Geographies of Difference: Explorations in Northeast Indian Studies

328 Pages·2017·5.085 MB·English

by  Mélanie Vandenhelsken, Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh, Bengt G. Karlsson

Geographies of Difference
This book rethinks Northeast India as a lived space, a centre of intercon-
nections and unfolding histories, instead of an isolated periphery. Question-
ing dominant tropes and assumptions around the Northeast, it examines
socio-political and historical processes, border issues, the role of the state,
displacement and development, debates over natural resources, violence,
notions of body and belonging, movements, tensions and relations, and
strategies, struggles and narratives that frame discussions on the region.
Drawing on current and emerging research in Northeast India studies,
this work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics,
human geography, sociology and social anthropology, history, cultural
studies, media studies and South Asian studies.
Mélanie Vandenhelsken is a researcher in anthropology at the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian
Cultural History (CIRDIS), University of Vienna, Austria, and was formerly
at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh is Research Fellow, Department of
Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
Bengt G. Karlsson is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm Uni-
versity, Sweden.

Geographies of Difference
Explorations in Northeast
Indian Studies
Edited by
Mélanie Vandenhelsken,
Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh
and Bengt G. Karlsson
First published 2018
by Routledge
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informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Mélanie Vandenhelsken,
Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh and Bengt G. Karlsson;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Mélanie Vandenhelsken, Meenaxi Barkataki-
Ruscheweyh and Bengt G. Karlsson to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
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1988.
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ISBN: 978-1-138-29019-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11029-5 (ebk)
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Contents
List of Figures viii
Contributors x
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xxv
Remembering Bianca Son xxvii
MICHAEL W. CHARNEY
Introduction: Northeastern research entanglements 1
BENGT G. KARLSSON
PART I
Historical and ethnographic encounters 15
1 Reading Fürer-Haimendorf in Northeast India 17
SANJIB BARUAH
2 The role of informants in the construction of the Zo
as the Chin, Lushai and the Kuki of Burma and India 31
BIANCA SON
3 Sutured landscapes: making of an imperial frontier in
Tripura (1848–1854) 53
ANANDAROOP SEN
4 Portrait of a place: reflections about fieldwork from
the foothills of Northeast India 72
DOLLY KIKON
vi Contents
5 Ethnographic study and cultural production
in Sikkim 89
MÉLANIE VANDENHELSKEN
PART II
Politics of land and material resources 107
6 Hydro-dollar dreams: emergent local politics of large
dams and small communities 109
MIBI ETE
7 Violence, agrarian change and the politics of
autonomy in Assam 128
SANJAY (XONZOI) BARBORA
8 Naga art and their market through time:
delocalisation, state control and globalisation 140
IRIS ODYUO
9 Youth fashion and the identity of resistance in
Northeast India 159
TEIBORLANG T. KHARSYNTIEW
PART III
In and out of the state 175
10 Decades of ‘ethnic massacre’ in Bodoland: the state
and the framing of conflict in India’s Northeast 177
KAUSTUBH DEKA
11 Diversity and difference: the art of electioneering in
Meghalaya 196
CORNELIA GUENAUER
12 From the shackles of tradition: motherhood and
women’s agitation in Manipur 215
SOIBAM HARIPRIYA
Contents vii
13 Mizo identity: the role of the Young Mizo Association
(YMA) in Mizoram 233
N. WILLIAM SINGH
14 Situating language, recognising multilingualism:
linguistic identities and mother tongue attachment in
Northeast India and the region 253
MARK TURIN
Afterword: contested, vertical, fragmenting:
de-partitioning ‘Northeast India’ studies 272
WILLEM VAN SCHENDEL
Index 289
Figures
1.0 Map of Northeast India. xvi
4.1 Company Man reflecting about Naginimora and coal. 80
4.2 Naga coal miners taking a break. 81
4.3 Nelson and his friend. 82
4.4 Sarah, Abraham and Enoch. 83
4.5 Ango with his basket. 85
4.6 Naga subsistence cultivators with their jhum produce at
the Rajabari haat. 86
8.1 Map of the area. 141
8.2 Warrior’s shield made of buffalo, rhinoceros or elephant
hide and decorated with grass tassels and red-dyed goat’s hair. 144
8.3 Red- and black-dyed goat’s and dog’s hair is used in the
decoration of feast-giver and warrior’s shawl. 145
8.4 Khiamniungan warrior of note wears a spike brass
armband called khiaptso. It is traded outside Naga villages. 146
8.5 Circles of cowry shells sewn to the surface of a black
shawl and outline of human figures indicating the martial
achievements of the wearer. 147
8.6 Boar’s tusk used as chest ornaments by Naga warriors. 148
8.7 A distinctive warrior chest ornament worn by Nagas
consists of a flat piece of wood covered with fine plaited
work of red cane with border of cowries and a fringe of
red-dyed goat’s hair at the ends and bottom. 149
8.8 A conical ceremonial headgear made of bichromatic
weave done in red-dyed cane with yellow orchid stem and
red-dyed goat’s hair, Tuensang, 2007. 150
8.9 Leg-guard made of a bichromatic weave done in dyed
red cane with patterns woven in with yellow orchid stem
worn by feast givers. 153
Figures ix
12.1 Women in a sit-in protest, Ningthoukhong, 6 April, 2011. 225
15.1 Northeast India and its neighbours, 1947. 274
15.2 Some territorial visions spilling over the borders of
Northeast India: Kamatapur, Nagalim and
Greater Mizoram. 277
15.3 Administrative divisions in Northeast India, 1949:
1. Assam; 2. Manipur; 3. Tripura; 4. West Bengal. 281
15.4 Administrative divisions in Northeast India, 2016:
1. Assam; 2. Arunachal Pradesh; 3. Nagaland; 4.
Manipur; 5. Mizoram; 6. Tripura; 7. Meghalaya;
8. West Bengal; 9. Sikkim. 282
15.5 Examples of homelands within states: Mizoram and
Tripura: 1. Chakma; 2. Lai; 3. Mara; 4. ‘Tribal’. 283