This week’s New Pubs features May Aye Thiri and Martinez-Alier on resistance to extractivism in Myanmar; Loong on decolonizing civil war; and Hsu Myat Yadanar Thein and Walton on the political developments alongside Myanmar’s military stalemate.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

May Aye Thiri and Joan Martinez-Alier. “Extractivism unleashed: Environmental justice and resistance in Myanmar.” The Extractive Industries and Society 27 (2026): 101927.

Loong, Shona. “Decolonising Civil War: Warscapes as Relational Conjunctures in Post-Coup Myanmar.” Geopolitics, 2026.

Hsu Myat Yadanar Thein and Matthew Walton. “Myanmar in 2024 and 2025: Military Stalemate Alongside Political Development.” Asian Survey 66.2 (2026): 351-363.

This week’s New Pubs features Li and Moh Moh Thet on Myanmar’s anti-military rhetoric on the internet; Lu and Zhang on the conflict management roles of China and Russia in Myanmar; and Kakati (and anonymous) on the Zeme olympics in the Naga hills.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Li, Yao-Tai, and Moh Moh Thet. “Angry Posts: Myanmar’s Anti-Military Rhetoric on the Internet.” International Journal of Communication 20 (2026): 24-24.

Lu, Xiaoyu, and Yixun Zhang. “What post-liberal peaces look like: China, Russia and fragmented conflict management in Myanmar.” Globalizations (2026): 1-17.

Kakati, Aditya Kiran, and Anon. “Zeme Olympics and the historical pathways of Naga sovereignty in checkered borderlands.” Territory, Politics, Governance (2026): 1-20.

This week’s New Pubs features Deakin University’s four reports on Rohingya life in the camps, with one focusing on recruitment into militant organizations; Zhao on the shrinking porosity of the China/Myanmar border; and Nyi Nyi Kyaw and Sirada on student migration from Myanmar to Thailand after the coup.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

“Everyday Peace and Rohingya Refugees” project, Plan International and Deakin University collaboration

Zhao, Niu. “’The Border Turns Very Dry’: Shrinking Porosity and Local Responses on the China–Myanmar Border.” Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2026.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw and Sirada Khemanitthathai. “Student Migration from Myanmar to Thailand after the 2021 Coup.” Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung and The Nelson Mandela Centre, Chulalongkorn University, 2026.

Wittekind, Courtney. City of Speculation: Unsettled Futures in Urban Myanmar. Stanford University Press, 2026.

and see here for all of the books that don’t exist yet

In 2018, amidst a celebrated political transition, Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since 1962 proposed a built-from-scratch “new city” just outside Yangon, the country’s former colonial capital and current economic center. 20,000 acres of once-barren rice fields became the site of extraordinary developmental dreams. Farmers on Yangon’s outskirts traded cultivation for speculation on land and property, betting on uncertain futures and weighing what, exactly, was worth risking for a chance at transformation. As plans for the new city stalled amid political turmoil, economic liberalization, a pandemic, and a military coup, speculation became both a source of hope and a means of survival when urban dreams faded. Drawing on three years of site-based fieldwork and digital ethnography, Courtney T. Wittekind shows how speculation reshapes citizens’ contemporary demands and forward-looking dreams—for themselves as well as their country—in times of crisis. Adopting the lens of “vernacular speculation,” she reveals how ordinary people create value, interpret ambiguity, and act on possible futures, even as the promises of democracy and development collapse around them. A powerful account of how hope, anticipation, and uncertainty reconfigure everyday life, City of Speculation captures what it means to imagine—and gamble on—the future in the wake of profound upheaval.

This week’s New Pubs features Schissler with a deep dive into Myanmar’s notorious 135; Edwards on temporality, Myanmar, and Gaza; and Peng on China’s selective influence in Myanmar’s conflicts;

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Schissler, Matt. “Unmaking Rohingya Statelessness: New Evidence and Opportunities in Myanmar’s Post-Coup Moment.” University of Melbourne Law School, Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Working Paper Series, 2 April 2026.

Edwards, Michael. “When does the story end? Presence, the present and ‘the contemporary world’.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology (2026).

Peng, Xu. “China’s Selective Influence in Myanmar’s Conflicts.” Current History 125.870 (2026): 133-138.

This week’s New Pubs features joints on gender: Pe The Law, Mortensen, and Middleton on the authority of the Karen Women’s Organization; Matelski with testimonies of “Women Peace Ambassadors” in Shan State; and Etzold et al on the transnational dynamics of gendered violence in the Banladesh/Myanmar borderlands.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Naw Pe The Law, Sofie Mortensen, and Carl Middleton. “A Critical Sister: Public Authority and the Role and Position of the Karen Women’s Organisation, Myanmar.” Gender & Society (2026): 08912432251415175.

