This podcast, hosted by Heba Islam, takes the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as its starting point to talk about the messy contradictions and tensions between ecological considerations, economic aspirations, and the realities on the ground for marginalized Pakistani communities who find themselves in the way of ‘development.’ 

Urban planner Nausheen Anwar contests the myth of infrastructural utopia which frames such projects as eventually benefiting the public by posing the question: which publics? Anthropologists Tariq Rahman and Naveeda Khan discuss respectively the tactics used by land realtors to force evictions, and how Islamic theology and mythology can help us find a language to think through the alienation and unease caused by displacement.