Zenana: Everyday Peace in a Karachi Apartment Building

Ethnic violence is a widespread concern, but we know very little about the micromechanics of coexistence in the neighborhoods around the world where intergroup peace is maintained amidst civic strife. In this ethnographic study of a multiethnic, middleclass highrise apartment building in Karachi, Pakistan, Laura A. Ring argues that peace is the product of a relentless daily labor, much of it carried out in the zenana, or womens space. Everyday rhythms of life in the building are shaped by gender, ethnic and rural/urban tensions, national culture, and competing interpretations of Islam. Womens exchanges between householdsvisiting, borrowing, helpingand management of male anger are forms of creative labor that regulate and make sense of ethnic differences. Linking psychological senses of tension with anthropological views of the social significance of exchange, Ring argues that socialcultural tension is not so much resolved as borne and sustained by womens practices. Framed by a vivid and highly personal narrative of the authors interactions with her neighbors, her Pakistani inlaws, and other residents of the city, Zenana provides a rare glimpse into contemporary urban life in a Muslim society.