Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in PakistanBeing part of a violent community in revolt can be addictive--it can be fun. This book offers a fascinating inside look at present-day political violence in Pakistan through a historical ethnography of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), one of the most remarkable and successful religious nationalist movements in postcolonial South Asia. The MQM has mobilized much of the "migrant" (Muhajir) population in Karachi and other urban centers in southern Pakistan and has fomented large-scale ethnic-religious violence. Oskar Verkaaik argues that urban youth see it as an irresistible opportunity for "fun." Drawing on both anthropological fieldwork, including participatory observation among political militants, and historical analyses of state formation, nation-building, and the ethnicization of Islam since 1947, he provides an absorbing and important contribution to theoretical debates about political--religious and nationalist--violence. |
From inside the book
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... neighborhood meeting points , not formal assembly halls or campuses . The old elites , whether identified with landed interests , the military , or the Islamic " establishment " as represented by the perennial Jam'iat - i Is- lami ...
... neighborhood of Karachi , which flaunts a reputa- tion for its hard - boiled anti - state militancy . In the 1960s it had been the site of anti - government riots , playing a prominent role in the revolt against then president General ...
... neighborhoods and rule them like a state within a state . Paradoxically , the city areas that used to yield considerable support for the Islamic parties were now not only known in Karachi as places of thugs and terrorists , but they ...
... neighborhood . This street nationalism of local groups of young , male MQM supporters is characterized by key values such as competitive masculinity and physicality , displacing the high cultural Is- lamic modernist values of state ...
... neighborhoods of Karachi and Hyderabad . Rather than mimic and strive for a middle - class modernist lifestyle , it ... neighborhood where I did fieldwork . This inner - city area in the city of Hyderabad , named Pakka Qila , has a ...