Papers by Priya Bose
Infrastructures of (Im)mobility: maps, mines, militarization, and the making of remote borderland in Kargil, 2025
This article critiques the dominant paradigm of mobility in borderland studies by foregrounding t... more This article critiques the dominant paradigm of mobility in borderland studies by foregrounding the concept of im/mobility as a crucial lens for understanding the marginalization of border regions. Employing ethnographic methods in Kargil, it posits that infrastructural development, specifically road construction, constitutes an extension of the border-making process, functioning as an instrument of state control and surveillance. These infrastructural regimes impose a distinct territoriality, disrupting established sociospatial practices and engendering a condition of remoteness, effectively transforming the region into a 'captive' borderland. By enhancing connectivity to previously inaccessible areas, these road networks facilitate state surveillance and cartographic practices, rendering the region legible to state power. However, the article also acknowledges the agency of local populations in negotiating and, at times, transgressing these state-imposed structures, notably through the utilization of social media platforms.
A conventional book review of Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe's experimental ethnography would miss ... more A conventional book review of Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe's experimental ethnography would miss the point of their imaginative prose. Th at point being: research creates non-representational kaleidoscopes of worlding, even if buttoned-up genres of academic prose pretend otherwise. Consider that proposition seriously before you embark on Muecke and Roe's writerly adventure down the Lurujarri Trail, which weaves its way through ochre landscapes, beige concepts and blue legalities. Each chapter of Th e Children's Country is recast as a narrative day on a week-long hike through Western Australia. But the trail that Muecke and Roe recreate is not a snow globe idyll. Rather, it is a fi cto-critical recomposition of the Lurujarri Trail, which Roe fi rst established to share his Aboriginal 'songlines' with Australian publics. Roe wanted to share these songlines (which are part landscape, part music and part dream) because he was concerned that extractivism would obliterate such practices of walking with Country. Th ese songlines, which hybridise nature and culture, are hard for cosmopolitan Moderns to grasp. Roe appreciated this modernist shortcoming, however, and designed the Lurujarri Trail as an embodied pedagogy to teach Moderns about Aboriginal dream-tracks. Taking the embodied pedagogy of this trail seriously, Th e Children's Country seems to ask: if this trail was a scholar, what book would it write? Muecke and Roe answer this question by writing performatively. Performative writing (which becomes steeped in its object, rather than desiccating its object) has become an established technique in the subfi eld of experimental ethnography. Th e Children's Country off ers an Australian spin on performative writing, deploying Muecke's characteristic 'fi cto-critical' style-a style which emerges as an oasis in the binary desert between fi ction and fact. Ficto-criticism encourages its reader to wonder where the story stops and the truth begins. It surprises because it does not use criticism to 'undermine' truth. Instead, it highlights that 'facts are always carried by stories' (p. xvi). It is as if Muecke and Roe composted fi ction and fact into an earthy storytelling aroma. Th e Children's Country performs these fi cto-critical experiments while simultaneously engaging transdisciplinary debates that are oft en called 'multispecies ethnography' or 'cosmopolitics'. Drawing on the concepts that have gained traction in such posthuman subfi elds, Muecke and Roe develop new approaches to These book reviews are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license as part of Berghahn Open Anthro, a subscribe-to-open model for APC-free open access made possible by the journal's subscribers. 150 BOOK REVIEWS networks and ontologies through phrases like 'modes of belonging' (p. 125). Th ey defi ne this phrase in contradistinction to Latourian modes of existence, which attend to what a network is, rather than what a network has. Moving beyond nuanced defi nition, Muecke and Roe also propose posthuman updates to classical concepts, such as totemism, by suggesting: 'Aboriginal "sciences" may have invented totemism as an extended multispecies kinship system' (p. 62). Th is multispecies update to totemism bolsters the accreditations of the Lurujarri Trail as a landscaped lecturer who teaches Moderns about the merits of Aboriginal governance. Totemism, in this view, is reconfi gured as a 'time-honoured system for ecological management' (p. 146) that incorporates 'non-humans into representative democracy' (pp. 51-52). Th is totemistic democracy emerges in contradistinction to the naturalistic government of Modern Australia. Muecke and Roe's fi cto-critical account of the Lurujarri Trail defl ects the cut-and-dry concepts of critique. But I am so well trained! Like a dog sniffi ng for stimulating aromas in a bed of roses, my critical instincts encounter curious scents when Th e Children's Country describes itself as a 'partisan text', which presents its 'case in the best possible light, to the point of avoiding counter-evidence' (p. xvii). Th is partisan approach is particularly well-illustrated when Muecke and Roe mention 'Indigenous sciences' (p. 86)-or what is frequently called TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge). A complex debate swirls around TEK. But Muecke and Roe seem to sidestep this complexity, perhaps because it provides evidence against the merits of Indigenous science. For example, while Muecke and Roe persuasively describe an incident in which Indigenous science locates endangered turtles more accurately than Western science, a review of the TEK literature turns up many anecdotes in which Indigenous peoples do not conform to the fi gure of the 'ecologically noble savage'. I suggest, then, that a partisan text is more persuasive if it confronts (rather than avoids) counter-evidence. Showing why common critiques of TEK do not apply to Australian Indigenous sciences would make it harder for the well-trained critic to pick up provoking scents in the green gardens of Th e Children's Country. While wandering along the Lurujarri Trail, with Muecke and Roe by your side, it may help to glance at the legal calendar in the appendix, treating it as a temporal map through a spell-binding literary landscape.
