The Construction of Hate: The Political Landscape of Narrative and Infrastructure

Abstract

Hate is more than just an emotion; it is constructed through discourses and physical infrastructures that shape social realities. This paper explores how hateful narratives are used as a political tool to create social fragmentation in society, framing one group as an outsider and thereby legitimising violence and marginalisation. Concurrently, material infrastructure such as walls, contained spaces, and checkpoints reproduce these narratives in spatial ways, ingraining hate into everyday life. Drawing on fifteen months of ethnography in Pakistan, this paper explores the intersection between power, discourse, and infrastructures that sustain violence and exclusion. It contests the conventional notion of division as inherently woven into society’s social fabric, reframing the portrayal of two groups as natural adversaries. Instead, it suggests that hate is wielded as a political tool to polarise society, enabling it to be contained and governed through a state of exception. Moreover, this paper highlights how the marginalised individual, confined behind the walls, repurposes the infrastructure of hate as a site of resistance, defying necropolitical governance.