Reflections on locality and neighborhood in selected fictional writings of Temsula Ao and Mamang Dai

Abstract

Northeast India which existed as a geographical frontier during colonial times has always been a site of complex political contestations. The technologies of colonial cartography and political interventions only served as handmaiden to social democracy or ethnic autonomy. The spatial configuration of Northeast states in postcolonial situation has significant overlap between territorial politics and national sovereignty. Nevertheless, Northeast is bestowed with literary luminaries who are committed to express issues specific to this region. This study has identified the general spatial problematic of borderlands, by focussing on localised spaces as represented in the literary works of Temsula Ao and Mamang Dai. The concept locality as elaborated by Arjun Appadurai is the framework for this study. Here, locality is conceptualized not in its essentialising feature as geographical entity. But production of locality involves the processes of socialization. When the natives engage in ritualized social activities they reproduce locality. Here, contexts for social activities are taken as the boundaries for the process of socialization. Local subjects or natives generate contexts from within their communities thereby legitimize their sense of belonging to such places. If the contexts are provided by external forces, the production of locality becomes weak and unstable. In this study actual situated communities are social formations identified as neighborhoods.