"[Editor?s Note: In this week?s set of two posts, Dr Mandy Sadan, Reader in the History of South East Asia at SOAS University of London, discusses recent experiences of the piracy of her work in Myanmar and reflects on the difficult and competing demands placed upon academics to publish their work in peer reviewed, elite university presses while also reaching a local audience. She also ponders in this essay on the unintended consequences of knowledge piracy upon Myanmar?s higher education sector in a so-called ?digital age?.] ... Is mimicry the highest form of flattery? For most of my academic career I have taken a serious interest in the illicit (re)production, circulation, and consumption of ?things? in Myanmar, especially ideas and photographic images. I have also written and talked quite a lot about this interest in various publications and at conferences, and have even followed the progress of some circulations over two decades. I can hardly claim, therefore, to be an innocent bystander to such practices when I express myself so openly to be intrigued and fascinated by them. However, in October 2017 I was alerted to a translation into Burmese of my book Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma (British Academy and OUP 2013). A young relative had sent a photograph showing the book?s cover and she commented that she was feeling proud that her auntie?s book had finally been translated into Burmese and that she would now be able to read it. I was perturbed by the fact that the translator had not been in touch with me but was prepared to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they had done me a favour? Any work of translation requires time and commitment/energy and I would not be thoughtlessly dismissive of that effort..."