Where is Assam?

Where is Assam?

Instead of accepting the nationalisation of everything through political cartographic boundaries, we can use geographical history to locate current social realities

Assam is today a state of India and, as such, an official region of a world entirely covered by nations and encompassed by national maps. We have no choice but to locate any region like Assam inside of national geography, for this both controls our spatial imagination and conveys a specific location, identity and meaning.

But other perspectives do exist. Despite the seemingly universal authority of national geography, the location of social reality is flexible. That Assam is part of India is indisputable; but it is important to note that this fact coexists with others that find different 'locations' for Assam. Indeed, looking at any area's geography in slightly less conventional ways allows for the appearance of a kaleidoscope of social realities. Such an understanding allows for important new frames of reference for scholarship, activism and policy-making.

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Himal Southasian
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