Over 33 million people have been affected in the 2022 floods in Pakistan. The total estimated financial cost of damages and reconstruction is estimated to be over $16 billion, and this figure is going to rise in the coming days.

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Maira Hayat about this catastrophe, the need for solidarity among Global South countries, and the governance challenges that exist within Pakistan.

Dr Maira Hayat is an assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. This year she’s a member of the institute for advanced study at Princeton. She did her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and a BSc. at LUMS in 2008.

Dr. Hayat conducts research at the intersection of bureaucracy, law, and the environment, drawing on ethnographic and archival methods. Her current book project is based on her doctoral dissertation, “Ecologies of Water Governance in Pakistan: The Colony, the Corporation and the Contemporary,” which won the 2019 S.S. Pirzada Annual Dissertation Prize for best dissertation on Pakistan.

Reading recommendations:

– Refashioning futures by David Scott

– Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter by Talal Asad

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

3:30 Key events related to floods

14:00 Building global coalitions

20:40 Regional collaboration on climate change

28:00 What needs to change?

50:30 Governance v. climate change

57:30 Lack of capacity in Pakistan

1:04:40 Dual standards in international views

1:15:30 Reading recommendation