This book examines the Kashmir dispute from a borderland perspective. It explores the conflict by considering the views of those affected who live on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC), especially in the less-researched territories of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK or Azad Kashmir) and Baltistan. The work investigates the distinct political space that the border has created: a space that is not strictly seen as a state space nor entirely considered a non-state space. This is the space of conflict, characterized by the uncertainty regarding future political developments that permeates the lives of the inhabitants at all levels. The borderland reveals itself as an arena for competition between the different actors and groups with claims to the territory: people are dragged into the space of conflict even though they may not subscribe to the dominant ways the dispute has been defined. This analysis of the Kashmir borderland shows how the conflict is manifested in territory – specific locations with geopolitical meanings – thereby providing evidence of the discrepancies between ‘representations’ and the ‘living’. It also demonstrates how the main source of insecurity in securitization discourses emanates from the making of the postcolonial state.

Following critical approaches – mainly in the fields of political geography, political science, and international relations, with a focus on border studies – this work questions the limits of explaining the dispute as an interstate conflict or as a case of (Muslim) nationalist separatism (in its various identity explanations). These broad perspectives do not say much about local dynamics in the disputed territories or about the inhabitants’ views and trajectories. Such understandings neither elaborate on the distinctive nature of the postcolonial state as a process in the making, nor provide an account of the interrelations between the various territories, since state perspectives revolve around categories that represent the political reality within a specific territorial container. Considerations of the Kashmir dispute from a state perspective ignore the fact that the state is the main source of insecurity at the border. They also fall into what John Agnew has defined as the ‘territorial trap’ of state territoriality. While the border can be seen as a ‘site’ for examining statehood, it also becomes a producer of particular conditions for understanding that reality.