Jelle J P Wouters
Biographic Data
| ID | 114769 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jelle J P Wouters |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jelle J P |
| FAMILY NAME | Wouters |
| SIGNATURE | WOUTERS J J P |
| AFFILIATIONS | North Eastern Hill University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Towards a Theory of Multispecies Production, Exchange, and Class Struggle
Peer reviewed
Neoliberal Capitalism and Ethno-Territoriality in Highland Northeast India
In this article, I examine the relationship between state, ethnicity, territoriality and neoliberal capitalism in the tribal areas of highland Northeast India, where I focus in particular on the socioecological and socio-political corollaries of its rediscovery as a resource and capitalist frontier. In so doing, I apply (capitalist) ‘desire’ and (ethnic) ‘closure’ as key analytics to capture the contentiously unfolding history of the region’s pre…
The Routledge Companion to Northeast India
International audience
Vernacular Politics in Northeast India
Routledge Companion to Northeast India
Political Theology in the More-Than-Human Anthropocene
Relatedness, trans-species knots and yak personhood in the Bhutan highlands
Over the past centuries, yaks have co-dwelled, co-evolved and co-shaped with pastoralists, deities and grassland ecosystems in the Bhutan highlands. Drawing on ethnography, this chapter argues that in understanding life in the Bhutan highlands, it is impossible to draw a clear ontological distinction between herders, on the one hand, and yaks, deities and the environment on the other; to do otherwise results in an epistemological cul-de-sac, that…
The Anglo-Kuki war, 1917-1919
In the archives of colonial rule, highland communities predominantly appear, James Scott diagnoses, either as contributors ‘to the routine statistics of tribute, corvee labour, and taxation or as b
What Makes a Good Politician? Democratic Representation, ‘Vote-Buying’ and the MLA Handbook in Nagaland, Northeast India
In this article I attempt an ethnography of democratic representation in India by examining how ordinary villagers in the north-eastern state of Nagaland relate to their politicians, what they expect of them, and what yardsticks they adopt to evaluate their performance in office. I focus on the dialectical relationship between homegrown Naga political theory and praxis, and the specificities of Nagaland state and governance to show that the form …
Nagas as a ‘Society against Voting?’
Interrogating the normative notion of ‘man the voter’, this article draws on ethnography among the Chakhesang Naga in Northeast India to communicate a cosmopolitan, culturalist critique – and an answer to this critique – of liberal democracy’s hallmark of party-based elections, individual autonomy and equal voting rights. While Nagas have been decorated as ‘traditional democrats’, their sense of the good political life is shaped by values of comm…
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency is a fine-grained critique of the Naga struggle for political redemption, the state's response to it, and the social corollaries and carry-overs of protracted political conflict on everyday life. Offering an ethnographic underview, Jelle Wouters illustrates an 'insurgency complex' that reveals how embodied experiences of resistance and state aggression, violence and volatility, and struggle and suffering link tog…
The making of tribes
Highlighting 'pre', 'trans' and 'new' tribal formations amongst upland Nagas in India's Northeast, this article formulates both a historical critique against dominant categorisations of the region's social landscape and posits alternative ways of 'seeing' local patterns of kinship, identity and belonging. Drawing on ethno-historical perspectives from the Chang and Chakhesang Nagas, I illustrate the problematic cultural transitivity of the idea an…
Sovereignty, Integration or Bifurcation? Troubled Histories, Contentious Territories and the Political Horizons of the Long Lingering Naga Movement
Taking the upland, tribal Nagas, and the long lingering Indo-Naga conflict, as my case, this article positions divergent contemporary political and territorial claims and counterclaims in the historical longue durée. While the initial assertion for a sovereign, independent Nagalim envisaged a political and administrative reordering of a region cut across by the colonial Indo-Burma border, over time the Naga national movement increasingly conforme…
