REVIEW OF URBAN AFFAIRS MARCH 24, 2018 vol lIiI no 12 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 46 Receding Rurality, Booming Periphery Value Struggles in Karachi’s Agrarian–Urban Frontier Nausheen H Anwar This paper advances new perspectives on peripheral urbanisation in South Asia by drawing attention to Karachi’s rural land transformations. It considers the shift from the metropolis to the agrarian–urban frontier as a process that signals the production of a new value regime centred on the devalorisation of a rural economy and its transformation into urban real estate, as well as the changing priorities and preferences of the state. It proposes that Karachi’s agrarian–urban transformations can be understood as value struggles that pivot on three interconnected processes: strategies of enclosure for the production of private property; accumulation by dispossession that separates rural populations from the means of subsistence through direct extra-economic force such as the state; and “value grabbing” or the appropriation and distribution of (surplus) value through rent between diverse state and private actors. Given that this is a deeply political process, the state’s role remains salient in terms of its alliances with varied groups—real estate developers, politicians, brokers, waderas —to make land available for capital. All Figures mentioned in the text are available along with the article on the EPW website. Nausheen H Anwar (nhanwar@iba.edu.pk) is associate professor, City and Regional Planning, Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan. W hen we first met in July 2013 at his autaaq (meeting place) in Khairabad approximately 20 km from the city centre, 70-year-old YM cut an impressive figure seated comfortably in a charpoy flanked by an armed security guard and a gleaming Pajero. I was struck by how the autaaq was a picturesque vista of rural Karachi: a bucolic landscape of rows of vegetable fields and rose gardens that faded far into the distance. The meeting had been arranged by a community activist who was helping YM secure sanad (land title) for 12 acres of land under the Sindh Gothabad Scheme. I was interested to learn about a new phase of rural land conversions in which waderas (landlords/village elders) like YM are deeply ensconced. He belongs to the Baloch Brohi tribe and along with his two brothers he has been cutting deals with state officials, brokers, and politicians to sell lands. Waderas like him have secured extensive financial gains in this dealmaking momentum, and some are redirecting profits to build small- scale housing schemes of their own in Karachi’s periphery. The wadera Ghulamjan is constructing a new society scheme located approximately 2 km from Khairabad—the Ghulamjan Society Scheme on 1,000 acres of pastoral land. As the community activist later remarked When the land had no value, the waderas sold milk, cut wood and travelled in a donkey cart. Today, because the land is considered valuable, they drive Pajeros, make deals with politicians and develop society schemes. During our conversation, YM underscored the dilemma of Karachi’s receding rurality: If we don’t sell our land, there will be qabza (land grab) and developers will start building whatever they want. With the sanad there can be no evictions. But the city needs these lands. Even in our Baloch biraderi there is confusion about selling land. Everyone is now divided. In my father’s time, zameen (land) was conserved carefully. But today we can’t wait to sell it. Land is ma (mother). No amount of money can capture the real value of land. (Personal conversation) Karachi’s rural landscape in Malir and West districts (Figure 1) has historically comprised 3,000 goths (villages) of predomi- nantly Sindhi and Baloch speaking populations whose liveli- hoods depend on an agro-livestock economy (Hasan 2015; Anwar 2014). The agrarian spaces and associated subsistence economies have been constructed through interplay of pre- colonial and colonial histories whose residuals linger in the present. In the precolonial era, the lands were owned by the Sindhi Talpurs who facilitated access based on annual leasing arrangements. After the British annexed Karachi in 1843, a new