ABSTRACT
This article explores how checkposts, as a practice of everyday bordering, shape individuals’ feelings of ‘ontological security’ in the Pakistani cities of Peshawar, Islamabad and Lahore in a sample of Pakistani middle- and upper-class citizens. In this article, checkposts are treated as urban manifestations of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, being erected by the Pakistani state in the attempt to reinforce the border in the context of the war on terror. In contrast to the tendency in much of the political science literature to analyse ‘security’ in relation to states and militaries, this article interrogates individuals’ personal experiences of security by drawing on Giddens’ notion of ‘ontological security’. This exemplifies a shift away from quantitative accounts of what it means to ‘be secure’ towards a qualitative account of what it means to ‘feel secure’. The research analyses a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with psychologists, humanitarian workers and peace educators in Pakistan in 2014. Linking my participants’ narratives to an account of ‘ontological security’, I argue that bordering at checkposts diminishes feelings of security, even among citizens who seem not to be the prime suspects and target of checkposts.
