On October 14th 2021, Waqas Butt joined the UW South Asia Center and presented an excerpt from his upcoming book project “Reproducing Lahore: Waste and the Work of Infrastructures in Urban Pakistan.” This project examines the ways in which waste workers, who are drawn predominantly from low or non-caste (Dalit) groups, have become essential components of urban life through the everyday and intimate workings of waste infrastructure. His lecture spoke to the unevenness and inequality of urban life and how power structures reproduce inequality along with generationally carried identities. His lecture was well attended by South Asia-affiliated faculty and students.
Waqas H. Butt is an anthropologist and professor at University of Toronto, Scarborough. His work focuses on the intersections of caste, labor, infrastructures, informality, and waste in urban Pakistan.
