Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi - Couverture souple

Waseem, Zoha

 
9781787389236: Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 1787389235 ISBN 13 : 9781787389236
Editeur : C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2025

Synopsis

The police force is one of the most distrusted institutions in Pakistan, notorious for its corruption and brutality. In both colonial and postcolonial contexts, directives to confront security threats have empowered law enforcement agents, while the lack of adequate reform has upheld institutional weaknesses.

This exploration of policing in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial capital, reveals many colonial continuities. Both civilian and military regimes continue to ensure the suppression of the policed via this institution, itself established to militarily subjugate and exploit in the interests of the ruling class. However, contemporary policing practice is not a simple product of its colonial heritage: it has also evolved to confront new challenges and political realities.

Based on extensive fieldwork and around 200 interviews, this ethnographic study reveals a distinctly 'postcolonial condition of policing'. Mutually reinforcing phenomena of militarisation and informality have been exacerbated by an insecure state that routinely conflates combatting crime, maintaining public order and ensuring national security. This is evident not only in spectacular displays of violence and malpractice, but also in police officers' routine work. Caught in the middle of the country's armed conflicts, their encounters with both state and society are a story of insecurity and uncertainty.

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À propos de l?auteur

Zoha Waseem is Assistant Professor in Criminology at the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, researching policing, urban violence and state repression.

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Éditeur
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Date d'édition
2025
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1787389235
ISBN 13 
9781787389236
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
404
Coordonnées du fabricant
Easy Access System Europe Oü, 16879218
gpsr.requests@easproject.com

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