Group violence and planning: State and grassroots processes, politics, & outcomes for the Hazara in Quetta

My thesis is a qualitative study that explores the philosophical and policy debates surrounding violence in the postcolonial city. I focus on how violence shapes the city and lived experiences of Hazara residents in Quetta, Pakistan. I place the ethnicized creation of violence in its historical context, relating it to legal structures and state processes which operate at the federal, provincial, and city levels in the city. I argue that these processes and structures – and thus violence – in Quetta are ethnicized and connected to the city’s colonial past, and this understanding is central to studying how the city is defined, organized, and experienced today. Planning and policymaking revolve around security, giving the military tremendous political and institutional power even over local issues and infrastructural development. While the state takes specific security steps in response to the violence, these actions have largely been ineffective. Overtime, these conditions have impacted the built forms of Quetta and created social and psychological barriers for the Hazara. The community suffers economically, socially, and politically, including limited access to educational institutions and public spaces. In response to the violence and an ineffective state, the Hazara have self-organized locally and transnationally, filling in where the state fails in service provision and planning. The failure to adequately respond to structural violence, particularly physical violence, sheds light on the limitations of the western liberal and neoliberal frameworks in the postcolonial city. In this context, urban scholars must understand ethnicized violence as part of the postcolonial condition. Thus, intervention requires a democratic postcolonial framework, one that deracializes political power, deethnicizes political identities, and emphasizes group justice