Description
Book SynopsisA historical and ethnographic account of a region located on the border of India and Pakistan; the people who live there engage with the specter of war and religious conflict, racial identity, and the processes of modernity through varying performative mo
Trade Review“
Beyond Lines of Control is a theoretically sophisticated, gracefully written ethnography about the politics of performance—and the performance of politics—in one of the most contested geopolitical landscapes in the world.”—Piya Chatterjee, author of
A Time for Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation“
Beyond Lines of Control is an informative book about a region that is understudied in both anthropology and area studies. By moving back and forth between the everyday and the extraordinary, the mundane and the memorialized, Ravina Aggarwal asks us to reflect on the politics of memory for a region that sees itself as forgotten and liminal in the history of the Indian nation-state.”—Kamala Visweswaran, author of
Fictions of Feminist EthnographyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction: Borders Performed 1
1. Staging Independence Day 21
2. Observing Rituals in the Inner Line Zone 57
3. Screening a Contested Landscape 103
4. Songs of Honor, Lines of Descent 149
5. Border Games 179
Conclusion: Flowing across the Lines 223
Notes 237
References 267
Index 287
