The Power of Lists: IDPs and Disaster Governmentality after the Attabad Landslide in Northern Pakistan

This article analyses the political consequences of a large-scale landslide that hit Gojal in the high-mountain region of northern Pakistan in 2010. It destroyed parts of several villages and impeded access to the area for years. The article follows a list of internally displaced persons (IDPs) that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnos 2022-03, Vol.87 (2), p.365-383
Main Author: Sökefeld, Martin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
(il)legibility
Disaster governmentality
Disasters
Displaced persons
Ethnography
Governance
Governmentality
Legibility
lists
northern Pakistan
state
Victims
Villages
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Summary:This article analyses the political consequences of a large-scale landslide that hit Gojal in the high-mountain region of northern Pakistan in 2010. It destroyed parts of several villages and impeded access to the area for years. The article follows a list of internally displaced persons (IDPs) that was created as part of disaster governance. The list separates some affected persons from others, allocating them particular resources. Drawing on James Scott and Veena Das' concepts of legibility, I argue that while these lists make some people legible for the state as disaster victims, people 'read back', developing their own strategies of appropriating such lists for their own purposes. While the concept of legibility rests on the distinction of state and society, it is argued in consonance with the recent ethnography of the state that instead we find a fragmented assemblage of criss-crossing relationships in disaster governmentality that produce enduring social friction.
ISSN:0014-1844
1469-588X
DOI:10.1080/00141844.2020.1765833