Borderland Anxieties: Shifting Understandings of Gender, Place and Identity at the India-Burma Border

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.