Geographies at the margins: borders in South Asia–an introduction

•Borders and margins are central to understanding South Asia's history and present.•Borders and margins are often seen as self-evidently linked.•Engaging borders through marginality provides an optic that is relational and comparative.•There are critical linkages between South Asia's borders and its other margins.

This introduction to a special section exploring "Geographies at the Margins" of South Asia offers a discussion that links the literature on borders and margins to the regional complexities and geographies of South Asia. Specifically, we argue for linking of these literatures to develop an optic for thinking about external and internal borders that is at once relational and comparative. South Asia, as has often been observed, is a region marked with multiple borders and margins. It is also a space where the articulation between such spaces is at once suggestive and crucial for understanding the political geography of South Asia and the ways that borders and margins are similarly implicated in working out the postcolonial politics of nation, state, and space.