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Synthesizing political, anthropological and psychological perspectives, this book addresses the everyday causes and appeal of long-term involvement in extreme political violence in urban Pakistan. Taking Pakistan’s ethno nationalist Mohajir party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as a case study, it explores how certain men from the ethnic community of Mohajirs are recruited to the roles and statuses of political killers, and sustain violence as a primary social identity and lifestyle over a period of some years. By drawing on detailed fieldwork in areas involved in the Karachi conflict, the author contributes to understandings of violence, tracing the development of violent aspects of Mohajir nationalism via an exploration of political and cultural contexts of Pakistan’s history, and highlighting the repetitive homology of the conflict with the earlier violence of Partition. Through a local comparison of ethnic and …