Ruling the Periphery: Pakistan state ruling practices in Lower Dir

Abstract

This article examines Pakistan State’s ruling practices in Lower Dir, a peripheral region. It argues that this peripheral region was ruled by a colonial logic of governmentality. Through a “thick” ethnography of Lower Dir, I documented the militarized and fragmented state practices that Tsing refers to as the “sticky materiality of practical encounters” of the local people with the state apparatuses. The study collected data through anthropological methods such as mobile ethnography at checkpoints, casual conversations with locals, and firsthand observations of state ruling practices in the region. This article concludes that it is the Pakistan state’s strategic interest that keeps the region out of the mainstream, and its security status is now even more important for Pakistan state following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021.