Networks, space and belonging: the Marwaris in Manipur

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article aims to supplement existing economic analyses of the Marwari mercantile network by exploring how the network is both grounded spatially and reproduced culturally in Manipur. It discusses some of the economic and socio-cultural practices adopted by the Marwari merchants in Manipur including their business activities, marriage patterns and temple construction. In so doing, it highlights the nature of relationships between these practices and how they are connected to their mercantile network at large. The article also illustrates how merchant communities such as the Marwaris carve out their own space through cultural processes of place-making in a contested place like Manipur. Elucidating how the Marwari mercantile network gets reproduced culturally, it reveals the ways in which networks of capital relate to distinct spatial configurations – in this case, borderland. In turn, the above process also delineates how the idea of belonging for the Marwari merchants is emplaced and shaped at the same time by their mercantile network. Based primarily on interviews, observation and some documents, the materials used in this article stem mainly from Imphal and some from Churachandpur.