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- Convenors:
-
Nel Vandekerckhove
(University of Amsterdam)
Bart Klem (Gothenburg University)
- Location:
- C301
- Start time:
- 27 July, 2012 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together ethnographic research on contested rule and armed movements in South Asia. Rather than the breakdown of order or state decay, we posit that these conflicts propel alternative forms of authority, which compete and converge with the tentacles of formal state rule.
Long Abstract:
This panel brings together a set of ethnographic case studies on contested rule in South Asia. In line with the contemporary literature on this topic, the contributors choose to move away from monolithic notions of a coherent "up-there" state that hangs above the fray of society, and instead focus on the emergence of different forms of rule in South Asia's contested environments. The case studies from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India converge around the idea that Maoist uprisings, armed separatism and vigilantes do not result in the breakdown of order and state decay. Rather, they tend to propel alternative forms of rule and authority beyond the state, which compete and converge with the tentacles of formal state rule.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This article explores the longer-term patterns of rule in Sri Lanka’s eastern periphery. The separatist war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government propelled different forms of rule and contested sovereignty. The article’s narrative ties together different trajectories: the penetration of the (post)colonial state in the periphery, the coming of age of the insurgent movement, and that of ground level realities along the east coast.
Paper long abstract:
Building on previous research on the state, contested rule, and 'governable orders' in Sri Lanka's war zone (Korf, 2006; Korf et al. 2010; Klem forthcoming), this article explores the longer-term patterns of rule in Sri Lanka's eastern periphery. The separatist war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government propelled different forms of rule and contested sovereignty. Caution is warranted in interpreting the violent condition during the war years as special or opposite to earlier or later 'peacetime' years. Firstly, there were dramatic differences in the patterns of rule and clash between the two state projects throughout different phases of the war. Secondly, a longitudinal perspective reminds us that there are important continuities, not just with the immediate post-war environment, but also with state presence and rule in colonial and post-colonial periods. The article's narrative ties together different trajectories: the penetration of the (post)colonial state in the periphery, the coming of age of the insurgent movement, and that of ground level realities along the east coast. In doing so, it steers away from a totalising interpretation of Sri Lanka's conflict and highlights the contingent, negotiated evolvement of competing state projects struggling over sovereign control and legitimacy.
Paper short abstract:
This paper produces new insights into the critical role of local (forest) administrators in the constitution of state in so-called ‘rebellious borderlands’. Despite years of ethnic violence and deterrence, Indian forest rangers found remarkable ways to assure a level of stateness in this borderland.
Paper long abstract:
Ethnic violence has kept the Indian-Bhutanese border in its grip for over twenty-five years. Common explanations for the persistence of political instability in this 'rebellious borderland' are the lack of sustainable development and weak state presence. The politics of deterrence of Bodo and Adivasi militia groups seem to have further dismantled formal state rule. A detailed historical-ethnographic account of forest politics in the Ripu-Kachugaon forest belt reveals a more intricate political reality. Local forest administrators have proven to act as critical agents in the production and reproduction of state in this remote area. Even during the high days of the ethnic violence, the adopted politics of negotiation and selective opposition demonstrated the buoyancy of the state, both in idea and in practice. Based upon these findings, this paper urges for more careful thought on the exact nature of the relationship between the presence of armed actors, ethnic violence and the governing capacity of the Indian state.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses local government in Nepal's post-conflict transition. It provides insight into how the Nepalese state is manifested in practice, mapping the local authority (re-) configurations and arguing that local government functions through everyday compromises among authority claimants.
Paper long abstract:
The form and function of local government in Nepal has undergone several transformations in the past decades, from the "party-less" panchayat system, to decentralisation, and the retreat of local state actors and establishment of Maoist People's Governments during the conflict. While the term of the last elected local governments ended in 2002, different interim arrangements have been put in place in the post-conflict political transition, both building on and interacting with previous sedimentations of local government. This paper analyses these interim local government arrangements and explores the "composite and chimerical" practical form and functioning of public authority they represent (Lund 2007). With reference to the insights of Tania Murray Li (1999, 2007) on "compromising power", the paper argues that local government in Nepal functions through everyday compromises - explicit and implicit - among authority claimants and between authority claimants and subjects. Exploring the various and varied details of how governmental projects are implemented, including the multitude of minor adjustments and intentional oversights necessary for ensuring the compliance of those to be governed, leads to insights about how local government is accomplished. Indeed, in Nepal, compromise is a significant feature of decision-making processes and of how politics is practiced (Nightingale et al 2012, Upreti 2004). This paper explores a series of such compromises in the practice of local government in a Village Development Committee in Nepal's mid-Western hills. In so doing, it sheds light on how the Nepalese state is manifested in practice and maps the local authority (re-) configurations emerging in the political "transition".
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the links between student leaders and political parties to explain the wide governance powers of student groups on Bangladesh’ campuses. This paper offers an interesting discussion on the relations between non-state violent governance, political parties and state rule.
