Building a Mountain Fortress for India: Sympathy, Imagination and the Reconfiguration of Ladakh into a Border Area

Abstract: The consequences of even small glacier decrease and changes of seasonal snow cover are critical for the functioning of meltwater-dependent mountain agriculture. In order to deal with recurrent water scarcity, different types of ice reservoirs, commonly called “artificial glaciers,” have been introduced in Ladakh and promoted as appropriate adaptive strategies to cope with changes in the cryosphere. The resulting seasonal ice reservoirs increase meltwater availability during the critical period of water scarcity in spring. We examine the efficacy of 14 ice reservoirs through a long-term analysis of their functioning within the environmental and socioeconomic context of Ladakh. Using multi-temporal satellite data (1969–2017), close range photogrammetry, and repeat field measurements (2014 and 2015), we provide an inventory and typology of these ice reservoirs and estimate storage volume of one selected structure, which ranges from 1010 to 3220 m3 of water. We extrapolate this volume to all ice reservoirs and estimate potential irrigation cycles of cropped areas, which vary between less than 0.1 in unfavorable cases and almost 3 in optimal cases and years. Based on interviews and field surveys (2007–2017), we discuss the benefits perceived by local smallholders, such as the reduction of seasonal water scarcity and resulting crop failure risks together with the possibility of growing cash crops. We argue that “artificial glaciers” are remarkably suited to the physical environment. However, their usefulness as a climate change adaptation strategy is questionable because climatic variability, natural hazards, and an incomplete integration into the local socioeconomic setting significantly reduce their efficacy.

Abstract: Rapid urbanisation increasingly affects small and medium-sized towns adversely in high mountain regions, which are especially vulnerable to socioecological challenges like depleting natural resources and increasing risk exposure to natural hazards. The case study of Leh town, located in the Indian Himalaya, reveals an array of diverse patterns, drivers, and challenges that characterise the process of mountain urbanisation. Our study is based on an integrated methodological approach using very high resolution multi-temporal satellite imagery, field mapping and social research data to track socioeconomic and political developments. A rapid spatial expansion of housing settlements on both, former agricultural and barren land along with a densification of built-up areas can be observed. Between 2003 and 2017, 9400 new buildings were constructed whereas in the 34 years before (from 1969 to 2003), approximately the same number of new buildings were constructed. The building area more than quintupled from 36 ha to 196 ha between 1969 and 2017. Consequentially, agricultural land loss through construction activities increased from 1% in 1969 to 8% in 2017. Urban growth in Leh is driven by administrative and infrastructure development, a booming tourism sector, the diffusion of urban lifestyles, and the region’s geopolitical importance. The emerging socio-ecological challenges are tackled by different local actors. Our findings raise questions on the consequences of such rapid urbanisation on urban and environmental governance, especially with regard to water resources and natural hazards, and we offer practical recommendations for sustainable town planning.

Abstract: Anthropologists have posited that citizenship takes on multiple meanings and forms based on citizens’ everyday engagements with state and non-state actors. This article examines forms of citizenshi...

Abstract: What is the role of sympathy in imperial state building? In this essay, inspired by the empiricist philosopher David Hume and the anthropologist Nancy Munn, I develop a materialist concept of sympathy in an effort to cast new light on the expansion of colonial rule. I deploy this concept in an analysis of reports written just before WWII by officials charged with extending the Netherlands Indies government's reach within western New Guinea. Along with gifts and outright acts of coercion, these officials made sympathy into a central component of their practices. Instead of avoiding the natives' gaze, they sought out more or less intimate moments of identification with their subjects; they tried to adopt the Papuans' perspective to reform Papuan ways. In teasing out the causal force of sympathy, as these officials viewed it, I make causal claims of my own about the impact of this experience of empire on the Netherlands' subsequent policy in New Guinea. In doing so, I advocate an approach to anthropological analysis that is empirical, if not empiricist, one that insists on the power of circumstances to shape the imagination, and the power of the imagination to shape the world.

Abstract: This essay looks at the social, aesthetic, and violent life of fake documents. It suggests that fakes and forgeries, both as a general phenomenon and in the specific context of communal violence, offer a useful analytical site for an investigation into the relationship between empathy, power, and authenticity. Based on an analysis of a series of false letters that appeared in the lead-up to violent conflict in Indonesia, I approach the politics and poetics of forgery by setting the fake letters within a broader political discourse about falsity in Indonesia and beyond. Exploring the dynamics of empathy and intimacy that are necessary for the production and validation of fake documents and letters during conflict, I suggest that, contrary to received wisdom, empathy may be closely associated with violence. I also argue that empathy arises within particular political ontologies and specific forms of cultural intimacy that circulate in and beyond nation-states. An ethnographic enquiry into the social life of fake documents is therefore a useful starting point for an inquiry into the emotional aspects of instigation as well as for a political ethnography of empathy.