The standard frame of security studies is to view Northeast India as a site of multiple “ethnic conflicts.” In trying to unravel these conflicts, the focus has remained on the fault lines between the state and its alleged contenders, the region’s multiple nonstate actors. This special issue tries to look at the conflict scenario of Northeast India through a different set of lenses, in an effort to draw the focus away from the usual conflict histories, to direct attention toward the ideas that underpin the construction of Northeast India as a frontier zone and its people as “others,” both internally divided and divided from the Indian mainstream. The “tribal” movements of Northeast India, and the patterns of conflict associated with them, are well researched. What this issue explores is how and why tribal political projects are created and pursued, and how to understand these projects, whether as strategies of resistance and survival, identity politics, or rival projects of extraction and exploitation. What do we find when we look into the enigmatic frontier as a “zone of anomie,” a “sensitive space,” or a parapolitical scene that defies the taken-for-granted dichotomies between the state and nonstate?

中文翻译：

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东北印度之谜

安全研究的标准框架是将印度东北部视为多个“种族冲突”的场所。在试图解决这些冲突时，重点仍然放在国家与其所谓的竞争者（该地区的多个非国家行为者）之间的断层线上。本期特刊试图通过一组不同的镜头来看待印度东北部的冲突情景，试图将焦点从通常的冲突历史中转移出来，将注意力转移到支撑印度东北部边疆建设的思想上。区及其人民作为“其他人”，在内部与印度主流分裂和分裂。对印度东北部的“部落”运动以及与之相关的冲突模式进行了深入研究。本期探讨的是如何以及为何创建和追求部落政治项目，以及如何理解这些项目，无论是作为抵抗和生存的策略、身份政治还是榨取和剥削的竞争项目。当我们将神秘的边界视为“失范地带”、“敏感空间”或无视国家与非国家之间理所当然的二分法的超政治场景时，我们会发现什么？