Disaster cosmologies in comparative perspective: Islam,climate change and the 2010 floods in Pakistan's Southern Punjab

As humanity enters a new era of climate‐induced unpredictability, research into the role of religion in shaping perceptions of, and responses to disaster will become increasingly important. This is particularly true of South Asia, which contains dense populations certain to be adversely affected by climate change. This contribution explores the way religion shapes and mediates responses to disaster in Pakistan. Where previous work in this field has focused on extremists and militants, mine considers currents of lived Islam that take explicit stances on questions of natural resource development. Drawing upon extensive primary data, I identify two distinct disaster cosmologies permeating state and society. First, I consider the official Islam of experts and policymakers, whose approach to development is derived from, but arguably surpasses the modernism of British and American colonial and Cold War paradigms in its dogmatic, faith‐based belief in the imperative of mastering and exploiting nature. The second is an altogether contrasting formation embedded in a political protest movement representing a marginalized constituency, the Siraiki speaking population of Southern Punjab, which mobilized flood affectees in the aftermath of the 2010 floods around issues of social and environmental justice.