Building Peshawar: Labor, Security, and Infrastructure at the Edge of Empire.

This article examines the recruitment and organization of labor for colonial state infrastructure projects in Peshawar, a key British Indian city near the Indo-Afghan frontier, from 1849 to 1947. It highlights how colonial administrators sought to build and maintain military cantonments, railways, and jails to secure the region, while relying heavily on migrant and local laborers whom they racialized and categorized by ethnicity and tribe, often portraying Pashtuns and other frontier populations as inherently violent or undisciplined. This labor recruitment created a circular logic wherein security infrastructure depended on labor from populations simultaneously viewed as threats, leading to expanded surveillance and control measures that reinforced ethnic and social hierarchies. The article also discusses how these colonial labor and security practices shaped local social relations and anti-colonial movements, with post-colonial Pakistan continuing many of these patterns in its frontier governance and labor dynamics.