Archiving and the aspirational politics of self-determination: Non-state claims to legitimacy amongst the Nagas in Northeast India

Abstract

Archives are paradigmatic state institutions. However, states are not the only actors to construct national archives: Indigenous, minority, and stateless groups also engage in archival practices. Yet, there is little analysis of how archives support these communities' geopolitical projects. To what extent can these groups harness archival power to produce subjectivities and legitimate political claims? What is the relationship between official state repositories and non-state actors' unofficial collections? How are such attempts at national archiving entangled with other ‘big space’ political projects, including internationalism? This paper explores how archives-as-institutions shape claims to political legitimacy and self-determination amongst Naga communities in Northeast India. It argues that archives undergird efforts to realise alternative Naga nationalist geopolitical futures. Drawing upon research with Naga twentieth-century collections, alongside interviews with Naga activists, I tell two archive stories. First, that of the ‘missing’ archival collection of the late Naga anticolonial nationalist leader Angami Zapu Phizo. By exploring the ongoing tensions over stewardship of Phizo's papers, I explain how, despite their inaccessibility, Phizo's archive looms large in Naga communities, illustrating how the (missing) archive informs contemporary Naga geopolitical imaginaries and claims to international recognition, and reproduces colonial relations between the Nagas and their international supporters. Second, efforts by Naga activists to construct an alternative Naga ‘national’ archive in Nagaland. By examining the space, materiality, and form of that collection, I illustrate how through archival curation Naga nationalists rehearse collective futures amidst political stasis. I conclude by describing the broader significance of archives as legitimacy-claiming instruments for non-state actors.