Social distancing has contributed enormously to controlling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Latin America to East Asia and Africa, the majority of the urban dwellers are living in congested, ignored and criminalised squatter settlements with meagre resources restricting them to exercise social distancing. Stretching boundaries of the theory of planned behaviour, this article discusses how the utopia of social distancing interacts with the dystopia of living in slums. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this article compares the lived experiences of the urban poor of Pakistan and Brazil to explore their subjectivities concerning the pandemic. This research finds that neglect of the “social distancing” is premised on socio-economic structures shaping socio-spatial realities of the urban poor. The exclusion and otherisation of these poor by the politicians, bureaucracies, and society at large is both discriminatory and criminalising. It further reveals that the absence of “social distancing” exhibits the socio-economic helplessness of such dwellers who mainly struggle to attain their basic survival needs. Therefore, the adoption of a class-sensitive approach to the pandemic is pivotal to devising an inclusive policy framework addressing the marginalised geographies.

This study examined the households’ risk perceptions of water contamination available in the surroundings of the Lai sewer in Rawalpindi city of Pakistan. Through purposefully structured questionnaire, 134 households were interviewed from three randomly selected areas adjacent to the main sewer bed of the Lai sewer. The data were collected from both the ethnography of three neighborhoods named Mohinpura, Dhok Ratta, and Dhok Naju adjacent to the Lai sewer and questionnaire survey to assess the households’ perceptions of groundwater and supplied water contamination as principal sources of drinking water. Supplementing ethnographic research, the data collected through the questionnaire was analyzed using the ordered probit model. The findings showed that households’ education level, income, health effects, proximity to the Lai sewer, knowledge, and awareness of water contamination, and attitude toward health risks had significant effects on households’ risk perceptions. This study will be an important addition to the existing water pollution–related research and will particularly help to sensitize the households and communities about water contamination and health-related risks. The recommendations of the study will further guide the relevant state institutions based on the perspectives of the research participants and neighboring residents of the Lai sewer of Rawalpindi city.

This article problematises ‘sainthood’ as a sacred spiritual construct by the understanding and appropriation of the same. We have examined claims of Chishti and Dhuddi biraderies (endogamous kinship groups) as spiritually elevated and socially superior groups based on our recent fieldwork in three villages in the district of Vehari, Punjab. We take a case study of Chishti biraderi’ s claims of spiritual ascendency because of their descendance from Shaykh Farid (d. 1265 CE). Chishties’ position as chosen ones is contested by Dhuddi biraderi who claim their descendance from an equally famous Sufi saint Dewan Baba Haji Sher (d. 752 CE). Our research shows how claims of saintly kinship reflect the power struggle in rural Punjab where the appropriation of saintly kinship as well as contestations of similar claims are advanced by zamindar (land owner) patrons to reproduce their position of power and privilege.