Government of Paper

The Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan

Häftad, Engelska, 2012

319 kr

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In the electronic age, documents appear to have escaped their paper confinement. But we are still surrounded by flows of paper with enormous consequences. In the planned city of Islamabad, order and disorder are produced through the ceaseless inscription and circulation of millions of paper artifacts among bureaucrats, politicians, property owners, villagers, imams (prayer leaders), businessmen, and builders. What are the implications of such a thorough paper mediation of relationships among people, things, places, and purposes? "Government of Paper" explores this question in the routine yet unpredictable realm of the Pakistani urban bureaucracy, showing how the material forms of postcolonial bureaucratic documentation produce a distinctive political economy of paper that shapes how the city is constructed, regulated, and inhabited. Files, maps, petitions, and visiting cards constitute the enduring material infrastructure of more ephemeral classifications, laws, and institutional organizations. Matthew S.Hull develops a fresh approach to state governance as a material practice, explaining why writing practices designed during the colonial era to isolate the government from society have become a means of participation in it.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2012-06-05
Mått152 x 229 x 18 mm
Vikt408 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor320
FörlagUniversity of California Press
ISBN9780520272156

Tillhör följande kategorier

Sociologi inom Samhälle och politik
Offentlig förvaltning inom Samhälle och politik

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION Writing of the Bureaucracy Signs of Paper Associations of Paper Background of the Study 1. THE MASTER PLAN AND OTHER DOCUMENTS Splendid Isolation The Dynapolis and the Colonial City Communities of All Classes and Categories From Separation to Participation 2. PARCHIS, PETITIONS AND OFFICES At Home in the Office Parchis, Connections, and Recognition Petitions: Citizens, Bureaucrats, and Supplicants Parchis, Petitions, and Influence 3. FILES AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PAPER The Materiality Cases Individual Writers and Corporate Authority Tactics of Irresponsibility and the Byproduct of the Collective Particular Projects and Collective Agency A Contest of Graphic Genres 4. THE EXPROPRIATION OF LAND AND THE MISAPPROPRIATION OF LISTS Problematics of Reference and Materiality Early Planning and Failed Opposition Shifting Houses and Dummy Houses Demolition Certificates Package Deals and Individual Signatures Loose Lists Mediating like a State 5. MAPS, MOSQUES, AND MASLAKS A Mosque for Every Community A Mosque for Every Maslak Claims on the Map Temporality of Maps and Islamic Adverse Possession Squatting according to Plan CONCLUSION: PARTICIPATORY BUREAUCRACY NOTES REFERENCES INDEX