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Title "Spatial Politics of Dominance and appropriation in Karachi Vice by Samira Shackle and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry"

Author(s) Maleeha Akram

Abstract This thesis explores production of space, spatial politics of dominance and appropriation and its implications on power structures and spatial discourses about modern city in the novels Karachi vice: Life and Death in a Contested City (2021) by Samira shackle and A Fine Balance (1995) by Rohinton Mistry. The thesis uses the Spatial Triad by Henry Lefebvre as theoretical lens to study production of space through social processes of informality and violence and further triangulates it with de Certeau‟s concept of Strategy and Tactics and Chattopadhyay‟s Unlearning the City to study the implications of this spatial production on power structures and dominant spatial discourses on modern city. This thesis attempts to problematize Lefebvre‟s romantic envisioning of the revolutionary potential of subversive actions of the urban poor in producing informal spaces. The study acknowledges Lefebvre‟s take on state‟s complicity in producing abstract space, but it also sheds a sceptical light on an anarchist ideal of Lefebvre and suggests to struggle in the direction of a welfare state. The study is significant as it contributes to the spatial turn in humanities recognising the social and political nature of space and its implications for power dynamics within contemporary fiction. The research, being qualitative in nature, uses textual analysis as a research method, to delve deeply into the research questions.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-08-12

Subject Literature

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