This thesis explores political ordering in conflict zones, through the lens of taxation. Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork in Northeast India at the Myanmar border, particularly in the state of Manipur, the project examines how taxation practices shape and reflect governance, authority, and agency in contested spaces. The first paper investigates the taxation system of the armed group the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) across four subnational cases, revealing how political legitimacy and military control determine whether rebel taxation functions as extortion or a technology of governance. The second paper applies a figurational framework to analyze checkpoints along three major roads in Manipur, illuminating how these sites of interaction connect multiple levels of governance and authority. The third paper explores the agency of women of the Metei ethnic group in controlling mobility and resources during conflict, demonstrating how their actions are shaped by and shape wider gender norms and conflict dynamics. By examining rebel taxation practices, highway checkpoints, and women's roles in controlling trade, this thesis contributes to debates on rebel governance, public authority, and civilian agency in conflict zones. Challenging binary understandings of war and peace, it emphasizes the importance of everyday interactions in shaping political order. The project's relational approach reveals how political order emerges not from top-down impositions, but through dynamic interactions between various actors embedded in specific social, historical, and cultural contexts, offering valuable insights into the processes that shape political realities in conflict-affected regions.