Hamare Siyal Rishte is a Karachi LaJamia project emerging from long-term research conducted in the aquatic landscapes of Karachi – from the creeks, ports and beaches of the coastal belt to the disappearing seasonal rivers further inland. This research was conducted in collaboration with community/activist organisations such as the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and the Indigenous Rights Alliance with whom we also conducted a series of experimental, site-specific workshops to witness these rapidly changing ecologies and the rapacious state-led interventions upon the oceanic terrain. We also set out in this research and pedagogical initiative, to witness and document the incredibly rich and long-enduring traditions of resistance and ecological defense in these regions. Our work with the World Weather Network will be a continuation of this project.

Our dispatches will be conducted from the Kathore and Malir region, where sand-mining and luxury real estate infrastructure have ravaged the riverine landscape, and from the adjoining, ongoing Malir Expressway – a highway being built into the pathway of what was once Karachi’s most thriving and abundant natural waterway. Our final report will be a narrative sound piece, drawing from folktales and storytelling traditions indigenous to this region, as a practice in ecopedagogy, a practice of building and nurturing connections of love, care and solidarity with our aquatic relations.