Polythetic democracy
This article presents an ethnography of modern democracy by examining the particularistic substance and conceptions of “politics” and “the political” in the small, hilly, and tribal state of Nagaland in India’s Northeast. Situating contemporary political practices in both the vernacular and the ethnographic longue durée enables us to reflect critically on the analytical usability of universalistic and normative canons and creeds of (liberal) demo…
The "Indian Face," India's Northeast, and "The Idea of India
This article introduces the concept of the “Indian Face” as a discursive and somatic image, or a face-scape, that represents the Indian nation with the aim of rendering legible the existing confusion between Mongoloid phenotypes, preponderant in India's Northeast, and Indian citizenship. We posit that Mongoloid phenotypes have not found a place in the common imaginary of the “Indian Face,” although the latter is itself a highly diversified and in…
The "Indian Face," India's Northeast, and "The Idea of India
This article introduces the concept of the “Indian Face” as a discursive and somatic image, or a face-scape, that represents the Indian nation with the aim of rendering legible the existing confusion between Mongoloid phenotypes, preponderant in India's Northeast, and Indian citizenship. We posit that Mongoloid phenotypes have not found a place in the common imaginary of the “Indian Face,” although the latter is itself a highly diversified and in…
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency is a fine-grained critique of the Naga struggle for political redemption, the state's response to it, and the social corollaries and carry-overs of protracted political conflict on everyday life. Offering an ethnographic underview, Jelle Wouters illustrates an 'insurgency complex' that reveals how embodied experiences of resistance and state aggression, violence and volatility, and struggle and suffering link tog…
Neoliberal Capitalism and Ethno-Territoriality in Highland Northeast India
In this article, I examine the relationship between state, ethnicity, territoriality and neoliberal capitalism in the tribal areas of highland Northeast India, where I focus in particular on the socioecological and socio-political corollaries of its rediscovery as a resource and capitalist frontier. In so doing, I apply (capitalist) ‘desire’ and (ethnic) ‘closure’ as key analytics to capture the contentiously unfolding history of the region’s pre…
The making of tribes
Highlighting 'pre', 'trans' and 'new' tribal formations amongst upland Nagas in India's Northeast, this article formulates both a historical critique against dominant categorisations of the region's social landscape and posits alternative ways of 'seeing' local patterns of kinship, identity and belonging. Drawing on ethno-historical perspectives from the Chang and Chakhesang Nagas, I illustrate the problematic cultural transitivity of the idea an…
Sovereignty, Integration or Bifurcation? Troubled Histories, Contentious Territories and the Political Horizons of the Long Lingering Naga Movement
Taking the upland, tribal Nagas, and the long lingering Indo-Naga conflict, as my case, this article positions divergent contemporary political and territorial claims and counterclaims in the historical longue durée. While the initial assertion for a sovereign, independent Nagalim envisaged a political and administrative reordering of a region cut across by the colonial Indo-Burma border, over time the Naga national movement increasingly conforme…
What Makes a Good Politician? Democratic Representation, ‘Vote-Buying’ and the MLA Handbook in Nagaland, Northeast India
In this article I attempt an ethnography of democratic representation in India by examining how ordinary villagers in the north-eastern state of Nagaland relate to their politicians, what they expect of them, and what yardsticks they adopt to evaluate their performance in office. I focus on the dialectical relationship between homegrown Naga political theory and praxis, and the specificities of Nagaland state and governance to show that the form …
Nagas as a ‘Society against Voting?’
