The Space of the Courtroom and the Role of Geographical Evidence in the Punjab Boundary Commission Hearings, July 1947

Bibliographic Data

ID11016644
AuthorsHannah Fitzpatrick (0000-0003-4884-1397, School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume42
Issue1
Pages188-207
Publication date2019-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth Asia Journal of South Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0085-6401 • E-ISSN: 1479-0270
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00856401.2019.1555795
OpenAlexW2912452168
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited6

This paper examines the geographies of Partition through an analysis of the Punjab Boundary Commission hearings of July 1947. The paper asks: what happens when geographical expertise is transported from ‘the field’ to courtrooms and government offices? I argue that geography was transformed, and was managed and limited by the legal framework that judged evidence according to its own rules. Examining select records of the Punjab Boundary Commission, I argue that the courtroom created certain assumptions about the nature and role of evidence in boundary-making negotiations. Rather than applying evidence to create a workable boundary, evidence was put to work in often contradictory ways in order to lend competing political claims an air of geographical authority

Boundary (topology · Boundary-work · Business · Commission · Field (mathematics · Government (linguistics · Negotiation · Order (exchange · Partition (number theory · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Work (physics · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Public Administration · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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