Static legal borders at odds with tribal territories: German geographer in Shillong

A German geographer specialising in mountain communities told an audience at a Shillong law university that static legal borders are increasingly at odds with the living territories of tribal communities — a tension he argued modern law has yet to adequately resolve.

Hermann Kreutzmann, a professor of human geography at Freie Universität Berlin, delivered the lecture at the National Law University of Meghalaya on April 27, drawing students and faculty from five academic institutions across the city.

Speaking under the theme of comparative mountain research, Kreutzmann traced the origins of Himalayan studies to the 1850s expeditions of the Schlagintweit brothers, German explorers who mapped the region by working alongside native surveyors such as Nain Singh.

He argued that this early collaborative model of research — pairing outside scientific frameworks with indigenous geographical knowledge — remains relevant to how mountain communities are studied today.

His lecture examined highland societies through two analytical lenses: marginality and fragility. Mountain regions, he said, are often treated as peripheral by both governments and researchers, yet they contain some of the most complex patterns of human adaptation to environment found anywhere.

Rare historical visuals were shown during the session, including imagery from the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, connecting the broader Himalayan discourse directly to the northeastern Indian context.

The lecture was organised in connection with the university's courses on comparative development and migration, fields where questions of geography, law and community rights increasingly overlap.