Smuggling Nostalgia: Reminiscing on the (Demise of the) Cattle Trade in the Borderlands of Bangladesh
ABSTRACT
For decades, cattle smuggling was a win-win business for both India and Bangladesh—the former producing surplus cattle and the latter having a high demand for beef. Every year, thousands of cattle made their way into Bangladesh informally through porous international borders. Although multiple stakeholders profited from this trade, borderlanders from almost all walks of life—bordering villages of Jashore and Chapai Nawabganj districts of Bangladesh, in our case—were its direct beneficiaries. This financial solvency enabled them to enjoy a relatively luxurious life until the informal trade became nearly non-existent in recent years, significantly affecting borderland livelihoods. Despite its common portrayal as illegal activity, this paper shows how nostalgia for smuggling remains central to people’s imagination of the past. It further elaborates on their moralities surrounding contemporary smuggling practices and imaginations of cattle-smuggling futures, and explores how social and spatial distancing, along with silences, shape the construction of this nostalgia.
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