Sustainability Worlding in the Global South – Worlding and environmentalities in Kakapir Fishing Village, Pakistan

Abstract

The literature on southern urbanisms has mobilized the concept of worlding and assemblage thinking to decenter and challenge dominant narratives in urban theory which stage Western urban models as universal paradigms. Worlding refers to the ways in which a wide range of local actors aim to position their city in the global urban hierarchy through the production of urban imaginaries referring to urban models and other cities to legitimize their urban development plans. Following the rise of sustainability thinking, sustainable urban and coastal development, including nature preservation, has become a part of such urban imaginaries. The aim of this paper is to better understand how small places such as a small Pakistani village of Kakapir are included in sustainability worlding practices through modelling, inter-referencing and the emergence of new solidarities in the context of coastal zone management in the Global South. The small fishing village Kakapir near Karachi, Pakistan is explored as a case since it is used as a model for sustainable urban coastal development in documents at both the national and international level. This research scrutinizes documents, media reports and other sources over three decades to delineate the discursive construction of Kakapir as a model of sustainable coastal zone management and its residents as exemplary environmental stewards managing mangroves sustainably. By integrating worlding practices and theories of environmentality into a cohesive analysis, this paper enriches the discourse on southern urbanisms and broadens our understanding of sustainable urban development through theoretical and practical lenses.