Producing dispossessed and humanitarian subjects: Land acquisition and compensation policies in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

This article examines land acquisition for the construction of a metro train line in Lahore, Pakistan, to argue that the role and temporality of bureaucratic documentary practices are key to enabling urban informality and associated regimes of substantive citizenship. I examine the changing role of bureaucratic documents along the axes of (a) state and citizens, as documents are transferred between various actors who attribute different meanings to them; and (b) time, as documents assume varying meanings across their life cycles. First, I argue that documents constitute the disaggregated state and facilitate inconsistent practices that produce urban informality by exempting such settlements from some regulations while subjecting them to others. Second, a study of the time effects of these contingent practices and associated documentation shows that while original settlers may manipulate the disparate institutions of the state to secure resources, tolerance of such settlements across generations prompts a reformulation of local conceptions of landownership. Contemporary residents, then, position themselves as propertied citizens in possession of ownership documents. In this case of land acquisition, such efforts secured limited recognition from the state: residents were cast as illegal encroachers but were eventually offered some compensation as humanitarian aid, thereby reproducing socioeconomic inequalities. [bureaucratic documents, urban informality, state, temporality, citizenship]

Colonial laws, postcolonial infrastructures: Land acquisition, urban informality, and politics of infrastructural development in Pakistan

“…In addition to flawed execution of the LAA, the letter of the law and its implementation also perpetuate the colonial legacy of disregarding the multiplicity of local land relations and uses in contemporary Pakistan. Elsewhere, I have detailed at length the ways in which land ownership for the purpose of the LAA in Pakistan is defined in terms of two Revenue Department documents, fard-e-malkiyat and fard-e-inteqaal (Tassadiq, 2022). The need for well-placed contacts and bribes to navigate the sprawling revenue bureaucracy severely limits access of low-income and working-class groups to processes of formalising land ownership (Hull, 2012).…”

Pembangunan Infrastruktur Jembatan Musi VI Kota Palembang Pemembebasan Lahan

“…35 wilayah Iliria. Konflik dapat menimbulkan perbedaan pendapat, namun upaya pencegahan konflik dilakukan melalui mediasi dua pihak yaitu 35 komunitas Iliria (Li, 2019;Tassadiq, 2022).…”