Ayesha Vemuri

Ayesha Vemuri is a PhD candidate at the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill university. Her research focuses on the construction of risk in the context of climate change induced flooding and migration in Assam, India..

Title and abstract:

Infrastructures of border-making in rural Assam 

Borders are geopolitical boundary-making technologies that mediate relationships of citizenship, ecology, and power. In my research project, I examine two sites of border-making in rural Assam: infrastructures of flood control and infrastructures of immigration control. I analyze the ways in which these seemingly distinct technopolitical objects work together to mediate the relationship between citizens and the state in Assam. I argue that these infrastructures reinforce inequalities of class, caste, religion, that are especially accentuated along divisions of urbanity and rurality. I offer that, in the fraught and contentious ecopolitical context of Assam, these infrastructures position rural spaces act as a kind of insurance that ensures the continued protection of urban life in contemporary Assam.