State vs. Society in Northeast India: History, Politics and the Everyday (SAGE Studies on India′s North East)

By: G. Amarjit Sharma

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Synopsis: State vs. Society in Northeast India: History, Politics and the Everyday looks at a state as an entity that does not operate strictly as a rational, legal and administrative organization. State in the Northeast region is very much shaped by the social, economic and political practices on the ground. Using archival and ethnographic evidences, the book questions notions of region and border as fixed spaces. A state, in the process of governing society, produces itself through formal and informal practices on the ground, and the book argues that Northeast India is a significant site for studying this. It engages with conceptual, theoretical and methodological challenges thrown up by the political experiences of ordinary people in the Northeast. The book discusses everyday legal discourse, official public memory, development discourse, cases of becoming marginalized, resistance and ways of networking with the authorities. The objective is to understand the various ways in which state and society engage with each other; and to look at layers of historical interconnections that inform much of contemporary Northeast politics. The book will especially be of interest to scholars in politics, history, sociology and anthropology.