Silk Roads and Wool Routes: Contemporary Geographies of Trade Between Lhasa and Kalimpong

This article examines recent changes in the geographies of trade between Lhasa and Kalimpong. In particular, it focuses on discourses surrounding the reopening of the Nathu-la mountain pass between India and China, and how merchants and traders participate in place-fixing narratives that at very specific times diverge from and overlap with state-centered narratives. Although mobility and "flows" have been given recent attention in the social sciences, the flip side of these processes - the establishing of fixity and stability - has been necessary for both states and traders to ensure the continued movement of goods and people, but often to very different ends.