Bamboo baskets and barricades : gendered landscapes at the India-Bangladesh border

My contribution argues for plural engagements with undocumented border crossings. I posit that trans-border mobilities, especially in regions where borders divide similar societies, are located at the intersection of sovereign violence and social legitimacies. This paper explores such intersections by following bodies in motion, and bodies that are selectively intercepted and deported at the heavily patrolled and militarised India-Bangladesh border. I advance that borders have lethal yet fluid dispositions. The aggressive policing of borders coexists with local and trans-border legitimacies that accommodate undocumented border crossings.