CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Centre for the Study of North East India
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
NATIONAL SEMINAR
(WEBINAR)
EMPIRE, FRONTIER AND THE AGRARIAN WORLD
12-13 March 2026
Concept Note
Empire building in the 19th century led to a range of transformations in spaces which were construed as frontiers. A significant element in this regard pertained to the encounters and transformations that came to characterise the agrarian world of such spaces. Focusing on the Northeast frontier of British India, this Seminar (Webinar) aims to explore how imperial expansion in the region brought about a range of transformations in the region’s agrarian world. For instance, some of this includes new forms of land classifications and land relations; revenue structures; agrarian technologies; village systems; practices of resource regimes; labour relations; plant capitalism; animal, labour and transport; insects; diseases; imperial knowledge production to forms of anti-colonial resistances; cultural representation of and by the agrarian world; as well as social transformations that impacted, and also restructured, existing social, moral and ecological ideas and understandings. The trans-regional networks and mobilities that characterized the socio-economic and moral lifeworld of different communities of the region were also significant aspects in the changing agrarian world of the region in the 19th to mid-20th century.
In addition to the above dimensions, this Seminar (Webinar) is also interested in exploring the entanglements of agriculture and trade under imperial conditions, practices and representations of cash economy as well as new forms of commodity practices, the scale and role of imperial opium economy among different agrarian communities of the region, agrarian transformations in the foothills during the period, agrarian cycles and the social reproduction of village under imperial conditions, and agrarian relations and new ideas and practices of identity. This Seminar (Webinar) not only aims to engage with the rich body of existing studies on the agrarian world of the region during the period, but also with new research that not only provides important insights at specific spatial or social level, but also open up understanding wider regional and global trajectories.
The National Seminar (Webinar), “Empire, Frontier and the Agrarian World”, focusing on the period from the 19th to mid-20th century, organized by Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, invites scholars at various stages of their careers, including advanced PhD scholars, to submit abstracts that engage with some of the above issues and concerns. Some of the broad themes which the Seminar (Webinar) aims to engage with, but not limited to, are as below:
• Empire, frontier, and the agrarian world
• Colonialism, village economy and agrarian policies
• Plant capitalism (rice, jute, tea, opium, rubber, silk, etc.)
• Forms of labour: human and non-human
• The agrarian world of the peasant
• Agriculture, transport, mobility
• Trade, market, agents, institutions
• Commodities, frontier
• Diseases, medicine and the agrarian world
• Hunting, forests, and the agrarian world
• Agrarian practices, region, global
• Agrarian knowledge and technology
• Writing, telling and representing the agrarian
Interested scholars may kindly send in their abstracts of 300 words, along with a brief bio, by 31 January 2026 to the following email addresses: manjeetbaruah@gmail.com; lipokmardzuvichu@gmail.com. The selected abstracts will be notified by 06 February 2026. For abstracts that have been selected, a working paper of 3000-4000 words will be due by 27 February 2026 for pre-circulation.
Seminar Conveners
Dr. Manjeet Baruah, Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Dr. Lipokmar Dzuvichu, Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.