Belonging to the Borders: Uncertain Identities in Northeast India

Philippe Ramirez (1)

1 CEH - Centre d'Études Himalayennes

Ernest Gellner (1983) considered that, like nations, ethnic groups were 'invented'. The analogy is all the more accurate in that the nation-state model, at least in the form it had in nineteenth-century European nationalisms, is the main model pursued by most ethnic politicians. They regard ethnic groups as true nations not only in their nature – homogeneous, specific, and immutable communities – but also in the rights they should be entitled to – an exclusive territory and political sovereignty over it. Nevertheless, the most recent history shows such fictions often becoming realities, in the form of identities that ordinary people sincerely assume for themselves. So, if ethnic groups are invented, or at least 're-invented', two questions emerge: firstly, out of what original elements and by what processes are they shaped? And secondly: how did the social identities look before that, what type of communities did people feel that they then belonged to?

Mots clés: ethnicity; India; Assam; Meghalaya

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Philippe Ramirez. Belonging to the Borders: Uncertain Identities in Northeast India. Toffin G., Pfaff J. The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas Local Attachments and Boundary Dynamics, 4, Sage, pp.77-97, 2011, Governance, Conflict and Civic Action, 978-81-321-0772. ⟨hal-01382606⟩