The Spectrum of Citizenship in South Asian Borderlands

This book examines how citizenship operates in the contested borderlands between India, Nepal, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, revealing a complex reality that defies conventional nation-state frameworks. By focusing on these reportedly porous regions where state authority proves inconsistent, the collection uncovers how cross-border mobility, intimacies, and connections generate anxieties and conflicts that acquire unique intensity in these liminal spaces. Rather than accepting citizenship as a binary condition tied to territorial sovereignty, the authors identify "adjacent spaces of citizenship" that challenge nationalized norms and demand new analytical frameworks. Through careful attention to mundane and seemingly innocuous interactions, the collection demonstrates how citizenship in borderlands must be understood as a spectrum of relational interactions rather than fixed categories. These specific manifestations fundamentally reshape our understanding of what citizenship means when territorial control itself remains contested, offering critical insights into how people navigate belonging, rights, and identity in spaces where the state's reach is uncertain.This volume addresses broad subject areas including political geography, citizenship studies, border studies, South Asian politics, migration and mobility studies, state sovereignty, and transnational identities. It will appeal to scholars and researchers in political science, sociology, anthropology, geography, and international relations, development studies as well as policymakers, human rights practitioners, and graduate students interested in citizenship theory, borderland dynamics, and the complexities of state authority in South Asia.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

About the Author

Gorky Chakraborty is Faculty at Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), India, where he researches development- related issues in Northeast India. Some of his recent publications include Citizenship in Contemporary Times: The Indian Context (Routledge, 2023), Development and Sustainability: Perspectives from Northeast India (2024), Accumulation and Dispossession: Communal Land in Northeast India (Routledge, 2024), and Borderland Intimacies and Discontents: India's East and Northeast (2026).

Samik Roy Chowdhury is Senior Research Fellow at IDSK, where his work examines the intersection of citizenship and borderlands in East and Northeast India.