Summary

Partitions—a set of administrative practices that were developed within models of colonial governance in the 19th century—are an important aspect of modern conflict resolution and techniques for innovating power-sharing arrangements. While often seen as providing a simpler exit from historic deeply entrenched conflicts around ethnicity and religion, the administrative conversation around Partition is also accompanied by detailed deliberations around resource redistribution and the methods of determining jurisdictional responsibilities. Yet, although Partitions and the process of breaking up a single administrative and territorial entity into different parts are widely associated with violence and displacement, it is also important to remember that the memory of Partition is not universally associated with loss and defeat. In fact, the political memory of the contestations over the processes of Partition is demonstrated through a contestation between older and newer forms of territorialized articulations of identity and worldview. On the one hand, the effect of a Partition is the creation of a new sovereign entity, held in place by a newly drawn boundary line. On the other, critics of this process recall previous forms of “undivided” territorial organization that, they argue, are more legitimate. Present-day memories of Partitions continue to influence the course of international politics, and many features that characterize the conduct and contestations of the modern international system can also be correlated with arguments about whether Partitions and the newly formed nation-states that accompany them are justified.