The Kashmir space: Bordering and belonging across the line of control

• Author: Antía Mato Bouzas
• Position: Senior Research Fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin (Germany).
• Pages: 1-23

www.reei.org

DOI: 10.17103/reei.31.13

THE KASHMIR SPACE: BORDERING AND BELONGING

ACROSS THE LINE OF CONTROL

EL ESPACIO DE CACHEMIRA: PROCESOS DE

DIFERENCIACIÓN FRONTERIZA Y CUESTIONES DE

PERTENENCIA A TRAVÉS DE LA LÍNEA DE CONTROL

Antía Mato Bouzas

∗

Summary: I.

I

NTRODUCTION

.

II.

D

EFINING

K

ASHMIR

.

III.

T

HE

K

ASHMIR

B

ORDERLAND

.

IV.

B

ORDERING PROCESSES AND BELONGING

.

V.

C

ONCLUSIONS

.

VI.

R

EFERENCES

.

A

BSTRACT

: This article examines the Kashmir dispute by using the border – the ambivalent spatiality

created by the Line of Control (LoC) – as a method to analyse the borderland. Through the adoption of a

borderland perspective, it explores the way in which various sites in the divided territories are affected by

territorialization p rocesses related to transformations of the state space. By looking at h ow people there

refer to the disputed context of Kashmir, the article highlights forms in which people are being bordered

and the conditions of political life in these territories.

The Ka shmir bord erland thus emerges as a distinct political space and belonging becomes a conceptual

tool with which to contextualize the cultural, social and spatial p erceptions and experiences of individuals

or groups about that space in contrast to objective political forms of membership. The focus on belonging

unveils senses of loss, displacement a nd marginalization but also emerging forms of dissent against state

making processes.

R

ESUMEN

: El artículo examina la disputa de Cachemira desde la frontera – esto es, la espacialidad

ambigua creada por la Línea de Control (LoC) en su condición de frontera disputada – como método

para analizar el “borderland” o regió n fronteriza. A través d e la adopción de un enfoque q ue se centra

en la región fronteriza, el artículo explora como determinados procesos de territorialización en las zonas

divididas por la Lo C están influidos por transformaciones en la espacialidad del Estado. El trabajo

destaca que el modo de entender la disputa por parte de los habitantes de los distintos territorios depende

de procesos de diferenciación en curso en estas zonas fronterizas y del marco político- legal de estos

territorios.

El trabajo señala que toda la región fronteriza de Cachemira – que incluye a los territorios bajo control

de India y Pakistán – puede considerarse u n espacio político diferenc iado. Este estudio propone

considerar el sentido d e pertenencia o “belonging” como una herramienta conceptual adecuada para

contextualizar las percepciones culturales, sociales y espaciales, así como las experiencias de los actores

(individuos y grupos) sobre este espacio, en lugar de limitarse a expresiones políticas objetivas de

Fecha de recepción del original: 30 de octubre de 2015. Fe cha de aceptación de la versión final: 9 de mayo

de 2016.

∗

Dr. Antía Mato Bouzas, Senior Research Fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin

(Germany). E-mail: antia.mbouzas@zmo.de

[31]

R

EVISTA

E

LECTRÓNICA DE

E

STUDIOS

I

NTERNACIONALES

(2016)

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DOI: 10.17103/reei.31.13

pertenencia. El interés sobre el sentido de pertenencia o “belonging” permite aportar la s experiencias de

pérdida (sobre la situación anterior a 1947), la situación de la población desplazada (por el conflicto y

las familias divididas), pero también dar cuenta de crecientes formas de expresión de disentimiento, como

movimientos regionales, contra los procesos de formación estatal en curso.

K

EY WORDS

: Kas hmir, Line of Co ntrol (LoC), border, borderland perspective, conflict, space of

exception, belonging.

P

ALABRAS CLAVE

: Cachemira, Línea de Control (LoC), fron tera, región fronteriza, conflicto, espacio de

excepción, pertenencia.

I.

I

NTRODUCTION

The term ‘Kashmir’ evokes different spatial references for different people living in the

disputed areas across India and Pakistan. The articulation of these spatial references is a

response to the bordering processes that affect them. People’s drawing of boundaries

that consider the inclusion or exclusion of some territories as part of ‘Kashmir’

challenge dominant understandings of the dispute. Their views show that, rather than

state peripheries, the territories they inhabit are the result of specific entangled historical

trajectories of the borderland as a distinct space. In this respect, the way the border – in

this case the Line of Control (LoC) – is addressed becomes crucial.

This article discusses these spatial references by problematizing the disputed character

of the LoC that distinguishes between a Pakistani and an Indian Kashmir. Thus it takes

the border as a method, as a research object and epistemological viewpoint, as defined

by Mezzadra and Neilson (2013, 14−19). The work of these two scholars, however,

focuses on borders in relation to their role in the multiplication of labour which produces

new power hierarchies for which established forms for the organization of political life

are unsuitable. Here I use the border as a method to refer to the border of the state, and

attempt to analyse the exploitation of places, and the hierarchies involved in it, in

relation to transformations in the state space. As Mezzadra and Neilson recognize,

Kashmir is among those places where the claim of the nation-state to exclusively control

its borders is effective to some degree (2013, 201–2). Thus, the reproduction of the

border by force, and so the state form, situates border people neither in nor out of the

state political container. The border is the method by which to examine the borderland,

that is, the territories that are legally disputed (and divided by the LoC), according to the

UN resolutions on Kashmir, and that were part of the Princely State of Jammu and

Kashmir before 1947. The argument that follows is that the consideration of Kashmir as

a borderland, rather than as a divided peripheral area of two states, has two main

epistemological consequences. On the one hand, it takes a critical view of perspectives

that have presented the dispute as one between India and Pakistan or that have

overestimated the role of identity – Kashmiri Muslims vs the rest − in the conflict in the

Valley on the Indian side. On the other hand, by focusing on the borderland, it highlights

the transformation of the contested territories – despite the apparent ‘immobile’

character of the dispute – in which various actors (from borderlanders to state agents)