Drawing from
extensive archival work and long-term ethnographic research, this book focuses
on the so-called Bhotiyas, former trans-Himalayan traders and a Scheduled Tribe
of India who reside in several high valleys of the Kumaon Himalaya. The area is
located in the border triangle between India, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR,
People’s Republic of China), and Nepal, where contestations over political
boundaries have created multiple challenges as well as opportunities for local
mountain communities. Based
on an analytical framework that is grounded in and contributes to recent
advances in the field of border studies, the author explores how the
Bhotiyas have used their agency todevelop
a flourishing trans-Himalayan trade under British colonial influence; to assert
an identity and win legal recognition as a tribal community in the political
setup of independent India; and to innovate their pastoral mobility in the
context of ongoing state and market reforms. By examining the
Bhotiyas’ trade, identity and mobilitythis
book showshow and why the Himalayan border region has evolved as an agentive site
of political action for a variety of different actors.
