In the wake of disaster : Islamists, the State and a social contract in Pakistan / Ayesha Siddiqi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Siddiqi, Ayesha, author.

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Disaster victims.

Disaster relief--Government policy.

Disaster relief.

Floods--Social aspects.

Floods.

Pakistan--Politics and government--1988-1999.

Pakistan.

Politics and government.

Floods--Social aspects--Pakistan.

Disaster relief--Government policy--Pakistan.

Disaster victims--Pakistan.

Islam and state--Pakistan.

Islam and state.

Physical Description:

xiii, 186 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

"In the Wake of Disaster is the first book to seriously engage with the everyday state through a devastating disaster in Pakistan. It explores post-disaster politics in the aftermath of large-scale flooding of the Indus River that affected millions of people in 2010 and 2011. The way this disaster was lived, experienced and politically constructed tells a vivid and illustrative story about the social contract between the state and its citizens and Islamists in Pakistan. This book tells that story. It sets out to examine a seemingly simple question: what is the responsibility of the state to its people in the aftermath of a natural disaster? Along the way it delves into rich detail about people's everyday encounters with the state in Pakistan, uncovers post-colonial discourses on rights of citizenship and dispels mainstream understanding of Islamist groups as presenting an alternative development paradigm to the state. Based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork, it forces the reader to look beyond narratives of Pakistan as the perennial 'failing state' falling victim to an imminent 'Islamist takeover'. It shifts the conversation from hysteria and sensationalism surrounding Pakistan to the everyday. In doing so it transforms our understanding of contemporary disasters"-- Provided by publisher.

What is the state's responsibility to its people in the aftermath of a natural hazard based disaster? The book sets out to address this seemingly simple question, after large scale floods devastated Pakistan in 2010 and then again in 2011. Along the way it delves into rich detail about people's everday encounters with the state in Pakistan, uncovers postcolonial discourses on rights of citizenship and dispels mainstream understanding of Islamist groups as presenting an alternative development paradigm to the state. Based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork, In the Wake of the Disaster forces the reader to look beyond narratives of Pakistan as the perennial 'failing state' falling victim to an imminent 'Islamist takeover'. The book shifts the conversation from hysteria and sensationalism surrounding Pakistan to the everyday. In doing so it transforms our understanding of contemporary disasters.

Contents:

Introduction: Setting the Scene

1. A Social Contract: State-Citizen Relations and Unfolding Disasters

2. The State as a Complex Web of Social Relations

3. The Ethnographic Social Contract

4. Advancing 'Disaster Citizenship'

5. The Failing 'Islamist Takeover' in the Aftermath of the Indus Floods

Conclusion: Disasters and the State

Citizen Relationship.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [167]-180) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781108472920

1108472923

OCLC:

1105752233