Himalayan border citizens: Sovereignty and mobility in the Nepal–Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China border zone

•Ethnographic “boundary biography” of the Nepal–Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China border zone.•States and citizens co-produce border citizenship in space of overlapping sovereignty.•Border citizenship concept expands existing scholarship on Tibetan, Nepali and Himalayan identities.•Non-postcolonial trajectories of state formation in Himalaya broaden analyses of South Asian borders.

For over half a century, a border zone mandated by bilateral treaty has existed along the full length of the international border between Nepal and China's Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Since 2002, people classified as “border inhabitants” who live within 30 km of the border on both sides have been issued “border citizen cards” which allow them to cross the border without a passport or a visa, and travel up to 30 km on the other side. This article explores historical and contemporary experiences of life in the Nepal–TAR border zone for such border citizens. Their state-sanctioned cross-border mobility complicates existing work on Tibetan refugee citizenship, and expands previous models for understanding ethno-political identities and sovereignty in the Himalayan region. The legally recognized category of border citizenship between Nepal and China's TAR provides a compelling example of how states may create alternative categories of citizenship in response to practices from below, while further shaping such practices through regimes of differentiated citizenship. I argue that this form of border citizenship emerges out of non-postcolonial trajectories of state formation in the Himalayan region, which offer important contrasts with other parts of South Asia.