Okell Paper specifications for future prizes

• Eligibility: will be awarded to the strongest essay on a Burma/Myanmar related topic submitted by a graduate student or post-doctoral researcher (if you have a tenure track or stable research position you are ineligible). The awardee will be granted a $300 prize.
  • Length: no more than 10,000 words, inclusive of footnotes
  • It must be as yet unpublished 
  • Submit an electronic document (word, pdf, pages) to burmastudiesgroup@gmail.com
  • Timeline:
    • Due date: early “summer” 2026
    • Award date: late “summer” 2026

John Okell Paper Prize (2024)

The John Okell Paper Prize Committee are pleased to announce that the reviewers (Tani Sebro, Elliott Prasse-Freeman, and Mary Callahan) have selected Chao Ren to be the honoree for this year’s John Okell Paper Prize and additionally, given an honorable mention to Mu-Lung Hsu.

• 2024 Okell Prize: Chao Ren’s “The Return of Mi Shwe Tin? Speculation, Litigation, and the Articulation of “Buddhist Law” in a Burmese Oilfield”
• Honorable mention: Mu-Lung Hsu’s “Cultivation of Saṃvega in Contemporary Myanmar – from a Desire for Enlightenment to a Moral Agency to Help Social Others in Need”

Here are some remarks from the committee about the papers:

“The committee received fourteen unpublished papers in consideration for the 2024 Okell Prize. We were indelibly impressed with the methodological innovations and theoretical interventions that these papers contribute to Burma Studies. We thank all the graduate student authors for their wonderful work and encourage all of them to pursue further research and publication. The papers were outstanding!
Therefore, it was exceedingly difficult to choose only one paper and we must stress that several papers were deserving of the prize. Ultimately, we were struck by the ambitious arguments and skillful writing found in Chao Ren’s “The Return of Mi Shwe Tin? Speculation, Litigation, and the Articulation of “Buddhist Law” in a Burmese Oilfield.” Therefore, we are happy to award the 2024 Okell Prize to Chao Ren. We were also impressed by Mu-Lung Hsu’s “Cultivation of Saṃvega in Contemporary Myanmar – from a Desire for Enlightenment to a Moral Agency to Help Social Others in Need,” and confer this paper honorable mention.”

John Okell Paper Prize (2022)

The Burma Studies Group and the John Okell Paper Prize Committee are pleased to announce that Lian Bawi Thang and Courtney Wittekind have been selected as co-honorees for this year’s inaugural paper price. Congratulations both.

• Courtney Wittekind. “‘Take our Land:’ Fronts, Fake Farmers, and Falsity in a City Yet-to-Come.”
• Lian Bawi Thang. “The Sit-Tat’s Quest for a Grand Strategy: A Critical Examination of the 2017 Rohingya Clearance Operation.”

Here are the remarks from the Prize selection committee about the papers:

“The committee was impressed by the two papers especially because they provide new ways of approaching questions that might seem to have been settled. By starting from a deep engagement with the empirical material and crafting an analysis from there, both authors generate nuanced analyses that steer clear of received and often polarized ideas about society, culture and politics in contemporary Myanmar. We welcome the creativity and openness to surprise their scholarship demonstrates.”

Sarah M. Bekker Prize (2020) has been awarded to:

• Laur Kiik (Anthropology, University of Oxford) for the paper “Geopolitical Analysis or Conspiracy Theory? Hearing Chinese, Burmese, and Kachin Speculations on the Myitsone Dam Controversy.”