Thread by @ZohaWaseem

"Insecure Guardians" is now out in paperback! The book critically analyzes policing in Karachi, providing ethnographic insights into an institution plagued with varied levels of corruption, violence, militarism. 1/n @HurstPublishershurstpublishers.com/book/insecure-…

IG argues that the police in Pakistan are a powerful but nervous entity, operating under a state that is insecure about its legitimacy/authority and internal resistance, which then strategically chooses to retain a colonial structure of policing, coercion and control... 2/n

...to formally and informally consolidate elite power and protect regime interests. The police (including command) remain loyal servants of their (post)colonial masters (political, religious, military etc.) –insecure yet authoritarian enough to mete out violence and predation.3/n

All of this is enabled formally by securitisation processes, state policies, and draconian laws (ATA, s.144, etc.) and counterterrorism initiatives, and informally through political and military interventions into police work.4/n

While focusing on varied police (mal)practices and everyday realities, the book refrains from dehumanising these perpetrators of violence in ways that would mirror colonial frames of indigenous police officers (when subordinate cops were dehumanised based on class & caste).5/n

Instead, IG provides possible lenses through which police institutional culture(s)—inclusive of police violence and layers of corruption—can be studied in regions such as South Asia and postcolonial contexts more broadly. 6/n

IG also moves away from reform-oriented discussions that call for strengthening/empowering the police. As stressed, reforms have not worked. Historically, they have further militarized or politicised policing in PK, at the cost of both citizen safety & officer wellbeing. 7/n

What this means for defunding/abolition in regions such as South Asia demands further exploration. Police abolition/defunding debates in the global South generally need to be meaningfully contextualised and localised; a simple north-to-south knowledge transfer cannot work. 8/n

Huge thanks @NiloSiddiqui for a timely review! “Waseem’s focus on the internal nature of the police permits the humanization of a force that is frequently dismissed as weak and corrupt by Pakistani citizens, while still recognizing the myriad ways the police fail to serve...9/n

"those same residents. This is an important strength, particularly in a context where institutions are frequently treated like ‘black boxes’, with insufficient effort made to unpack the actors, and their incentives and constraints, that make them up....10/n

Yet, while the book complicates the actions of individual police officers, its critique of the police’s institutional failures is clear and highlighted through detailed accounts of various individuals victimized at the hands of the police.” 11/n tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

The book may be of interest to those observing the ongoing policing and suppression of dissent and protest in Pakistan. 12/12