Between Precarity and Resistance: The Biopolitics of Afghan Refugees in Balochistan's Urban and Rural Areas

Abstract

This is a qualitative study that investigates the biopolitical governance of Afghan refugees in Balochistan, Pakistan. The examination shows how state power produces precarity and how refugees show resistance in response in urban and rural areas. This study uses 26 in-depth interviews with ethnographic sampling strategy based on participant observation and analyzes policies. The interviews are conducted in urban Quetta and rural Pishin. Findings reveal a regime of control. The state enforces a regime of hyper-surveillance through police checkpoints, kirayadaari forms, and bureaucratic channels in Urban Quetta. On the other hand, the government enforces strategic neglect with the deliberate absence of healthcare, and legal protections in Rural Pishin which produces vulnerability. Refugees demonstrate different agencies through everyday resistance in response. In the case of resistance shown, Urban strategies include shadow economies, and digital warning networks. Nonetheless, Rural resistance is more collective in nature. Rural Afghans depend on kinship-based farming cooperatives, and cross-border support systems. Another core contribution of this study is its analysis of generational transformation. First-generation refugees focus on cultural preservation and memories of Afghanistan, while second and third-generation Afghan refugees that are born in Pakistan are increasingly asserting place-based belonging while also claiming rights within their Balochistan, Pakistan. Conclusively, the prolonged “temporariness” that is imposed by state policy is a political fiction. It comes in obscuring de facto permanence by arguing for a fundamental policy shift. Instead of managing refugees as a temporary problem, there should be recognition of their established presence. it recommends context-specific interventions and build pathways for their regularized status. This research moves forward theoretical debates on biopolitics and agency of refugees in South Asian borderlands while offering urgent practical insights for one of the world's most protracted refugee situations.