Beyond politics: in/civilities of ‘non-political’ peacebuilding for Kashmir

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on ethnographic research among peace workers and their local partners, this article traces the politics of civil society peacebuilding for Kashmir at a time when both state violence in Kashmir and local and transnational resistance and activism for Kashmiris’ right to political self-determination have intensified. It uses ‘civility’ as an analytical lens focusing on the ambivalence of claims about taking a restrained and ‘non-political’ stance in the violent conflicts over territorial sovereignty in Kashmir. While ‘non-political’ peacebuilding brings people together across social and political divides and makes it possible to imagine alternatives for Kashmir’s future beyond territorial sovereignty, it is also deeply entrenched in conflictual processes of exclusion. The claims to civility draw moral and political boundaries that incite violence and radical disagreement among people and groups – as civil society and political activists or militants.