Student Number
18109
Degree
Master of Science in Development Studies
School
School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)
Date of Submission
Summer 7-10-2026
Supervisor
Dr. Arslan Waheed, Assistant Professor and Program Director, Graduate Programs SSLA
Committee Member 1
Dr. Muhammad Aatir Khan, Examiner, Assistant Professor, School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Habib University
Keywords
Habitus, Capability Approach, Postcolonial Feminism, Agency, South Asian Family
Abstract
This study explores how Karachi’s underprivileged multiple-daughter families collectively navigate socioeconomic and cultural limitations to create a situated freedom for themselves. Grounded in Bourdieu’s theory of practice (1977) and Sen’s capability approach (1999), this research examines how these families, beyond a lens of victimhood, overcome gender, class, and spatial marginalization to develop resilience. The study employs qualitative research methods, including narrative interviews and participant observation from eighteen participants belonging to five families living in Karachi’s low-income neighborhoods. The data is collected between April and June 2025. The data is analyzed using both deductive and inductive thematic analysis through which four themes emerge, which are essentially processes through which families acquire collective capability. The processes are negotiating patriarchal pressures around marriage, strategically navigating religious and cultural norms to establish personal identity, pursuing education as an instrumental freedom to expand capabilities, and cultivating a collective critical consciousness. The acquired collective capability is what enables, what this thesis terms as, the freedom of the margins. Ultimately, this thesis reframes agency not as a collective pursuit, challenging Eurocentric notions of autonomy and positioning marginalized households as active sites of resilience and becoming.
Submission Type
Thesis
Document Type
Restricted Access
Recommended Citation
Shariq, H. (2026). The freedom of the margins: Analyzing the habitus and capabilities in Karachi’s underprivileged multiple-daughter families (Unpublished Unpublished graduate thesis). Retrieved from https://ir.iba.edu.pk/etd-ms-development-studies/19
