Dr. Waqas H. Butt
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Toronto, Scarborough

A Disasters, Displacement and Human Rights (DDHR) Webinar
 

Friday November 22^nd, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Register here: http://tiny.utk.edu/qstTA

Waqas H. Butt is an anthropologist at University of Toronto Scarborough whose work focuses on the political life of infrastructure in contemporary Pakistan. His first project explored these interests through a study of waste, caste, labour, and urbanization across Pakistan, with a focus on Lahore and urban Punjab. In particular, his book Life beyond Waste: Work and Infrastructures in Urban Pakistan (Stanford University Press 2023), examines how waste workers, drawn predominantly from low or non-caste (Dalit) groups, have become essential components of urban life through the everyday and intimate workings of waste infrastructures. More recently, Dr. Butt has started a new project examining the socio-ecological transformation wrought across the Indus River Basin and what those transformations reveal about contemporary politics in Pakistan, South Asia, the Global North and South.