Beyond Lines of Control Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India"

Ravina Aggarwal

ISBN 10: 0822334143 / ISBN 13: 9780822334149

Published by Duke University Press, 2004

About this Item

Brand New. Soft Cover International Edition. Different ISBN and Cover Image. Priced lower than the standard editions which is usually intended to make them more affordable for students abroad. The core content of the book is generally the same as the standard edition. The country selling restrictions may be printed on the book but is no problem for the self-use. This Item maybe shipped from US or any other country as we have multiple locations worldwide.

Seller Inventory # ABNR-34533

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Beyond Lines of Control Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India"
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822334143
• ISBN 13: 9780822334149
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: International Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The Kashmir conflict, the ongoing border dispute between India and Pakistan, has sparked four wars and cost thousands of lives. In this innovative ethnography, Ravina Aggarwal moves beyond conventional understandings of the conflict—which tend to emphasize geopolitical security concerns and religious essentialisms—to consider how it is experienced by those living in the border zones along the Line of Control, the 435-mile boundary separating India from Pakistan. She focuses on Ladakh, the largest region in northern India’s State of Jammu and Kashmir. Located high in the Himalayan and Korakoram ranges, Ladakh borders Pakistan to the west and Tibet to the east. Revealing how the shadow of war affects the lives of Buddhist and Muslim communities in Ladakh, Beyond Lines of Control is an impassioned call for the inclusion of the region’s cultural history and politics in discussions about the status of Kashmir.

Aggarwal brings the insights of performance studies and the growing field of the anthropology of international borders to bear on her extensive fieldwork in Ladakh. She examines how social and religious boundaries are created on the Ladakhi frontier, how they are influenced by directives of the nation-state, and how they are shaped into political struggles for regional control that are legitimized through discourses of religious purity, patriotism, and development. She demonstrates in lively detail the ways that these struggles are enacted in particular cultural performances such as national holidays, festivals, rites of passage ceremonies, films, and archery games. By placing cultural performances and political movements in Ladakh center stage, Aggarwal rewrites the standard plot of nation and border along the Line of Control.

About the Author

Ravina Aggarwal is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Smith College. She is the editor of Into the High Ranges: The Penguin Anthology of Mountain Writings and the editor and translator of Forsaking Paradise: Stories from Ladakh, by Abdul Ghani Sheikh. She was a founding editor of the journal Meridians.