"Carried out by a team of researchers based at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich (Germany), we approached this through in-depth field research in the Pamirs of Tajikistan, the Himalayas of northern Nepal, India-administred Kashmir, and the interface between China’s Yunnan Province and neighboring Myanmar with its rebel-held special regions. Collectively, we have carried out more than 50 months of fieldwork. Building upon this research, we put our insights in a comparative perspective, giving attention both to the local histories and the larger geo-political processes that engulf all of them.
Our inquiry revolved around two larger sets of questions: first, the socio-spatial relations and asymmetries that contribute to the making and unmaking of remoteness; and second, the mobilities, motives, and opportunities emerging in this the evolving nexus of remoteness and connectivity.
Findings are presented in two monographs, four edited collections, two dozen journal articles and book chapters, numerous blog posts, an exhibition and a feature-length documentary film. In broad strokes, they can be summarized as follows:
Remoteness is not a primordial left-over of a bygone era, but rather as a condition that is actively made in the here and now. A generation after the end of the Cold War – with more than half of this period under the ‘war on terror’ – we see remoteness return in ways we have yet to fully understand. Often driven by national concerns for security and migration control, we witness a revival of colonial fantasies of the remote, strange and wild frontier – with large sociopolitical consequences for both global ‘centers’ and ‘margins’.
Simultaneously, we see how the promise of connectivity roars through the highlands in the form of infrastructural mega-projects – roads, railways, hydropower. The grand vision of smooth transport across some of the worlds most rugged terrains, however, does not have the anticipated effects of wiring ""remote"" and backward regions ever more closely into national and global agendas. It often leads to friction, increasing securitization and more restricted mobility for those living in these areas. This double-bind of connectivity dreamt large and a return of remoteness profoundly shapes of the social-cultural, economic and political realities we encountered."
