8/ We hope this piece resonates and highlights ongoing efforts to shift knowledge politics in Myanmar, as part of longer struggles over centre-periphery relations.

Read it here: 👉 teacirclemyanmar.com/education/pr...

#Myanmar #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar

7/ This article emerges from a roundtable we co-organised at the 2024 Myanmar Borderlands Conference at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

We hoped to encourage conversations about how knowledge is produced about Myanmar’s margins, and by whom.

6/ The coup closed & opened space for borderland knowledge.

While some must keep research unpublished to stay safe, new education platforms rethink pedagogy, build networks, and include students from across Myanmar.

We call for active support, mentorship & resources.

5/ Borderland knowledge production is also shaped by socio-political realities, incl. security threats from both states, ethnic self-determination movements, & aid dynamics.

Still, borderland researchers have unique advantages, e.g. languages, access to cross-border resources.

4/ We highlight challenges that face borderland knowledge producers seeking to resist state-centric narratives, such as:
🧠Under-resourced education institutions
🧠 Language and access barriers
🧠 Uneven donor dynamics
🧠 Conflict and displacement

3/ Myanmar’s borderlands have long been cast as marginal, violent, or primitive – narratives often used to justify state violence.

But they have also produced knowledge that facilitates resistance, shaped by generations of local educators, activists, & researchers.

2/ The 2021 coup sparked debates about the politics of knowledge in Myanmar, as research shapes international responses to the Spring Revolution.

We ask: Who produces and transmits knowledge about Myanmar’s borderlands, and under what conditions.

8/ Available #OpenAccess at doi.org/10.1080/2469..., with thanks to the many, many people who contributed and who shared their thoughts with me. All errors are my own.

7/ It seeks—however imperfectly—to centre the perspectives of Karen people and organisations navigating decades of war, while still forging solidaristic social relations.

6/ This article brings two literatures into closer conversation—territory & rebel governance—by showing that a political struggle involving arms can enable other, nonviolent political projects.

It also brings Karen State and Myanmar into debates on anticolonial movements.

5/ Specifically, the KNU's armed resistance created room for reconfiguring local socio-ecological relations. Not because the KNU is absent—but because in Mutraw, localised dynamics of the KNU's long struggle allowed other Karen actors to reimagine territory on their own terms.

4/ To explain this, I introduce the concept of more-than-rebel territory, i.e. spaces where armed groups capture—but then enable civilian-led, relational processes of territory-making.

This contributes to literature on post/decolonial approaches to #territory & #rebelgovernance.

3/ At the heart of the Peace Park is a bold political move: elected community representatives govern the area alongside the KNU and community-based organisations.

Together they oversee Indigenous lands, Karen cultural survival, and natural resource governance.

2/ In 2018, amid stalled ceasefire talks, Karen community-based organisations, the #KarenNationalUnion, and community leaders launched the Peace Park. This is a grassroots initiative that seeks self-determination for local, Indigenous Karen communities.

Thankful for information from many sources, including @pvamplify.bsky.social and @data4myanmar.bsky.social

The cumulative impact of the earthquake and responses to it are manifestations of deeper currents that shape Myanmar today, chiefly the violent role that the military plays in statebuilding and the geopolitical currents that sustain its rule. (15/x)