In the Wake of Disaster

Addresses the state-citizen relationship in Pakistan in the wake of the natural calamities in 2010 and 2011.

This book is an ethnographic exploration into the state's responsibility to its people in the aftermath of a natural hazard based disaster. It examines state-citizen interaction in Pakistan after large scale floods devastated the country in 2010 and then again in 2011, and transforms our understanding of contemporary disasters.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.