The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Living in a Borderland

‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Living in a Borderland’ examines the borderland between Burma, India and Bangladesh, inhabited by twelve distinct ethnic groups with strong cultural and linguistic links with South East Asia. The three specialist authors of this unique book assembled more than 400 mostly unpublished photographs, many in colour, from over 50 private collections. The book introduces the reader to the remarkable cultural variety and modern transformations of this virtually unknown region bridging South East Asia and South Asia. At the same time it explores how, from the 1860s to the late twentieth century, photographers have portrayed the Chittagong Hill Tracts and their inhabitants. These photographers were both outsiders (travelers, officials, missionaries, anthropologists, development workers) and local people capturing their own world as they saw it. The 20 carefully documented chapters include: Creating a Colonial Aristocracy, The Public Display of Power, Images of Nature and Destruction, Religions of the Hills, Bodies and Costumes, Developing the Hills, and Lifestyles. ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’ is the first comprehensive work on this complex region of Asia.

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