Matelski, Maaike. “Testimonies of Women Peace Ambassadors in Myanmar’s Shan State.” Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (2026).

Etzold, Benjamin, Syeda Rozana Rashid, and Anas Ansar. “Gendered violence and conflict in the Bangladesh–Myanmar borderlands: (trans) local experiences and responses.” Gender, Place & Culture (2026): 1-20.

This week’s New Pubs features Tin Maung Htwe on how exiled youth in Mae Sot forge political space and challenge the junta; van Schendel on the ‘free hills’ between India and Burma during the British colonial period; and Rippa on China’s borderlands with Burma (and Laos).

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Tin Maung Htwe. “Weapons of the weak in a border zone: How Myanmar’s exiled youth in Mae Sot forge political space and challenge the junta through everyday resistance.” Asian Journal of Social Science 54.2 (2026): 100246.

van Schendel, Willem. “A hole in the British empire: The ‘Free Hills’ between India and Burma.” Modern Asian Studies 59.3 (2025): 589-617.

Rippa, Alessandro. “When is a Frontier? Nostalgia and Aspirations at China’s Borderlands with Burma and Laos.” Comparative Studies in Society and History (2026): 1-25.

This week’s New Pubs features Rhoads on statutory weakening and bureaucracy hinder the implementation of legal pluralism in Burma; Heiduk on Myanmar’s sham elections and the role of international cooperation; and Collignon on hierarchy as legitimacy in Burmese statecraft and civil war.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Rhoads, Elizabeth. “Statutory Weakening and Bureaucratic Hurdles in the Implementation of Legal Pluralism in Myanmar.” Equality, Plurality and Personal Status Laws. Routledge (2026): 400-413.

Heiduk, Felix. “Sham elections amid the war in Myanmar: Prospects for national stability and international cooperation.” No. 9/2026. SWP Comment, 2026.

Collignon, Stefan. “Hierarchy as Legitimacy: The Holistic State and the Political Economy of Civil War in Myanmar,” Working Paper.

Roots of Arakan

Murshid Alam’s presentation will focus on the The Roots of Arakan project. This initiative brings together a team of young people from both Bangladesh and Myanmar, and includes young people of Rakhine, Bangladeshi, and Rohingya origin. They are united by a shared vision and work together to support their communities. The focus of the project is historical preservation, storytelling, and research-based documentation. It is an effort aimed at recording and protecting the diverse narratives of the Rohingya and other peoples of Arakan and the border areas. Their goal is to challenge historical erasure, contribute to justice and reconciliation, and to foster interethnic understanding through rigorous research, oral histories, cultural archiving, and advocacy.

Date: 30 March 2026 (Monday)

Time: 06:00 – 07:00 PM (Melbourne Time)
          01:30-02:30 PM (Myanmar/Yangon Time)
          01:00-2:00 PM (Bangladesh Time)

Join Zoom Meeting: please click here

Murshid Alam has participated in AMI seminars and speaks from the unique position of a young Rohingya. He is a Founder of Rohingya Youth Union-RYU, Director of Roots of Arakan Project, Global Youth Ambassador, NGFP Fellow, and an advocate for refugee rights. Murshid works to strengthen citizen action across borders, in the fields of Global Advocacy, Leadership, Diplomacy, Human Rights and Peacebuilding.

For AMI this is an opportunity to hear from voices which are rarely heard and whose perspective speaks to one of the most traumatic and difficult experiences in recent Myanmar history.

This week’s New Pubs features Cole’s book on conservation and sovereignty in southeast Myanmar; Davies and Htoon Oung on the ULA/AA’s “decentralization by force” policies in Western Myanmar; and Sullivan on the role of intermediaries in southeast Myanmar’s humanitarian response.

See our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.

Cole, Tomas. Possessed Landscapes: Experiments in Conservation and Sovereignty in Southeast Myanmar. University of Washington Press, 2026.

Davies, James T and Htoon Oung, Decentralisation by Force: The United League of Arakan/ Arakan Army’s Expansion in Western Myanmar, ANU Myanmar Research Centre. 

Sullivan, Meghan. “Considering Intermediaries as Relational Localizers: A Case Study of Localization in the Thai–Southeast Myanmar Border Humanitarian Response.” Public Administration and Development. 2026