Event overview
Sara Shneiderman (University of Cambridge)
Sara Shneiderman is a Research Fellow in Anthropology at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the relationships between political discourse, ritual practice, cultural performance and cross-border migration in producing contemporary identities in South Asia. She has published on Nepal’s Maoist movement, as well as on ethnicity, religion and gender in the Himalayas. Beginning in July 2011, she will be Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and the Council on South Asian Studies at Yale University.
Abstract
Drawing upon ongoing ethnographic research with the Thangmi community, who straddle the borders of Nepal, India, and China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region, this paper engages critically with James Scott’s recent book, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Through a discussion of cultural and political mobility in the Himalayas, I reconsider debates over the role of nation-states in shaping concepts of citizenship and ethnicity in border zones.
I argue that the utility of “Zomia”—a term advocated by Scott to refer to a broad swathe of upland Southeast Asia as an alternative to zones of study defined by national borders—hinges on its ability to provide an additional framework for analysis and political struggle that enriches, rather than replaces, existing nation-state rubrics. Focusing on the issue of intentionality and agency on the part of marginalized groups vis-à-vis the state, I suggest that many ‘cross-border citizens’ across the Himalayas are at once engaged in making strategic claims on the multiple nation-states in which they live and work, while also remaining deeply committed to the ‘ungoverned’ aspects of their identity in cultural and psychological terms.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 23 Mar 2011 | 4:00pm - 5:30pm |
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