Publications

Amidst the global trends of extensive land expansion, speculative accumulation, and land value extraction that have contributed to the (re)production of precarity, recent debates in urban studies advocate reevaluating the urban land question. Understanding urban inhabitation as a continuously evolving complex of relations, trajectories, and temporary arrangements, this contribution seeks to understand the processes of and toward (im)permanent residence of city dwellers at the peripheries of Lahore. Focusing on low-income settlements, the ethnographic data explores first the genealogy and contestations within one settlement inhabited by Christians, a religious minority. A second case study serves as contrasting case from the city extensions. Drawing on Simone’s notion of ‘people as infrastructure’, the analysis reveals how (un)settlement processes at the margins depend on residents’ horizontal but also vertical alliances and operations. The cases unravel modes of control, governing practices, and subaltern agency, highlighting the fragile articulations among social, ethnic, kinship, and religious networks. Despite threats of eviction and displacement, disenfranchised residents mobilise precarious actions to achieve hoped-for permanence. Ultimately, the analysis underscores the significance of institutional artifacts in mediating relations, emphasising the role of materialities, and in particular, residents’ practices of archiving and mobilising documents, creating a ‘paper trail’ for claim-making, anticipating resistance, and maximising access to urban opportunities.