Timber Assemblage, Militarization, and Entangled People’s Lives at the Indo (Naga)-Myanmar Borderland

Abstract

The paper engages on the assemblage of timber production and transaction at Indo (Naga)-Myanmar borderland, Manipur state, Northeast India, an emerging tributary of India’s Act East Policy, yet characterized by several marginalities in terms of state development parameters [and governance] entwist in historically militarized setting. The paper primarily looks at different factors, actors, flows, and drivers of timber production and transaction across the Indo-Myanmar border from the Sagaing region, Myanmar, to Manipur, India. Rather, this cycle and flows of timber coalesced with economic and geopolitical intricacies of the borderland thereby engender occupation of multiple authorities and governments. The paper provides an account of how these different authorities negotiate and co-regulate over the production and taxation of timber to meet certain revenue goals and aspirations beyond the normative understanding of legality and illegality – frontier of a kind in its own might. In reference to this network of timber trade, the paper further dwells into conversation of everyday experiences of militarization, livelihoods, village roads, and infrastructures are closely entangled around timber production, transaction, and its allied activities. In a nutshell, the paper argues that timber trade at borderland represent an assemblage of multifaceted realities and practices around the intricate socio-political and economic dynamics.