Author Archives: burmastudiesgroup

Event: Cheesman on how Thai, and Burmese, torturers talk

Date/time: Tuesday 21 March 2023, 12.30–2.00pm, Room 2.54 (APCD Boardroom, Level 2) Hedley Bull Building ANU   

Title: How Thai, and Burmese, torturers talk

Speaker: Nick Cheesman  

Abstract: In 2021, a group of anti-narcotics cops in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand suffocated a man to death with plastic bags. The torture and killing would have gone unreported but that it was captured on a video, which a lawyer posted online. The video, in which the voices of the torturers are audible, serves as a starting point for this presentation. In it I revisit Elaine Scarry’s (1985) thesis that torture is not an element of interrogation, but the opposite: interrogation is internal to the structure of torture. In torture the captive’s ground becomes increasingly physical and the torturers’ increasingly verbal. That is to say, the political dynamic of violent degradation in torture is located not in how captives speak when tortured, but in how torturers themselves talk. 

How do torturers talk? And how do answers to this question present opportunities for rethinking the relation between law, violence and political order? I address these questions by describing research on torture in Thailand conducted during 2018-19 and 2022, supplemented by data from Myanmar prior to the 2021 coup there. I argue that in Thailand and Myanmar, torturers’ talk works not to elicit facts but establish subject positions. It is pedagogical, not epistemological, concerned not with the production of knowledge but with the affirmation of the rightness of torturers’ views and practices. What is at stake is not the truthfulness of captives’ answers, but their demonstrated ability to learn and perform assigned roles in the torture situation. The task for politically engaged research on torture, among other categories of state violence, is to describe and understand the part that such pedagogies of torment play in arrangements for the domination of some people by others.  

Microsoft Teams meeting

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Meeting ID: 462 106 827 25 
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Future Pubs: Andrew Ong’s Stalemate (Cornell U Press)

Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia’s strongest insurgent army on Myanmar’s border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages rather than evades these surrounding states, yet struggles to fit into their registers of sovereignty and statehood.

More information here

expected out in June 2023

Opportunity: Assistant Editor for IJBS

Please see the following opportunity for a fluent Burmese speaker/writer to join the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship: https://forms.gle/LAyUbxMkF7LJENuS7.

အလုပ်ခေါ်စာ – လက်ထောက်အယ်ဒီတာ၊ IJBS

သက်တမ်းကုန်ဆုံးရက် – ၃၀ ရက်နေ့ မတ်လ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်။

သိစပ်မြင်နှံ့လွတ်လပ်သော မြန်မာ့သုတေသနဂျာနယ် (https://ddec1-0-en-ctp.trendmicro.com:443/wis/clicktime/v1/query?url=https%3a%2f%2fijbs.online&umid=00f14dbe-bba3-4b1c-8820-722946638be5&auth=8d3ccd473d52f326e51c0f75cb32c9541898e5d5-641572c8691aabd9a0455c8c8096a66abe22e29e) သည် ဂျာနယ်နှင့် ၎င်း၏အရေးကြီးသော လုပ်ငန်းတာဝန်များကို ထောက်ပံ့ပေးရန် အယ်ဒီတာချုပ်နှင့် အတူတကွ အလုပ်တွဲလုပ်နိုင်မည့် လက်ထောက်အယ်ဒီတာတစ်ဦးကို ရှာဖွေနေပါသည်။ လျှောက်ထားသူသည် အဆင့်မြင့်ပညာရေး၊ သုတေသနနှင့် ထုတ်ဝေဖြန့်ချိရေးတို့တွင် စိတ်အားထက်သန်မှုရှိရန် လိုအပ်ပြီး မြန်မာနိုင်ငံနှင့် နိုင်ငံသူနိုင်ငံသားများရင်ဆိုင်ရမည့် စိန်ခေါ်မှုများနှင့် အခွင့်အရေးများကို ရှေးရှုမျှော်မြင်နိုင်ရပါမည်။​

ယခုခေါ်ယူထားသော အလုပ်နေရာသည် ပျော့ပြောင်းမှုရှိပြီး၊ အဝေးမှဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ကာ လျှောက်ထားသူ၏ နေထိုင်ရာနိုင်ငံပေါ်မူတည်ပြီး လူချင်းတွေ့ဆုံဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်မည့် အခွင့်အလမ်းများလည်း ရှိပါသည်။

Opportunity: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Myanmar Studies at the UBC

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Postdoctoral Fellowship in Myanmar Studies at the University of British Columbia

The Institute of Asian Research in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia (UBC) welcomes applicants for a postdoctoral fellowship in Myanmar Studies. The fellowship is enabled by a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar initiative. The successful candidate will show promise as an emerging scholar of contemporary Myanmar, and have an active research agenda that engages contemporary social, political, or economic issues related to democratization and peace. 

The duration of the fellowship is between 16 and 24 months, subject to agreement with the committee. The start date is flexible, but should not be after September 1, 2023. The successful candidate must have completed a PhD within the last 5 years, or expect to complete one shortly, in a relevant discipline (e.g. anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, history, or any other social science or humanities discipline). The postdoctoral fellow is expected to conduct research on contemporary Burma/Myanmar, as well as support the UBC Myanmar initiative and its activities, including mentoring Burmese students at the UBC, and engaging with the Burma Studies communities in Canada, Asia, and globally. Candidates from or connected to Myanmar are especially encouraged to apply. 

The application deadline is March 10, 2023. The review of applications will begin immediately following the deadline. 

Applications can be sent to Dr. Kai Ostwald, Director of the Institute of Asian Research, SPPGA, c/o Yoko Nagao (yoko.nagao@ubc.ca). They must include the following: 

  1. A cover letter that includes a description of current and proposed research; 
  2. a curriculum vitae; 
  3. proof of Ph.D. completion prior to the start date;
  4. two letters of reference, to be sent directly by referees to yoko.nagao@ubc.ca  

How to apply? 

Applicants should send materials by email, as described above, referencing Myanmar Studies PD Fellow. 

Desired start date: Not later than September 01, 2023 

Duration: Fixed term / Temporary 

Contract Type: Full Time

Event: “Why Has Myanmar’s Struggle for Democracy Been Ignored?” (panel)

Insight Myanmar presents its third panel discussion, dealing with the way that Myanmar’s ongoing revolution has been attended to (or not) by those outside the country.

Date: Friday, February 24th

Time: 8.30 pm (Yangon)

To join, please register in advance on this zoom link.

More info here

With:

·      Michael Haack, Campaign Manager for Campaign for a New Myanmar, and member of the U.S. Advocacy Coalition. Michael has been closely involved in a number of important, Myanmar-related issues, as both a researcher and lobbyist.

·      Philipp Annawitt, a governance specialist, political analyst and experienced project management professional who has been advising development partners in their engagement with the NUG and CRPH. Philipp has researched the historic concept and definition of “legitimacy” and argues that the NUG should meet any basic criteria.

·      Nandar Min Swe, a Los Angeles-based doctor who became one of the main fundraisers for humanitarian aid, and has also led various NUG fundraising projects.

·      Igor Blaževič, a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016 he worked in Myanmar as the head lecturer of the Educational Initiatives Program. Following the coup, Igor has come on as a fulltime advisor and supporter of the Spring Revolution.

·      Thiri, a researcher, fixer and documentary producer based in Myanmar. Thiri has worked as a freelance consultant for international Human Rights organizations and media outlets. She reports, documents and advocates about the on-going conflict in Myanmar, as well as on political, social and economic issues.