Interrogating the normative notion of ‘man the voter’, this article draws on ethnography among the Chakhesang Naga in Northeast India to communicate a cosmopolitan, culturalist critique – and an answer to this critique – of liberal democracy’s hallmark of party-based elections, individual autonomy and equal voting rights. While Nagas have been decorated as ‘traditional democrats’, their sense of the good political life is shaped by values of comm…
Political Theology in the More-Than-Human Anthropocene
The "Indian Face," India's Northeast, and "The Idea of India
This article introduces the concept of the “Indian Face” as a discursive and somatic image, or a face-scape, that represents the Indian nation with the aim of rendering legible the existing confusion between Mongoloid phenotypes, preponderant in India's Northeast, and Indian citizenship. We posit that Mongoloid phenotypes have not found a place in the common imaginary of the “Indian Face,” although the latter is itself a highly diversified and in…
Polythetic democracy
This article presents an ethnography of modern democracy by examining the particularistic substance and conceptions of “politics” and “the political” in the small, hilly, and tribal state of Nagaland in India’s Northeast. Situating contemporary political practices in both the vernacular and the ethnographic longue durée enables us to reflect critically on the analytical usability of universalistic and normative canons and creeds of (liberal) demo…
Sovereignty, Integration or Bifurcation? Troubled Histories, Contentious Territories and the Political Horizons of the Long Lingering Naga Movement
Taking the upland, tribal Nagas, and the long lingering Indo-Naga conflict, as my case, this article positions divergent contemporary political and territorial claims and counterclaims in the historical longue durée. While the initial assertion for a sovereign, independent Nagalim envisaged a political and administrative reordering of a region cut across by the colonial Indo-Burma border, over time the Naga national movement increasingly conforme…
The making of tribes
Highlighting 'pre', 'trans' and 'new' tribal formations amongst upland Nagas in India's Northeast, this article formulates both a historical critique against dominant categorisations of the region's social landscape and posits alternative ways of 'seeing' local patterns of kinship, identity and belonging. Drawing on ethno-historical perspectives from the Chang and Chakhesang Nagas, I illustrate the problematic cultural transitivity of the idea an…
What Makes a Good Politician? Democratic Representation, ‘Vote-Buying’ and the MLA Handbook in Nagaland, Northeast India
In this article I attempt an ethnography of democratic representation in India by examining how ordinary villagers in the north-eastern state of Nagaland relate to their politicians, what they expect of them, and what yardsticks they adopt to evaluate their performance in office. I focus on the dialectical relationship between homegrown Naga political theory and praxis, and the specificities of Nagaland state and governance to show that the form …
Nagas as a ‘Society against Voting?’
Interrogating the normative notion of ‘man the voter’, this article draws on ethnography among the Chakhesang Naga in Northeast India to communicate a cosmopolitan, culturalist critique – and an answer to this critique – of liberal democracy’s hallmark of party-based elections, individual autonomy and equal voting rights. While Nagas have been decorated as ‘traditional democrats’, their sense of the good political life is shaped by values of comm…
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency
In the Shadows of Naga Insurgency is a fine-grained critique of the Naga struggle for political redemption, the state's response to it, and the social corollaries and carry-overs of protracted political conflict on everyday life. Offering an ethnographic underview, Jelle Wouters illustrates an 'insurgency complex' that reveals how embodied experiences of resistance and state aggression, violence and volatility, and struggle and suffering link tog…
The Anglo-Kuki war, 1917-1919
In the archives of colonial rule, highland communities predominantly appear, James Scott diagnoses, either as contributors ‘to the routine statistics of tribute, corvee labour, and taxation or as b
Relatedness, trans-species knots and yak personhood in the Bhutan highlands
Over the past centuries, yaks have co-dwelled, co-evolved and co-shaped with pastoralists, deities and grassland ecosystems in the Bhutan highlands. Drawing on ethnography, this chapter argues that in understanding life in the Bhutan highlands, it is impossible to draw a clear ontological distinction between herders, on the one hand, and yaks, deities and the environment on the other; to do otherwise results in an epistemological cul-de-sac, that…
The Routledge Companion to Northeast India
International audience
Vernacular Politics in Northeast India
Routledge Companion to Northeast India
Political Theology in the More-Than-Human Anthropocene
Neoliberal Capitalism and Ethno-Territoriality in Highland Northeast India
In this article, I examine the relationship between state, ethnicity, territoriality and neoliberal capitalism in the tribal areas of highland Northeast India, where I focus in particular on the socioecological and socio-political corollaries of its rediscovery as a resource and capitalist frontier. In so doing, I apply (capitalist) ‘desire’ and (ethnic) ‘closure’ as key analytics to capture the contentiously unfolding history of the region’s pre…
Towards a Theory of Multispecies Production, Exchange, and Class Struggle
Peer reviewed
Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (10 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (9 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Democracy (5 works)