Zoha Waseem

Associate Professor of Sociology

Email: Zoha dot Waseem at warwick dot ac dot uk

Twitter: @ZohaWaseem

Feedback & Advice Hours:

Email for an online appointment

Background

I joined Warwick as Assistant Professor in September 2021. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Global City Policing, University College London. I have taught criminology modules at UCL and Warwick, and international security at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). I obtained my LLB (Hons) from SOAS, my master’s in Terrorism, Security, and Society from King’s College London, and my PhD in Security Studies from King’s College London. I have lived and studied in Pakistan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Research Interests

My research interests are interdisciplinary, and I draw from sociology, criminology, socio-legal studies, and politics. My research projects have focused on policing, repression, urban violence, urban insecurity, informality, migration, social movements and dissent. I am especially interested in violence, digitalisation, and policing in Pakistan and South Asia, but I am also interested in studying these phenomena across Asia and the UK.

Select Publications

Books

Waseem, Z. 2022. Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi. Hurst & Co/Oxford University Press. View.

Cavalcanti, R., Waseem. Z., and Squires, P. 2023. Southern and Postcolonial Perspectives on Policing, Security and Social Order. Bristol University Press. View.

Mitton, K., Varsori, A. and Waseem, Z. Under Contract. The Oxford Handbook on Urban Violence. Oxford University Press.

 

Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles

Waseem, Z. 2024. (In)Security in Subordination: Public Security Provision in Postcolonial Pakistan. Security Dialogue. View.

Siddiqui, N., Stommes, D., Waseem, Z. 2024. Illicit Gains and State Capture: Political Party Extortion in India and Pakistan. World Development, 183 (2024) 106735. View.

Waseem, Z. 2024. ‘It’s like crossing a border every day’: Police-migrant encounters in a postcolonial city. Journal of Urban Affairs, 46(8), 1547-1569. View.

Kureshi, Y. and Waseem, Z. 2024. The Politics of Police Reform and Federalism in Pakistan. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 62(3), 315-338. View.

Waseem, Z. 2023. Stateless and Vulnerable: Race, Policing, and Citizenship in Urban Pakistan. “Directions Essay”, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 46(1), 128-134. View.

Waseem, Z. 2021. Policing COVID-19 through procedural informality in Pakistan. Policing and Society, 31(5), 583-600. View.

Waseem, Z. 2019. ‘Brothers in arms’? A police-paramilitary partnership in Karachi. Policing and Society, 31(2), 131-147. View.

Laufs, J. and Waseem, Z. 2020. Policing in pandemics: A systematic review and best practices for police response to COVID-19. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 51. View.

 

Selected Book Chapters

Waseem, Z. 2024. Policing “crises”: Postcolonial lawfare and the criminalization of dissent in Pakistan. In, Anna di Ronco and Selmin (eds.) Criminalisation of Dissent in Times of Crisis. Springer.

Waseem, Z. 2023. A post-colonial condition of policing? A comparative study of Pakistan and Nigeria, In Aliverti, A., et al.. (eds.) Decolonising the Criminal Question. Oxford University Press.

Jan, A. and Waseem, Z. 2023. Crossing Red Lines: Exploring the Criminalisation and Policing of Sedition and Dissent in Pakistan. In Squires, P., Cavalcanti, R., and Waseem, Z. Southern and Postcolonial Perspectives on Policing, Security and Justice. London: Policy Press.

Waseem, Z. 2023. Exploring Emotionality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. In, Fleming, J. and Charman, S. (eds.) The Handbook of Police Ethnography. Routledge.

Waseem, Z. 2023. Buildings, Barriers, and Blue Walls: VIP Culture and Police Infrastructure in a Postcolonial City. in Watson, D. et al. Policing the Global South. Routledge.

Waseem, Z. 2021. Safeguards or Infringements? Counterterrorism Policies, the State and Civil Society in Pakistan. In, Romaniuk et al (eds.), Counterterrorism and Civil Society: Post 9/11 Progress and Challenges. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

 

Selected Media and Commentary

‘Inside the Punitive State: Governance through Punishment in Pakistan’. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 20 June 2024.

‘A House Divided: Karachi’s politics remain in flux’. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 03 May 2022.

‘The Rise of the Super Cop’. DAWN. 12 February 2023.

‘Insecurity and Informality in Police-Migrant Encounters in Pakistan’. Border Criminologies. 08 December 2022.

‘Politics, Police, and the Public: Why policing is and will continue to remain policing in Pakistan’. DAWN. 11 October 2022.

‘The problems with policing Pakistan’. Dawn (09 May 2021). View.

‘When the police want more guns: Militarized policing has become a trend in South Asia, but is that making the region more secure?’. Inkstick (04 March 2021). View.

Delbridge, V. and Waseem, Z. 2020. ‘Crime and COVID-19: Lessons from Cape Town and Karachi’. International Growth Centre (09 July 2020). View.

Waseem, Z. and Rafiq, A. 2020. ‘Coronavirus pandemic puts police in the spotlight in Pakistan’. United States Institute of Peace (16 June 2020). View.

‘Policing and public health in Pakistan’. Asia Law Centre (03 June 2020). View.

‘COVID-19 in South Asia: “Hard policing” approach has left police ill-prepared to respond to a pandemic’. Policing Insight (14 April 2020). View.

‘Encounters as a method of policing Karachi’. Strategic Hub on Organised Crime (26 February 2019). View.

‘What the Sahiwal shooting tells us about police culture’. Dawn (22 January 2019). View.

‘Encounter killings in India’. BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight (09 December 2019). Listen here.

‘Police reforms in Pakistan’. BBC Urdu’s Sairbeen (30 September 2019). Listen here.

 

Teaching

Policing and Society – Second Year Module.

Gender, Race and Sexualities in the Criminal Justice System: Policy and Practice – Second Year Module.