Since the nineteenth century, a succession of states has classified the inhabitants of Northeast India and Bangladesh as Muslim 'frontier peasants', 'savage mountaineers', and Christian 'ethnic minorities', suspecting them of disloyalty. This talk follows the struggles of cattle traders and labourers to secure land and transport animals against a background of violence, scarcity, and border control. Divisions of sovereignties and distinct regimes of legality push people and animals to undertake perilous journeys across previously unrecognized borders. Analysing the forces that shape their lifeworlds, this seminar explores how state violence and border infrastructures reorder the margins of life and death.