Mr Raj Kaithwar1
1UNSW Canberra, Canberra, Australia
Biography:
Intrigued by the absence of non-humans in political discussions, Raj has been researching on new materialist dimension of geopolitics for his PhD project at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. He is developing a theoretical understanding of geopolitics as an assemblage and empirically revisiting South Asian geopolitics by studying the role of transboundary shifting rivers in shaping the region’s geopolitics. He has a forthcoming article on Democratic Assemblages in Theoria and a book chapter titled ‘Shifting Rivers’ in Making Things International (Volume 4): Failures, Accidents, Surprises.
Abstract:
This paper conceptualizes international borders as assemblages and traces the more-than-human origins of the India-East Pakistan boundary formation process. I argue that boundary demarcation processes between modern states can be understood as assemblages which are informed and reformed in multiple ways by non-human actants. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of (de)territorialisation in reading the proceedings of the Bengal Boundary Commission and the Bagge Tribunal, I argue that ‘other factors’ such as shifting rivers played a critical role in the boundary demarcation process between India and East Pakistan, particularly in the emergence and continuation of border disputes. Through this, the paper presents a non-anthropocentric history of the emergence of post-colonial states in South Asia and makes a case for listening, recognising and assimilating non-humans in our polity.