Book Review , 2021
Swargajyoti Gohain. 2020. Imagined Geographies in the Indo-Tibetan Borderlands: Culture, Politics... more Swargajyoti Gohain. 2020. Imagined Geographies in the Indo-Tibetan Borderlands: Culture, Politics, Place. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 246 pp. Figures, bibliography, index. €98.99 (eBook).
South Asian History and Culture, 2021
Book Reviews by Priya Bose
South Asian History and Culture, 2022
Book Review: Kashmir in the Aftermath of Partition, 2022
Among the various writings on Kashmir, Shahla Hussain's Kashmir in the Aftermath of Partition is ... more Among the various writings on Kashmir, Shahla Hussain's Kashmir in the Aftermath of Partition is potentially the first historically grounded academic work on post-partition Kashmir. Most writings on this period are predominantly by political scientists, social anthropologists, or journalists with diverse ideological orientations. At the heart of the book lies the multiple meanings of azaadi or freedom as it emerged across various historical epochs; the book thus brings to the fore the local voices of Kashmir. Hussain highlights that these voices are not one but many and are deeply fragmented; however, they have most often come together to echo a singular voice of the Kashmiris independent of the two nations that seek authority and control over this region. In the first chapter of the book, Hussain reflects on the different meanings of pre-partition Kashmir, which informs us about the changing connotation of the word 'freedom' among Kashmiris, ranging from social-economic to political independence. She explains that during Mughal, Afghan and Sikh rules, Kashmiris always wished freedom from exorbitant taxation, injustice, social discrimination, and other oppressive measures. However, the miseries of Kashmiris, especially the Muslims who were in the majority, were intensified by the communal attitude of Dogra rulers. Consequently, the Kashmiri Muslims saw political freedom as the only alternative to change their destiny. This chapter also throws light on the communal governance, policies, and attitude of Dogra rulers visa -vis the Muslim majority-something that triggered severe dissent from the Muslims and started a movement to uproot the Dogra rule. The first chapter also highlights the failure of the national conference's secular claim, i.e., a wish to include people from all communities in its fold. However, the conference failed to maintain its secular character when it opposed the introduction of Devanagari script. The chapter ends with a Pakistan-sponsored tribal raid and Kashmir's subsequent signing of a temporary instrument of accession with India in 1947. The second chapter of the book starts with the post-partition history of Kashmir and talks about the social and economic disaster brought to Kashmir by the partition. The author discusses the dismal condition of Kashmiris on both sides of the ceasefire line, especially how Kashmiris living in Pakistan administered Kashmir wrote letters to friends in India administered Kashmir about their deteriorated conditions and harsh treatment. Disaster was brought to Kashmir's economy due to the closure of the Jhelum-Valley Road. The road had earlier led Kashmir's trade with regions in west Punjab such as Rawalpindi and other overlying areas. Trade and commerce were thus highly affected by the road closure. The closure of the Jhelum-Valley Road and the subsequent economic crisis led to Kashmir's economic dependence on Indian aid. This dependence eventually created a situation for the Kashmir nationalist government to think about Kashmir's integration with the Indian state. This chapter also highlights the changing vision of Sheikh Abdullah about the political future of Kashmir from an integrated Indian Kashmir to independent Kashmir. Following his assumption of power, Sheikh Abdullah was a firm advocate of Kashmir's better future with a secular India and suppressed all the voices that countered Kashmir's integration to India; however, the chapter argues, the failure of Indian secularism and the concomitant subjugation of Kashmiri Muslims and the unwillingness of the Indian state to provide autonomy to Kashmir led Abdullah to rethink the calls for Independent Kashmir leading to his arrest in 1953. The third chapter deals with the history of Kashmir post-Abdullah's arrest in 1953. In this chapter, the author underscores how all political regimes followed by Sheikh's arrest were SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
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Papers by Priya Bose
Book Reviews by Priya Bose