Imposed Geography and Contested Spaces Among Borderland Communities in the Indo-Myanmar Borderland: The Case of Konyak Nagas and Khiamniungan Nagas

Abstract

Imposed geography in the form of cartographic mapping and boundary lines is part of the state-making and production of ‘legible’ subjects throughout the world. As a result of such impositions, there have been constant claims and contestations of space, nation and citizenship among the borderland communities. Such claims and contestations have sustained and reinforced connections and mobility of the borderland communities across the border. Such cross-border connections and mobility are found very commonly even among the borderland communities of Northeast India. With huge borderlands, Northeast India has diverse borderland communities that maintain close ethnic ties across artificial and imposed boundaries. Based on fieldwork conducted both in India and Myanmar, the present article centres on the Konyak Nagas and Khiamniungan Nagas living on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar boundary and looks at how these borderland communities constantly negotiate with the imposed border and sustain their relationship across the border. The article delves into the question of how such imposed geography has resulted in the contestation of space, nation and citizenship among the borderland communities which points toward new layers of complicacy defying the very rationale of a hard border.