Gendering Bordered Exclusion: Gender Politics and Everyday Spatialization in Indo-Pak Border Infrastructure

Abstract

The study explores the transformation of Punjab into a borderland after India’s Partition and examines the effects of infrastructural barriers on everyday lives of villagers, particularly women. An ethnographic study was conducted on two border villages – Audar and Mulakot, and Schindler’s (2015. Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment. The Yale Law Journal 124, no. 6: 1934–2024) theory of architectural exclusion was employed to analyze the findings. Our study finds that everyday spatialization reflects the patriarchal norms of the villages and the security anxieties of the state. The infrastructural edifice is planned in a manner that they create a palisade in the name of protecting women. Such a design mainstreams tight control in a layered manner, leading to concentric circles of disadvantage where the immediate dominance is wielded by the men in the family, and the second layer of direct control is exercised by the armed forces. To conclude, the creation of bounded borderland spaces with restrictive infrastructure leads to women’s absence from public spaces.