The Double Burden: Coethnic Discrimination in Refugee-Hosting States

Coethnic networks often help refugees integrate more easily into host societies. However,
these same ties can become a source of vulnerability for coethnic host citizens, who may face
increased discrimination from both the state and broader society. This project asks: When
refugees and violent actors (e.g., the Taliban) share an ethnic identity with part of the host
population (e.g., Pashtuns in Pakistan), what drives discrimination against coethnic host
citizens—and can this bias be reduced? Such discrimination may appear both socially—
through exclusion and suspicion from non-coethnic citizens—and institutionally, through
arbitrary arrests, surveillance, and heightened police scrutiny. The ongoing deportation of
Afghan refugees from Pakistan, alongside the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement’s protests against
state repression of Pakistani Pashtuns, offers a timely context for investigation. The project
will proceed in two phases. First, I will conduct interviews with Afghan refugees, Pakistani
Pashtuns, non-Pashtun citizens, civil society actors, and law enforcement officials to build a
grounded theory of coethnic discrimination. Second, I will design a RCT to test interventions
aimed at reducing bias—such as varying perceived ethnicity in discretionary policing scenarios or piloting law enforcement trainings with ethnically mixed teams. This project contributes to scholarship on refugee-host relations, ethnic violence, and state discrimination.
It addresses a major gap in existing research, which often treats host populations as either
fully distinct from or fully coethnic with refugees, overlooking realities of multiethnic states.
It also offers practical insights for policy stakeholders such as UNHCR, IOM, etc. seeking to
reduce bias and promote inclusion.