Self-determination and Integration: A Site of Negotiation and a Village Named Panbari

Saikia, Prarthana (2024) Self-determination and Integration: A Site of Negotiation and a Village Named Panbari. [Publications (Pre-joining)]

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Abstract

The demand for self-determination of various nationalities has been central to the sociopolitical and cultural life of Assam, a northeastern state of India. The Statutory Autonomous Councils formed under the State Act are a non-territorial arrangement to address the question of self-determination without marking boundaries between co-habiting communities and therefore are a unique model of integration. However, this has led to conflicting situations reflecting how ‘integration’ emerges as a site of negotiation, redefines inter-community relationships, and challenges the state’s intervention in the matter. Drawing from a village study, this article endeavours to probe self-determination as a tool of (dis)integration, as a site of negotiation and argues that the various ways of addressing the question of self-determination adopted by the new nation-state ultimately affect the historically produced inter-community relationships. Methodologically, the article seeks to revisit the promises of ‘village study’ through the multicultural habitat named Panbari, a village in the northeast of Assam, and reflects how the every day in a small village establishes a guiding conversation with the everyday in a multicultural nation-state of India.

Item Type:	Publications (Pre-joining)
Authors:	Saikia, Prarthana
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Communities
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6548
Publisher URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/SOB

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