1st Edition
Fixed Borders, Fluid Boundaries Identity, Resources and Mobility in Northeast India
This book provides an understanding of the challenges in Northeast India in terms of the nature of flows and ruptures in the daily lives of people. It brings together multiple and interconnected issues of identity, development, environment, migration, land alienation and policy impacts to the forefront.
Northeast India’s history is affected both by internal dynamic processes, as are its linkages with adjoining countries, marked by a fluid movement of people and goods across porous borders. The book explores how the region has emerged as a resource frontier for the global markets, yet its resource mobilization has led to disparity within the region. The volume discusses key themes concerning the region such as the processes of development and people’s resistance; underdevelopment in the peripheral areas; resource flow and conflict; community response and local agency; state and customary practices; politics of land and citizenship; development-induced dispossession; human mobility, immigration and conflict; the notion of "outsiders"; inter-state border conflict; and spatial connections.
Rich in empirical data, the volume will be relevant and useful for students and researchers of development studies, Northeast India studies, sociology, political science, border and migration studies, public policy, peace and conflict studies, as well as practitioners and policymakers.
Acknowledgements
Introduction – Periphery Calling: Layers of Divergence
Chandan Kumar Sharma and Reshmi Banerjee
Part 1: Discord around Development
Chapter 1. The Contemporary Process of Economic Development, State Power and Lepcha Resistance in Sikkim: A Macro View
Binod Bhattarai
Chapter 2. Concentrated Development of Specific Areas vis-à-vis Underdevelopment in Peripheral Areas of Meghalaya
Kitdor W. Kharbuli
Chapter 3. Hydrocarbon Exploration in Manipur: Resource Conflict and Community Response
Shreya Saha
Chapter 4. Dispossession Due to Development: A Case Study of the Tiwa Tribe of Central Assam
Dola Borkataki
Part 2: Issues of Identity
Chapter 5. State and Customary Practices: Locating the Power and Authority of the Konyak Anghs
Jagritee Ghosh
Chapter 6. Ethnicity, Immigration and Conflict: The Case of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD)
Cihnnita Baruah
Chapter 7. ‘Outsiders’ in Bodoland: Categories of Narratives and Practice
Saba Sharma
Chapter 8. Politics of Land and Citizenship in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
Fariba Alamgir
Part 3: Borders and Beyond
Chapter 9. Accusations and Belonging in the Southwestern Borderland of Mizoram
N. William Singh
Chapter 10. Ethnography in the Assam–Nagaland Border: Narratives of Conflict
Prafulla Kr. Nath
Chapter 11. Ambiguity, Conflict and Compliance: Myanmar’s Woes Meet North East India
Reshmi Banerjee
Chapter 12. Crossing over the Patkai Mountains: Ethnographic Memoirs as Ruptures and Flows
Kaustubh Deka
Glossary
Index
Biography
Chandan Kumar Sharma is Professor of Sociology at Tezpur University, Assam, India.
Reshmi Banerjee is a political scientist based in London, UK, and is currently a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, India.
