The Exceptional and the Everyday in Northeast India

The Exceptional and the Everyday in Northeast India

This ongoing project has different parts funded through various university and external grants. The project focuses on the ongoing dilemma in the study of Northeast India: how do we effectively account for the coexistence of the exceptional and the everyday? Interest in the Northeast is growing in India and globally. As interest grows so too does the need to focus on the exceptional and work that discusses crisis, conflict, and (neo) colonialism.

The exceptional helps to ‘explain’ the Northeast; why it is different, why it matters, and why the state is culpable. However, in this drive to showcase the exceptional a lot of scholarship bypasses the social, political, and economic changes that affect the everyday life of communities in the region. Phenomena from urban neighbourhoods to the political influence of spirit-empowered Christianity to political humour or agricultural fairs may reveal a great deal about the region, its past, present, and imaginations for the future. Yet focussing too narrowly on the everyday can diminish the exceptional effectively making the Northeast just like everywhere else, which it is not. There is a need to navigate the dilemma between the exceptional and the everyday, explore their interconnection, and their dissonance.

Contact: d.mcduie@unsw.edu.au