Abstract: This paper interrogates the contemporary transformation of the Kashmir conflict through the theoretical lenses of settler colonialism, Gramscian hegemony, and David Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession. In the aftermath of the revocation of Article 370, the Bhartiya Janata Party-led Indian government has intensified its Hindutva-oriented policies in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, employing coercive legal frameworks, demographic reengineering, and cultural repression. The study situates these developments within a settler colonial framework, wherein state-led infrastructural expansion and legal manipulation facilitate the displacement of indigenous populations and the restructuring of territorial control. Simultaneously, the BJP’s invocation of development and normalcy operates as a hegemonic project, relying not solely on coercion but on the cultural and institutional internalization of Hindu nationalist ideology to legitimize domination and suppress dissent. These processes are further examined through the prism of accumulation by dispossession, as land acquisition, ecological degradation, and the restructuring of the region’s agrarian economy disproportionately benefit state and corporate interests at the expense of Kashmir’s local population. The paper argues that the BJP’s policies represent an intertwined project of ideological, territorial, and economic domination, reshaping the identity, demography, and political landscape of the region under the guise of development.






Excerpt: The U.S. state of Wisconsin is well-known for its rich German (broadly speaking) heritage and culture, yet the number of competent German speakers has drastically decreased over the past century. Here, I discuss the present state of the German language in Wisconsin, with a particular focus on the moribund Pomeranian Low German dialect spoken in Marathon and Lincoln counties in the central area of the state. The primary data for the linguistic analysis come from interviews conducted by the author in 2013 and 2014 with the last generation of German speakers in this area. “Wisconsin German” differs from other German-American varieties such as Texas German and Pennsylvania German in that immigrants from different German dialect areas formed small, relatively isolated communities and largely maintained their regional varieties, and these varieties did not mix or coalesce into a unified, mutually intelligible koiné. Thus, the moniker “Wisconsin German” is less appropriate than community-specific terms such as “Central Wisconsin Pomeranian,” “Dane County Kölsch,” or “New Glarus Swiss German.” Like most German-American varieties, Wisconsin German has undergone drastic language shift since around 1940 and is nearing the point of language death, as most competent speakers are well over the age of 65. The Pomeranian Low German community of central Wisconsin is representative of this linguistic situation: the immigrants formed a small community in a rural area centered around small country churches and most speakers had some command of both the regional dialect and standard High German, resulting in a unique situation of language contact. In this paper, I first provide a general overview of German(s) in Wisconsin (Section 2), before discussing the sociohistorical background (Section 3) and structure (Section 4) of Central Wisconsin Pomeranian.



Description: A fresh narrative history of the rise of Rome’s empire in Italy, that exposes the monumental expansion of the Roman familial, social, political, and militaristic way of living across Italy. Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula. This book explores the origins of Roman imperialism and the creation of Rome’s early Italian empire, bringing new light and interpretations to this important but problematic period in Roman history. It explains how and why the Romans were able to expand their influence within Italy, often through the use of armed conflict, laying the foundations for their great imperial project. This book critically reexamines and reframes the traditional literary narrative within an archaeologically informed, archaic Italian context. Jeremy Armstrong presents a new interpretation of the early Roman army, highlighting the fluid and family-driven character which is increasingly visible in the evidence. Drawing on recent developments within the field of early Roman studies, Children of Mars argues that the emergence of Rome’s empire in Italy should not be seen as the spread of a distinct “Roman” people across Italian land, but rather the expansion of a social, political, and military network amongst the Italian people. Armstrong suggests that Rome’s early empire was a fundamentally human and relational one. While this reinterpretation of early Roman imperialism is no less violent than the traditional model, it alters its core dynamic and nature, and thus shifts the entire trajectory of Rome’s Republican history.