Spiral

Spirals tell the story of the nation’s territorial power through its “fragments” (Chatterjee, 2003). Forced into shape, the spiral is a metaphor for a nervous nation which rapidly envelops people and bulls in its own ‘circles of insecurity’ (Krishna, 1997; Banerjee and Samaddar, 2010). The spiral’s shifting contours chronicle the nation’s irredeemable presence in the lives of its suspects and citizens. Through its visibility and volume, nations mutate human and cattle populations into citizens; sovereignty’s veiled forms escalate women’s domestic burdens at borders. Yet, circulating dust connects people despite the barbed wires. It continues to remind them that dust is homeland and livelihood.