Economic Reform and Urban Development: Karachi’s Informal Textile Industry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59926/jodprp.vol05/03%20Keywords:
Economic Development, Informal Economy, Urban Development, Informalisation, GlobalisationAbstract
Cities in developing countries, like Pakistan, have a complex array of economic, demographic, governance and geopolitical challenges that require collective action. Urban policy and planning being the domain of political, economic, and capital seeking players, socio spatial disparities caused by socioeconomic friction need careful investigation. Karachi’s informal industrial economy is an important case for analysis and learning about future planning of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and their local as well as regional geographical implications. Being a major industrial player in the textile sector, this study investigates Karachi’s informal textile garment industry and its sectors to understand the impact of current structural adjustment and urban development projects on local economic activity and influence on the spatial configuration of the city. This paper also examines linkages between the formal textile SMEs of Karachi and the emergence of informal activities through labour, production, and spatial placement.
The scope of this article is related to the following SDG / SDGs.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Adler, P.A. and Adler, P. 1987, Membership Roles in Field Research (Qualitative Research Methods), First Edition, New York: SAGE Publications.
Banerjee, S. G. (ed.) 2010, ‘Introduction: Transformative Cities in the New Global Order’, In
Accumulation by Dispossession Transformative Cities in the New Global Order, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, pp.1-16.
Brenner, N., Marcuse, P. and Mayer, M. 2011, Cities for People, Not for Profit: An Introduction, New York: Guilford Press.
Davis, M. 2004, ‘The Urbanization of Empire: Megacities and the Laws of Chaos’, Social Text, vol. 81, no. 22, pp. 9-15.
Engels, F. [1891] 1969, Condition of the Working Class in England, Marxists Internet Archive, .
Freire, P. 2005, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition, Myra Bergman Ramos (trnsl.), New York and London: Continuum.
Gadgil, D. R. 1972, Planning and Economic Policy in India, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Poona.
Harvey, D. 2008, ‘The Right to the City’, New Left Review, October-September, vol. 53, pp. 23-40, <https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii53/articles/david-harvey-the-rightto-the-city>.
Harvey, D. 2012, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, London: Verso Books.
Hasan, A. and Raza, M. 2015, ‘Impacts of Economic Crises and Reform on the Informal Textile Industry in Karachi’, IIED Working Paper, April, International Institute for Environment and Development, London,
<https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/10727IIED.pdf?>.
Khan, A.A. and Khan, M. 2010, ‘Pakistan Textile Industry facing New Challenges’, Research Journal of International Studies, vol. 14, pp. 21-29,
<https://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/pakistan_textile_industry_facing_ne w_challenges.pdf>.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1848, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marxists Internet Archive, .
Marx, K. 1867, Capital, Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (trnsl.), Frederick Engels (ed.), vol. 1, Third German Edition, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.
Merrifield, A. 2002, Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City, New York: Routledge.
Qutub, S.A. 2005, ‘Karachi – A Case of Asymmetric Inclusion in the Current Globalization?’, In Globalization and Urban Development, H.W. Richardson, CH. C. Bae (eds.), Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 251-270.
Rashid, J. and Gardezi, H. N. 1983, ‘Independent Pakistan: Its Political Economy’, In Pakistan, The Roots of Dictatorship: Political Economy of a Praetorian State, Hassan N. Gardezi and Jamil Rashid (eds.), pp. 4-18, London: Zed Books.
Sassen, S. 2002, ‘Locating Cities on Global Circuits’, Environment and Urbanization, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 13-30, <https://doi.org/10.1177/095624780201400102>.
Taylor, P.J. 2000, ‘World Cities and Territorial States under Conditions of Contemporary Globalization’, The 1999 Annual Political Geography Lecture, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 5-32,
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962629899000608>.
Wakely, P. and Aliana, A. 1996, ‘Where We Have Come From: Historical Perspective and Major Trend’, In Living in Asian Cities: The Impending Crisis - Causes, Consequences and Alternatives for the Future, Second Asia-Pacific Urban Forum, United Nations, New York, pp. 2-39.
WTO 2020, ‘World Trade Statistical Review 2020’, World Trade Organization, Geneva, <https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/wts2020_e/wts2020_e.pdf>.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Azeemah Owais
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
