Reconnection and reflexivity in Islamabad, Pakistan

This article explores the role of informal food spaces and flows in Islamabad, Pakistan. This paper aims to address two key questions in the areas of food and urbanism in Islamabad: How do the city’s residents perceive and experience the so-called “non-urban” food spaces and flows in their everyday lives? How do these spaces contribute to a nuanced understanding of global food systems? This paper considers that these spaces are critical in engendering nostalgia for past food habits and behaviours, a trigger for reflexive consumerism, and sites for reconnecting with different aspects of the country’s food system. The paper also explores how such spaces can be conceptualised within urbanism and geography, in the context of Islamabad’s unique spatial and socio-cultural identity. Informed by urbanism and food geography, this paper considers analytical and theoretical strategies for advancing the study of the urban in the global south, and specifically in Pakistan.