Paper details
| Paper authors | Omer Aijazi |
| In panel on | Resisting Border Violence: The Role of Civil Society, Local Actors, and Researchers |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
How do you refuse a border that isn’t even real? And live in anticipation of its dissolution—because it will wither away.
The Line of Control, a de facto border, arbitrarily divides the contested region of Kashmir into areas controlled by Pakistan and India. It slices through neighborhoods, families, kin. Not recognized as an international boundary, it is merely a ceasefire line—temporary, fragile—established between two states locked in a prolonged struggle over Kashmir. But borders don’t necessarily only pose closure and abrupt endings, but also hint at a politics of possibilities to come.
Drawing on ethnographic work near the Line of Control, I explore how people refuse the imposed line and its border ontologies. This takes many forms: scattering seeds—what some may call “flower bombs”—near stark military structures, a welcoming gesture for imagined visitors from the other side. Schoolchildren, dressed in traditional attire, perform cultural solidarity with peers they’ve never met from across the divide, but recognize as kin. Tea is grown in a suitcase brought along by an insurgent fighter who crossed the line illegally.
These are gestures of anticipation, of waiting, and welcoming. Performed under the radar of militarized surveillance, they speak of a future yet to come—a Kashmir where Kashmiris can freely choose living, laughter, and learning.
