TY - BOOK

T1 - Governing the Hills

T2 - Imperial Landscapes, National Territories and Production of Place between Naya Nepal and Incredible India!

AU - Bennike, Rune Bolding

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Incredible India! has ostensibly stepped out of the “imaginary waiting room of history” and joined the ranks of modern, developed and branded nations. And Naya Nepal is moving towards a “federal, democratic, and republican” future. Concomitantly, a range of claims to local autonomy brings together local movements and global processes in novel ways. In fact, local place-making itself has been globalised.This dissertation asks what happens when the increasingly globalised production of places collides with a resilient national order of things in the Himalayan hills. It investigates movements for the establishment of a Limbuwan and Gorkhaland state on either side of the border between eastern Nepal and north-eastern India. Through the engagement with this area, the dissertation argues that we need to rethink the spatiality of government in order to understand the contemporary conditions for government as well as local autonomy.Across imperial landscapes, national territories and global place-making, the dis- sertation documents novel collisions between refashioned imperial differences and resilient national monopolies on political authority. It argues that these collisions bring out old problems as well as new opportunities in relation to the aspiration for a larger say in local decision-making: While global connections can provide normative leverage to demands for increased local autonomy, the consequence of global connectivity might also be new imperial arrangements of government at distance.

AB - Incredible India! has ostensibly stepped out of the “imaginary waiting room of history” and joined the ranks of modern, developed and branded nations. And Naya Nepal is moving towards a “federal, democratic, and republican” future. Concomitantly, a range of claims to local autonomy brings together local movements and global processes in novel ways. In fact, local place-making itself has been globalised.This dissertation asks what happens when the increasingly globalised production of places collides with a resilient national order of things in the Himalayan hills. It investigates movements for the establishment of a Limbuwan and Gorkhaland state on either side of the border between eastern Nepal and north-eastern India. Through the engagement with this area, the dissertation argues that we need to rethink the spatiality of government in order to understand the contemporary conditions for government as well as local autonomy.Across imperial landscapes, national territories and global place-making, the dis- sertation documents novel collisions between refashioned imperial differences and resilient national monopolies on political authority. It argues that these collisions bring out old problems as well as new opportunities in relation to the aspiration for a larger say in local decision-making: While global connections can provide normative leverage to demands for increased local autonomy, the consequence of global connectivity might also be new imperial arrangements of government at distance.

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

SN - 87-7393-696-0

BT - Governing the Hills

PB - Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

ER -