This week in New Pubs, in addition to the new issue of JoBS that just dropped, we have Alam and Wood on implicit authorization of mass violence (vis-a-vis the Rohingya in Myanmar); Phyu Phyu Oo and Davies on gender based violence in northern Shan State and victim-centered justice mechanisms; finally, Passeri on the way authoritarian rule in Myanmar has impacted natural disaster response, from Nargis to Covid.

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.

Journal of Burma Studies‘ first issue of 2022 is hot off presses. It’s articles are:

Saruya, Rachelle. “Ritual and Play in Buddhist Nun-Making: Girlhood, Nunhood, and the Shaping of the ‘Little Teacher’ in Today’s Myanmar.” pp. 1-33

Thanapas Dejpawuttikul. “From Archenemy of the Nation to the Intimate Other: Prince Damrong Rajanubhab’s Journey through Burma and the Colonial Ecumene” pp. 35-67

Reny, Marie-Eve. “Military Rule with a Weak Army: Myanmar’s Late Expansion.”pp. 69-93

Matelski, Maaike and Nang Muay Noan. “Grassroots Roles and Leadership Aspirations: The Experiences of Young Ethnic Women in Myanmar Civil Society Organizations.” pp. 95-131

Also book reviews by Jane Ferguson, Linda McIntosh, and Yuri Takahashi.

See here for the whole issue.

Continuing from last week’s Cuts, we proceed with our on-going examination of education in Burma, with two more texts. Cheesman, better known for his work on law in Myanmar, also has a Master’s Thesis on Myanmar educational curricula, where he looks “into the texture of text: its style, form, organisation, history and context, and not merely its contents” (2002:112). Then we have Brooke Treadwell’s 2013 dissertation that attends to how such texts are actually transmitted (by teachers) and received (by students). Her ethnography reveals, perhaps not surprisingly, that the state’s ideology was not transmitted through pliant mediators to docile recipients (see ch 5 and end of ch 4).

As a special topical bonus, last week Chu May Paing penned an article about Myanmar’s “slave education” system (“Is Neocolonial Education a Solution to ‘Military Slave Education’?”), and whether external interventions are necessarily better.

This week in New Pubs we have a short piece by Takahashi on metal musical instruments in Myanmar; Khin Thazin and Campbell on how the coup has impacted Myanmar migrant workers abroad; and a new edited volume by Hussain on encamped Rohingya life.

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.

In this week’s Deep Cuts we have the first of a two-part series featuring analyses of Burma’s education system through the years. The first is Salem-Gervais and Metro’s examination of the changes in Myanmar’s school curricula from the BSPP period through the SPDC one. What is shocking is the amount of pruning of content on non-Bamar peoples. At one point the authors ask, acidly, “Since the national races are portrayed as being completely unified politically, one may begin to wonder what differentiates them at all” (2012:52).” Myo Oo compares two specific textbooks during the independence period, an era which he argues is understudied. He finds an apparent contradiction: the history book analyzed asserts that many ethnicities consolidated into a homogenous population in Myanmar; the civics book, by contrast, articulates liberal principles of governance that displace the importance of national identity.

See here for the PDFs.

This week in New Pubs we have Luong featuring voices of opium farmers; Pederson on how the coup has rent Myanmar apart; and Ye Myo Hein on the revolution’s အရှိန်အဟုန်

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.

This is one of the most underrated books on activism in Burma – not sure why it has not received more attention. Perhaps because the author is a journalist rather than a minted PhD, and hence the book did not make it onto the radar of academics? It’s a shame, because it is a fantastic account of activism under the regime and during the early transition period.

The PDF of the proofs version is on our page (there are some geographical errors that got cleaned up in copy editing phase). It’s the only copy I have, but if anyone else has a better copy to brazenly pirate, because we are equal opportunity like that, please do share.

Authors are encouraged to submit abstracts on the meeting theme—”𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞”—and current and emerging mental health issues in Southeast Asia. Empirical (qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method), theoretical, and clinical case studies are welcomed.

All oral presentations are considered for a prize if the papers are submitted full-text (5000-8000 words) before the conference. Prizes consist of 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 on polishing and publishing the paper and 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 (flight, hotel, visa) to an approved scientific conference in their discipline.

𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: https://seamentalhealth.com/submit-abstract

Deadline: 𝟑𝟎 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞, 𝟏𝟏:𝟓𝟗 𝐩𝐦 (GMT+7)

This week in New Pubs we feature a number of scholars of South Asia discussing the position of Burma in their sub-region; David et al on the way ethnic relations have improved post-coup; and Cheesman with a historical study of the penal colony in the Coco Islands (if I’m not mistaken, vernacular Burmese for “life sentence” is တစ်သက်တစ်ကွန်းပြစ်ဒဏ် – “punishment of life on an island”).

As always, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks.