*Kashmir as a Borderland: The Politics of Space and Belonging across the Line of Control* examines the Kashmir dispute from both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and within the theoretical frame of border studies. It draws on the experiences of those living in these territories such as divided families, traders, cultural and social activists. Kashmir is a borderland, that is, a context for spatial transformations, where the resulting interactions can be read as a process of 'becoming' rather than of 'being'. The analysis of this borderland shows how the conflict is manifested in territory, in specific locations with a geopolitical meaning, evidencing the discrepancy between 'representation' and the 'living'. The author puts forward the concept of belonging as a useful category for investigating more inclusive political spaces.

This book departs from the conventional academic narration of the conflict situation in Jammu and Kashmir and expands the debate by shifting the focus from Kashmir to Jammu region. Generally, it is the response of Muslim-majority Kashmir region - particularly its contestation of the hegemonic and assimilative temperament of the Indian state - that captures the attention of researchers. The Hindu-majority Jammu region which is affected by the conflict in many ways remains in the shadows. This book seeks to address this crucial academic gap by locating the conflict in Jammu region. Besides explaining the 'Hindu reactionary' and 'ultra-nationalist' responses of some sections of Jammu's society, the book also foregrounds the genuine grievances of its people and their concerns within the dominant 'Kashmir-centric' discourse.

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.

Since 1989, when the movement for Kashmiri independence took the form of an armed insurgency, it has been one of the most highly militarized regions in the world. This book is based on the idea that preserving memory is central to the struggle for justice and to someday rebuild a society shattered by two decades of armed conflict.

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.

This book explores why the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands have remained largely independent of state controls throughout the twentieth century.

Across the Chinese borderlands, investments in large-scale transnational infrastructure such as roads and special economic zones have increased exponentially over the past two decades. Based on long-term ethnographic research, Borderland infrastructures. Trade, Development, and Control in Western China addresses a major contradiction at the heart of this fast-paced development: small-scale traders have lost their historic strategic advantages under the growth of massive Chinese state investment and are now struggling to keep their businesses afloat. Concurrently, local ethnic minorities have become the target of radical resettlement projects, securitization, and tourism initiatives, and have in many cases grown increasingly dependent on state subsidies. At the juncture of anthropological explorations of the state, border studies, and research on transnational trade and infrastructure development, Borderland infrastructures provides new analytical tools to understand how state power is experienced, mediated, and enacted in Xinjiang and Yunnan. In the process, Rippa offers a rich and nuanced ethnography of life across China's peripheries.

Women in Indian Borderlands is an ethnographic compilation on the complex interrelationship between gender and political borders in South Asia. The book focuses on the border regions of West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast India. The chapters in the book examine the stories of women whose lives are intertwined with borders, and who resist everyday violence in all its myriad forms. They show how most of the traditional efforts to make geopolitical regions more secure end up privileging a masculine definition of security that only results in feminine insecurities. These essays discuss how women negotiate their differences with a state that, though democratic, denies space to differences based on ethnicity, religion, class or gender. Borders are interpreted as zones where the jurisdiction of one state ends and that of the other begins. What comes out is the startling revelation that women not only live on the borders, but in many ways, form them.

Reveals how British imperial border-making in the Himalayas transformed a crossroads into a borderland and geography into politics.

Captures the lives of those living close to the border areas of Jammu and their stories of contesting or reinforcing India-Pakistan boundaries.