ABSTRACT
This entry demonstrates how contemporary 20th and 21st century trans-Himalayan trade played a vital role in inhabitants’ daily social and economic lives in Northeast India. It serves to show how the trade in seemingly-mundane commodities like wool or cardamom was entangled with national-level geopolitical rivalries and aspirational futures of the wider trans-Himalayan region, which spanned far beyond the central Himalayas into states in the Northeast like Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim. In this manner, several conceptual frameworks provide key hooks for examining trans-Himalayan trade and its crucial implications for the region: first, the study of borderlands aims to emphasise historical, economic, cultural, and political connections and interactions across nation-states, challenging the idea of bounded ‘national economies’. Second, looking at material geographies – such as following the journey of a single trader or a product – can help demonstrate how trade routes act to bring seemingly far-flung regions together. Finally, a focus on infrastructure and its development – or failure – can show how such networks have served to shape understandings of the very form of ‘a region’ or the nation itself.
