South Asian Borderlands
Mobility, History, Affect

New perspectives on the historical, temporal and affective dimensions of borderlands and how they manifest in historical and contemporary experiences.

Farhana Ibrahim (Edited by), Tanuja Kothiyal (Edited by)

9781108844512, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 February 2022

294 pages
23.6 x 16.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.52 kg

This is an interdisciplinary volume exploring a range of historical, anthropological and literary ideas and issues in South Asian Borderlands. Going beyond the territorial and geo-political imaginaries of contemporary borderlands in South Asia, chapters in this book engage with the questions of sovereignty, control, policing as well as continuing affections across politically divided borderlands. Modern conceptions of nationhood have created categories of legality and illegality among historically, socially, economically and emotionally connected residents of South Asian borderlands. This volume provides unique insights into the interconnected lives and histories of these borderland spaces and communities.

Introduction Tanuja Kothiyal and Farhana Ibrahim
1. Paradise at the Frontier: Kashmir as a Political Terrain and Literary Landscape in the Mughal Empire Anubhuti Maurya
2. Borders in the Age of Empire and Nation-States: The Honeycomb of Borderlands – Kumaun, Western Tibet and Far Western Nepal Vasudha Pande
3. Borders, Difference, Recognition: On the Cause(s) of Gorkhaland Townsend Middleton
4. Embattled Frontiers and Emerging Spaces: Transformation of the Tawang Border Swargajyoti Gohain
5. Relative Intimacies: Belonging and Difference in Transnational Families across the Bengal Borderland Sahana Ghosh
6. Reading Parijat in Nepal: The Poetics of Radical Feminism Negotiating Self and Nation Mallika Shakya
7. Commodity Journeys and Market Circuits: Making Borders 'Natural' in Colonial Western Himalayas Aniket Alam
8. Frontiers, State and Banditry in the Thar Desert in the Nineteenth Century Tanuja Kothiyal
9. Bureaucracy and Border Control: Ethnographic Perspectives on Crime, Police Reform, and 'national security' in Kutch, 1948–1952 Farhana Ibrahim
10. Frontier as Resource: Law, Crime, and Sovereignty on the Margins of Empire Eric L. Beverley
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Anthropology [JHM], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Asian history [HBJF], Regional & national history [HBJ], History [HB]