Final Year Project

Project Title

Building Social Capital Through Sport: A Case Study of Lyari’s Football Clubs

Description

Lyari, also termed ‘Mini Brazil,’ is an underprivileged locality in Karachi, Pakistan, renowned for its inextinguishable passion for football in an otherwise cricket-mad nation. This study seeks to understand how Lyari’s grassroots sports initiatives build social capital, particularly trust, reciprocity, and collective identity, within Lyari’s constrained neighborhood dynamics. Following the frameworks of Robert Putnam and Ben Porath, this research aims to understand how sporting practices contribute to civic engagement and cooperation; investigate how sport enables community resilience in the absence of strong formal governance. Involving interviews with the Lyari Football Association chairman and a community specialist involved in youth engagement and grassroots sports, this research identifies how football contributes to the formation and strengthening of social capital in Lyari.