viewed as a documentation of a snapshot in time; the establishment of communal institutions in the city is a dynamic process, new mosques etc. are set-up as the need arises, mosques change their sectarian affiliation depending upon the strength of the community resident in the area and Units may change location depending on the political stability of the locality in which they are situated. This is not to say that the use of these institutions to map the presence of the community is hugely flawed as correlations with historical data and the author’s own understanding and experience of these areas suggest a reasonable accuracy to the method.
Whilst the issue of gender differences are an important topic in studying the use of public space, this thesis focuses on male-dominated space. This is due to the manner in which space is used and allocated for women’s use in the context of a majority Muslim state. The spatial segregation of gender, a feature of many eastern cultures, is something that both Verkaaik (2004) and Ring (2006) refer to with regard to settlements in Karachi; men in the streets and entrance ways to the mohalla17 and other public spaces such as the community park or gym, whilst women inhabit spaces closer to the home; what Ring calls ‘increased
17 The neighbourhood.
81 concerns with purdah18 in the city, combined with this class of women’s limited geographic mobility’ (Ring, 2006). Hence the presence of women in the public realm could be considered transient if at all and therefore difficult to monitor.
Issues of gender also impacted how and where the researcher was able to go in the city. Whilst being a woman made the researcher a less threatening entity in the field making conversations with most informants easier, it allowed access to environments that may otherwise have been considered off-limits to male researchers – private residences during daytime when only women are home and women only beauty salons - but simultaneously it hindered movement in male-dominated public spaces. In such cases an older male was required to escort the researcher to places like MQM HQ (Nine Zero) and other ‘sensitive’
areas of this study to provide a sense of protection and security.
Personal security and consequential access to fieldwork sites and informants was another unforeseen limitation to the study. In September 2013, a federal cabinet charged the Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary force to conduct a security operation in Karachi. The rangers were to target individuals that military and civilian agencies alleged were involved in target killings, kidnappings for ransom, extortion and acts of terrorism in the city. Whilst the mandate of the operation was to target terrorists, many of the areas targeted were specifically MQM strongholds including a raid on MQM HQ Nine Zero in Azizabad resulting in the party claiming that there was a certain bias to the manner in which the operation was conducted.
One of the primary motivations behind sanctioning the operation was the rapid decline of general safety and security in the city in the months leading up to this exercise. This pervading sense of danger was to become worse once the operation was initiated especially in MQM held areas. This resulted in certain key localities for this study becoming inaccessible during the time allotted for fieldwork thereby limiting the quantity and quality of data gathered. This pervasive sense of instability was further reflected in the reluctance of respondents to answer questions pertaining to areas in their settlement that
18 Segregation of women from the public realm, both spatially where men and women will occupy the same physical space or by simply taking the veil (hijaab) whereby women are
‘hidden’ from the male view.
82 they considered safe and unsafe with many claiming that there was no safe space to be found outside of their own homes. Whilst observations and snapshots of public spaces in the case study areas were initially programmed, these had to be abandoned due to the volatility of the security situation in the city; a stranger taking notes in public spaces in a small settlement was liable to attract a fair degree of unwanted attention with an added threat to the safety of the researcher.
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