Troubled National Territories

Project Leader: Sanjib Baruah

Over many centuries, mobile empires and mobile settlers of many kinds produced mobile imperial territories where fixed borders of national sovereignty were imposed in the twentieth century. This process produced numerous troubled national territories where conflict and oppression persist, most notably, in old imperial frontiers, where national states impose their will by force in the name of national identity, unity, and security. This project brings together studies of these regions, all across Asia, to shed fresh light on the process of producing national territory. These are areas where incorporation into national state territory has been traumatic during the militant state pursuit of national unity and security inside the global legal framework of national sovereignty. Each case is unique, with its own history and meanings, but they together reveal facets of national territory that enrich understandings of Asia’s globalization.

Project Events

Global Asia Program