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In Asia, where authoritarian-developmental states have proliferated, statehood and social control are heavily contested in borderland spaces. As a result, in the post-Cold War world, borders have not only redefined Asian incomes and mobilities, they have also rekindled neighbouring relations and raised questions about citizenship and security.
The contributors to the Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands highlight some of these processes taking place at the fringe of the state. Offering an array of comparative perspectives of Asian borders and borderlands in the global context, this handbook is divided into thematic sections, including:
Livelihoods, commodities and mobilities
Physical land use and agrarian transformations
- Borders and boundaries of the state and the notion of statelessness
- Re-conceptualizing trade and the economy in the borderlands
- The existence and influence of humanitarians, religions, and NGOs
- The militarization of borderlands
Causing us to rethink and fundamentally question some of the categories of state, nation, and the economy, this is an important resource for students and scholars of Asian Studies, Border Studies, Social and Cultural Studies, and Anthropology.
List of contents
Introduction: Asian borderlands in a global perspective, Martin Saxer, Alessandro Rippa, and Alexander Horstmann Part 1 Conceptual framing 1.Violence in Asian borderlands, Reece Jones 2. Asia´s gendered borderlands, Malini Sur 3. Intimate militarism: domesticating the border in rural Central Asia, Madeleine Reeves 4. Borders and bordering in Asia, Karin Dean 5. Zomia and beyond, Jean Michaud Part 2 Livelihoods, commodities, mobilities Introduction, Christine Bonnin 6. Political livelihoods in northeast borderlands of Cambodia: legacy of the past, territorial incorporation, and confrontation, Frédéric Bourdier 7. Cross-border commodities: processual histories, commodity chains, and the yak tail trade, Tina Harris 8. Old routes, new roads: proximity across the China-Pakistan border, Alessandro Rippa 9. Making place within a geopolitical frontier: Mae Aw (Ban Rak Thai), Carl Grundy-Warr, Jessica Teo, and Chin Wei Jun 10. Making connectivity work: exploring cross-border livelihoods between Kazakhstan and China, Henryk Alff 11. Ritual and issues of ethnic integration in the borderlands of the state of Rakhine/Arakan (Myanmar), Alexandra de Mersan Part 3Physical land use and agrarian transformations Introduction, Jean-François Rousseau 12. Genesis of state space: frontier commodification in Malaysian Borneo, Noboru Ishikawa 13. Frontier constellations: agrarian expansion and sovereignty on the Indonesian- Malaysian border, Michael Eilenberg 14. Beyond 'natural' pressures: Chinese agriculture in the Russian Far East,Jiayi Zhou 15. A failed market experiment and ignored livelihoods: Jatropha expansion in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands, Jean-François Rousseau Part 4 Border and boundaries of the state, governance, and the provinces .../ part contents
About the author
Alexander Horstmann is Associate Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at Tallinn University, Estonia.
Martin Saxer is an anthropologist based at LMU Munich, Germany.
Alessandro Rippa is a postdoctoral fellow at LMU Munich, Germany.
Summary
In Asia, where authoritarian-developmental states have proliferated, statehood and social control are heavily contested in borderland spaces. This handbook highlights some of the processes taking place at the fringe of the state, showcasing how centering the margins may help our understanding of territory, sovereignty, state and economy.
