Borderland Anxieties explores the complex relationships between liberalization, gender and migration in Nagaland, a state in Northeast India that is emerging from decades of armed conflict. In the wake of Nagaland’s conflict, liberalization and an ‘opening up’ of the state to new connections and flows take place alongside ongoing militarization, nationalist insurgency, and political unrest. Nagaland’s complex peace-conflict continuum has encouraged a reordering of possibilities for men and for women in the state, but also, attempts to maintain fundamental social roles that are seen as defining an ethnic group, as foundations of identity, and for many as uncompromisable. In exploring the complex dynamics of peace, conflict, and tension in Nagaland, Borderland Anxieties offers a window to understanding how gender, politics and anxiety intersect in a borderland state experiencing rapid social, political, and economic changes.
By:
Matthew Wilkinson
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781041176312
ISBN 10: 1041176317
Series: Asian Borderlands
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Part 1: Periphery, 1. 'The Nagaland State Co-operative Bank Ltd. Welcome You to Nagaland', 2. Becoming a Borderland, 3. Legacies of Conflict, Part 2: Proximity, 4. Nagaland Opening Up, 5. 'Spinsters and Divorced Women', 6. New Politics of Gender at the Border, Conclusion, References, Closing
Dr. Matthew Wilkinson is an ethnographer with a special focus on frontiers, borderlands, and liberalization in Asia and South Asia. His research spans a wide range of specialties, but centres on processes of rupture and disruption in complex and unsettled areas. Dr. Wilkinson has a special interest in unpacking ‘messy’ social and political dynamics associated with peacebuilding, development, and liberalization in India and Bangladesh. Willem van Schendel, Professor of History, University of Amsterdam and International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands. He works with the history, anthropology and sociology of Asia. Recent works include A History of Bangladesh (2020), Embedding Agricultural Commodities (2017, ed.), The Camera as Witness (2015, with J. L. K. Pachuau). See uva.academia.edu/WillemVanSchendel.
