Deterritorialised Identity And Transborder Movement In South Asia

This volume is about migration across South Asia and the complex negotiation of borders by people and the states in the process. A border is understood as a form of demarcation, but it also opens up the flow of people, goods, and ideas of legality and illegality. Borders are dynamic and dyadic in the interface of state and non-state actors involved in border operations. Consequently, transborder movement becomes a complex web involving concerns of security, trade, militancy, and questions of citizenship, along with discourses of ghettoisation, belonging and otherness. Since the mid-20th century, the South Asian region has witnessed growing social and political instability and breakdown of regional cooperation. In this context, the volume casts a wide, interdisciplinary lens across South Asia and discusses economic migration as well as forced migration due to persecution and natural disasters. It looks at how understandings of ‘territoriality’ and ‘border’ become blurred due to increasing transborder migration in the region: how states in South Asia address transborder movements at both policy level and on the ground; and how borderlands become spaces for illegal trade and informal economy in South Asia and for negotiations between states and refugees on identity and citizenship. This highly topical volume is for a wide group of scholars and students interested in South Asia, ranging from sociology, anthropology, political science, history, to interdisciplinary fields like migration studies, peace and conflict studies, and development studies.

The Rohingyas have become a 'crisis' for all including the host countries, the international community and even for themselves. Much has been written about the clearance operation perpetrated by Myanmar military forces and vigilantes in 2017, forcing Rohingya survivors to migrate and seek refuge in other countries. How they have been surviving during the post-2017 period has largely been left out in academic literature. The Rohingya Crisis: Human Rights Issues, Policy Concerns and Burden Sharing addresses the many aspects of Rohingya lives in Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Southeast Asian countries and in the West. This book studies the transforming public discourse about Rohingyas, the blame-game of ecological costs of Rohingya presence, and the declining relationship between the host communities and the refugees. It examines causes for escalating intra-group conflicts, decreasing international support and the repatriation failures. It analyses the critical roles of the international community, global civil society and diaspora activism, and discusses what the future might hold. 'Burden' sharing should be seen as sharing responsibilities for global justice. It is not the Rohingyas who are the burden.

This book provides an in-depth investigation of citizenship and nationalism in connection with the Rohingya community. It analyses the processes of production of statelessness in South Asia in general, and with regard to the Rohingyas in particular. Following the persecution of the Rohingya community in Myanmar (Burma) by the military and the Buddhist militia, a host of texts, mostly descriptive, have examined the historical, political and cultural roots of the genocidal massacre and the flight of its victims to South Asia and South-East Asian countries. The UNHCR reports describe the plight of Rohingyas during and after their journey, while other works focus on the political-economic roots of this ethnic conflict and its consequences for the Rohingyas. To date, very few theoretical insights have been provided on the Rohingya issue. This book seeks to fill that gap, and explores a dialogue between the state and its citizens and non-citizens that results in the production of statelessness. In theoretical terms, the book addresses the construction of citizens and non-citizens on the part of the state, and the process of symbolic othering, achieved through various state practices couched in terms of nationalism. Extensive case studies from India, Myanmar and Bangladesh provide the foundation for a robust theoretical argument. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to students, academics and researchers with a focus on political economy in South Asia in general and/or refugee studies in particular.

This handbook explores the ways in which Islam, as one of the fastest growing religions, has become a global faith for both Muslims and non-Muslims in Southeast Asia with its universality, inclusivity, and shared features with other Islamic expressions and manifestations. It offers an up-to-date, wide-ranging, comprehensive, concise, and readable introduction to the field of Islam in Southeast Asia. With specific themes of pertinent contemporary relevance, the contributions by experts in the field provide fresh insights into the roles of states, societies, scholars, social movements, political parties, economic institutions, sacred sites, and other forces that structured the faith over many centuries. The handbook is structured in three parts: Muslim Global Circulations Marginal Narratives Refashioning Pieties This handbook stands out as a single and synergistic reference work that explores the ebb and flow of Islam seeking to decenter many existing assumptions about it in Southeast Asia. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and policymakers working on Islam, Muslims, and their interactions with other communities in a plural setting.

Delving into the past and present of various secessionist movements in Northeast India, political conflict in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, a political movement for autonomy in Darjeeling hills in Eastern India, and the Rohingya migration crisis affecting India and Bangladesh, this book examines the volatile co-existence of competing population groups in Eastern South Asia. Through the conceptual lens of the ‘home’ and feeling of ‘homeland’ in Eastern South Asia, the authors seek answers to three complex but interrelated questions: why is Eastern South Asia facing so many political movements and conflicts? How have the political movements affected the region and people? Why is the number of migrants in this region so high? Answers to these questions are vital to those studying South Asia and interested in understanding this region.

The book focuses on voices of displaced women who constitute a critical part of the migration process through an unravelling of the engendered displacement. It draws attention to the various processes, methods and approaches by national and international human rights and humanitarian laws and principles, and the experiences of the relevant communities, organisations towards peaceful co-existence. The contributions to this volume embellish the argument that there is a direct correlation between an academic researcher's positionality, methods and trajectories of critical knowledge production. In particular, feminist epistemologies with specific emphasis on post-coloniality utilized in conjunction with scholarship related to transnational migration studies constitute a distinctly powerful vantage point for challenging methodological nationalism and the syndrome of 'seeing like the state' in the area of forced migration studies.

Routledge Handbook of South Asian Migrations presents cutting-edge research on South Asian migrants written from a diverse theoretical and methodological perspective by leading scholars from around the world. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of how South Asians negotiate and promote South Asian culture both within and outside the region while undergoing several challenges during the process of migration. The Handbook covers many dimensions of South Asian migrations written by leading scholars from across the world, including but not limited to sociology, history, anthropology, economics, political science, geography, education, psychology, literature, and cultural studies. Divided thematically into five broad sections the chapters critically analyse some of the pertinent issues of South Asian migrations: • Contextualizing South Asian Migrations • Migration, Language, and Identity • Politics of Migration and Development • Gender, Culture, and Migration • Migration, Diaspora, and Transnationalism Addressing these issues from a multidisciplinary, multigenerational, multiracial, and multi-ethnic perspective, the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Migrations fills a gap in the literature and is an invaluable resource for students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Human Trafficking: Global History and Perspectives argues that, far from being a recent development, human trafficking is rooted in the history of the human condition and has only been amplified by globalization. Using a multidisciplinary approach that traces the historical roots of human trafficking in global history, the chapters explore case studies from different parts of the world to show that human trafficking is not only a global phenomenon but a localized enigma. The contributors contend that the causes, and thus, the solutions, are rooted in local and regional social, cultural, political, and economic conditions of victims. The case studies include global, regional, and local examples to analyze the complex causes and effects of human trafficking as well as the legal ramifications.