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- Convenors:
-
Somenath Bhattacharjee
(Assam University)
Scott Simon (Université d'Ottawa)
- Stream:
- Relational movements: Migration, Refugees and Borders/Mouvements relationnels: Migration, régugiés et frontières
- Location:
- LMX 242
- Start time:
- 6 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The Post-colonial period of South Asia noticed remarkable socio-political changes. Issues of partition, displacement and migration emerged as the prime factor with noticeable changes to their social structure and social relations. Changes over their economic organization were also noticed.
Long Abstract:
South Asia is a rich zone of ethnic and cultural diversity, along with its diversified geographical landscape. The entire region after the post-colonial period noticed remarkable socio-political changes like the partition of India and the formation of other nations. Its consequences have resulted in the displacement and migration of huge sections of the population. Such displacement may have generated some serious impacts on their social structure, social organization and social relations. Further due to displacement a big question has emerged on their settlement, national identity and economic security. Even huge sections of population from Nepal and Bhutan have migrated to India for economic reasons. On the other hand, issues as the economy, livelihoods and cultural perspectives of different indigenous groups, of the regions absorbing migrants, also pose new emerging challenges.
Thus in the context of Post-colonial to contemporary South Asia, some major questions are emerging. What are the social and political effects of these migrations? How can fundamental human rights be assured in such circumstances? What does migration mean for economic, cultural and environmental security along with other emerging problems? Whether such issues are generating some other social problems? In this Panel, these issues will be examined from multiple South Asian perspectives with cross cultural analysis.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
A border is not equally restrictive to all groups of people. In the border enclaves along the Bangladesh-India boundary, certain 'bodies' experienced harsher violence, oppression and abandonment than others based on their state identity, gender, ethnicity, religion, financial prosperity and so on.
Paper long abstract:
The worldwide decolonization process of the mid-20th century and strong nationalist movements forced the British Empire to leave India. Before leaving, in 1947, the Empire partitioned the colony into two independent countries, e.g. India and Pakistan (East Pakistan seceded as Bangladesh in 1971). In the process of partition, based on the incorrect database, the Empire dragged two hundred small territories of one country into the map of another. Both the parent and host countries failed to administer these enclaves because of their locations inside another sovereign state which led into 70-year of statelessness and lawlessness. In such atmosphere, certain 'bodies' became the target of violent crimes, an organized syndicate of smuggling, crude border policing and catastrophic communal conflicts. Donnan & Wilson (1999) say that state power which demarcates geo-political spaces, also designs the topography of the body. The discourse of an impenetrable 'holy' international border presented the enclaves a citizenship crisis, a criminalized economy, an identity of smugglers and thugs, countless deaths and detention, and brutal border manning. My paper aims to explore such 'biopolitics of othering' in two scales. First, at a broader scale, the enclave residents are subjected to the politics of majority and minority, politics of nationalism and citizenship, socio-political movements, and international relations. Second, inside the enclaves, not all groups experienced equal share of oppressions: male-dominated crime horizon targeted female bodies for gender violence, religious majorities achieved the status of proxy citizens of host countries, poor households enjoyed less border mobility, and indigenous groups were dehumanized.
Paper short abstract:
Cultural and social spheres in South Asia have crossed the national borders, although the partition of India brought identities divided by the nation-states. We can find transborder spaces in the life of South Asian migrants, which can beyond their identities brought by the nation-states categories.
Paper long abstract:
In the tension of international relations, there have been difficulties to look into transnational extent of cultural and social practices in South Asia. In the northwest of Indian subcontinent, the nation-states border has separated Punjab region. The border had to be crossed by refugees from both sides because of the partition of India/Pakistan. Their nationalism was linked with religious identities and strengthened through the India/Pakistan wars in which Punjab became the battlefield.
Now people living in both sides of the border have almost no connection each other. However, we can find a cultural sphere shared by the people crossing the border, although it is not focused that the common cultural and social base seen in both sides of Punjab in the context of international relations.
When we shed a light to South Asian migrants overseas, it is found that they have spaces to build a relation to people from other countries who have common cultural and social base. They realize that their cultural sphere can be shared each other beyond national border. Looking at a case of Punjabi migrants, also we can see they have experiences sharing cultural and social practices with the migrants from other side of Punjab. In this paper we discuss on transborder spaces from a case study of Punjabi migrants in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. This paper examines experiences of South Asian Migrants, which have possibility to re-create the cultural and social identities beyond division by the nation-states border.