Paper long abstract:
Student politics in Bangladesh has a bad reputation. Student leaders are considered violent and predatory on other students and on teachers. At the same time, they are highly entrenched in political networks and are crucial organisers for political parties. Indeed, membership and leadership positions in student groups are crucial avenues to build up political careers and access the multi-tiered party-based patronage system. Student groups have build up considerable tools to govern campuses and their surrounding areas beyond the purview of the state; but it are exactly the links between the student leaders and political parties that make these governance activities viable. As such, there exists an intriguing mesh of non-state institutions, political party prerogatives and violent student politics on Bangladeshi's campuses. Through several vignettes, this paper reveal this opaque mesh and at the same time offer an interesting discussion on the relations between non-state violent governance, political parties and state rule.
Paper short abstract:
Kashmir is known mainly as the core of Indopakistani geopolitical issue: through an ethnographic analysis of teenagers' ritual practice of stonepelting against army and related discourses it is possible to reveal the intimate relation lying between a transnational conflict politics and local moral economy
Paper long abstract:
Kashmir is well known as the core issue indopakistani dispute: we should consider it a territorial conflict as well as a dispute over cultural, historical, political landscapes, mostly linked to 1947 Partition and intimate "communal" nature of areal politics. After 20 years of ISI sponsored Islamist militancy, the separatist organizations, whose narratives are intrinsecally linked to Pakistani national discourse, have promoted a non violent protest and "govenamental" strategy. Among informally imposed strikes calendars and army curfews, kashmiri youth stonepelting (kani-jang) against Indian forces has emerged as an institution where moral economy, multiple political identities and paradoxical overlapping powers are staged in a social drama.. Stonepelting has become a microphysical/metaforical coagulate of a broader geopolitical landscape, where teenagers-soldiers violent interactive performances involve a semiotic-normative intimacy which enables an ephemeral space signification. There is a metonymy relation between this bounded practice of violence and the wider political space, which makes it more complex than a mere "focalization" effect. Kani-jang has appeared as an usual protest practice in 2008, when a political campaign was aiming to compare Palestinian and Kashmiri context. After that situation has evolved, and crisis after crisis in 2010 stonepelting has become the "imaginary issue" itself, thanks to mainstream media and social network mobilization. Apparently, the phenomena, has assumed in Kashmiri politics, the function Kashmir itself has in subcontinent politics: it's the bargaining space where overlapping and contrastive forces(economical, political, moral, narratological) establish new strategic configurations.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines various trajectories among state and non-state actors engaged in clientele relationships. By focusing on ethnopolitical configurations, we intend to explore territorial projections, economical ties, fragmentary perceptions, and categorizations
Paper long abstract:
In Northeast India protective discrimination measures have strengthened certain perceptions inherited from colonial categorizations by accentuating the dichotomy between peoples and topographical configurations (hills and plains), and by consolidating ethnic spaces.
Certain images have shaped the political rhetoric and the social reality of the Garo Hills region of Meghalaya, in which social actors have developed ideologies of ethnonationalism that include territorial claims. Negotiations of tribal boundaries and contested belongings led to interethnic political tensions.
Regional political parties and several armed outfits emerged with ethnopolitical claims for self-determination, self governance, and the control over natural ressources; with the creation of a distinct administrative unit designed for Garos as a main project in their political agendas.
This paper examines various trajectories among state and non-state actors engaged in clientele relationships. By focusing on ethnopolitical configurations, we intend to explore territorial projections, economical ties, fragmentary perceptions, and categorizations.
Based on recent field research we will discuss historical, economical, ecological and political (dis)connectivities among social actors that maintain cooperative or competitive relationships.
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the late 1960s, this paper looks at how industrial workers in Lahore took control of places in the city by setting up an alternative system of rule, against the backdrop of a movement that was ostensibly asking for nothing more than the reinstitution of parliamentary democracy.
Paper long abstract:
The late 1960s were a unique moment in Pakistan's history as it saw the emergence of a popular movement that brought an end to the regime of General Muhammad Ayub Khan and ushered in the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). However, it would be erroneous to consider the dynamics engendered by this movement as fitting neatly within the narrative of the development of the PPP. As extant structures of authority were challenged during the movement, local level actors in certain spaces took control of their places of work and of their neighbourhoods by setting up alternative, miniature systems of rule. Centering around two such examples from Lahore this paper will focus on the brief creation of a worker led panchayat in the industrial area of Kot Lakhpat and the take-over of the industrial complex in Kala Shah Kaku by the workers of Ravi Rayon. Far from being part of the narrative of the "strength of the street" that went out of hand (which was the jusitification used by the founder of the PPP, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, for repressing worker movements in the 1970s), this paper aims to reveal how these moments were the actualisation of a political alternative that was negated by the PPP when it came to power. The case studies are based on evidence gathered from interviews with participants as well as correspondence and newspaper reports.