| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Ethnographic research conducted among the semi-nomadic Muslim Jatts, who inhabit the interstices of the contemporary State both discursively as well as physically, helps us to critically interrogate the formulation of region as articulated both by the modern nation-state as well as contemporary religious ideology. In the official discourse of Gujarat State, the Jatts are represented as threats to the territorial integrity of the nation-state in general and to Gujarat in particular, their cross-border movements into Pakistan designed to destabilise the region. An ethnographic analysis of the state shows how state ideologies are produced discursively over time. This paper argues that travel and trade links in this region have produced historically-blurred boundaries between region, religion and now nation. These histories productively re-configure the current geopolitical iteration of space and belonging in contemporary Gujarat as enunciated by the state.
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