How do histories of empire shape the everyday realities of policing today? In this episode, Dr. Omar Phoenix Khan speaks with Dr. Zoha Waseem, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and Co-Coordinator of the Urban Violence Research Network (UVRN), about her research on policing, security, and urban violence in Pakistan.

Drawing on over 200 interviews with serving and retired officers, archival work, case studies, and policy analysis, Dr. Waseem’s ethnography explores how police in Karachi navigate the contradictory roles of enforcing state power while also being victims of structural violence themselves. Many officers come from the same impoverished communities they patrol, embodying both oppressor and oppressed, and are often forced to choose between starvation and predation.

The conversation also reflects on the enduring influence of British colonial structures in shaping postcolonial policing practices, as well as on what counts as “success” in this kind of research and what meaningful impact might look like.

This episode will interest anyone concerned with policing, security, urban violence, and the legacies of colonialism in the Global South and beyond.

Read Dr. Waseem’s work here:

• Waseem, Z. (2022). Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/insecure-guardians-9780192865335