Operationalizing and navigating ambiguity – Land-making and fisherfolk negotiations in the land-water frontier of Karachi

This paper discusses how land and real estate development in Karachi's land-water frontiers operates through the calculated production and management of ambiguity. As in several other postcolonial cities, the natural coastline of Karachi is currently being reimagined as a waterfront development, fit for a “world-class” coastal city. However, this reclamation threatens its mangrove ecosystems and its deep-rooted fisherfolk communities. Based on the political ecology literature on urban frontiers, i.e., zones that are claimed by dominant actors for development and therefore presented as underdeveloped and unoccupied, the analysis specifically focuses on the role of ambiguity and ambivalence. While ambiguity is natural, in particular in land-water environments, it is strategically used by actors in ambivalent governance practices and three dimensions can be discerned: (1) discursive, (2) legal, as well as (3) physical ambiguity. Using interviews and a variety of documents, we explore the jhoola landscapes in the backwaters of Karachi, to study how ambiguity and ambivalence are produced, operationalized and then navigated. Our study argues that in the land-water frontiers, discursive frontiering, regulatory inbetweenness and physical ambiguity are all implicated in the process of land-making and development in the backwaters of Karachi. Avoiding a binary distinction between powerful and marginalized actors, we also show how the state is not a monolith in the production of land-water frontiers and that local communities also actively interact and navigate the production of ambivalence in such land-water frontiers.