Asian Borderlands Research Network

Scholarly and political boundaries divide Asia artificially into units, such as South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and so on. These divisions not only mask the many and varied commonalities that transcend such boundaries, they also reinforce the marginalisation of people who live in the so-called border areas. Yet a better appreciation of these ‘transitional zones' is in fact critical to our historical understanding of processes of social and cultural change in the states lying beyond them. Nonetheless, such a focus remains peripheral to area studies and the disciplines which feed into them.

We believe that a new academic initiative is needed to recognise the links, both historical and contemporary, that connect people in these borderlands. The Asian Borderlands Research Network has been developed with the intention of focusing particularly on the border regions between South Asia, Central/East and Southeast Asia, where the prevailing notions of area studies have been particularly limiting.

The purpose of the network is to encourage academic exchange between both local and foreign scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Its concerns are varied, ranging from migratory movements, transformations in cultural, linguistic and religious practices, to ethnic mobilization and conflict, marginalisation, and environmental concerns. Its aim is to generate new knowledge and methodologies in order that we should better understand these transitional zones, and to contribute to a reconfiguration of theoretical and methodological approaches to borderlands in general.

It is still open how the network will be organized, and what its activities will be. We particularly want to invite scholars from any of the regions involved to participate in the network, and contribute to the organizational effort. We hope that the 'International Conference on Northeast India and its Transnational Neighbourhood'
(see link on this page) will be attended by a large number of scholars who intend to contribute to the growth and activities of the network. The conference will host a business meeting, at which strategic choices regarding the future activities and the organizational structure of the network will be discussed.

Preliminary planning committee
Stuart Blackburn (SOAS, London)
Erik de Maaker (Leiden University)
Willem van Schendel (University of Amsterdam)
Mandy Sadan (University of Oxford)
Sanjib Baruah (Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati and Bard College, New York)