State-Society relations - Burma/Myanmar and the region
Individual Documents
Description:
Borderlands are often described as frontier zones? characterised by
rebelliousness, lawlessness and/or an absence of laws? (Kristof 1959:
281). Anecdotes resonate with popular images of a remote underworld
(or perhaps outerworld?) where state authority is weak and lawlessness
prevails. In the upper Mekong borderlands of Thailand, Laos and Burma,
the imagery of borderland illegality persists both as spectre and lure, but
the substance of what happens there reveals a state and society in league.
Andrew Walker
Source/publisher:
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) (Newsletter 42)
Date of publication:
2006-10-00
Date of entry/update:
2009-03-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
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Description:
Located at a strategic Asian crossroads, Burma (Myanmar)1 is one of the world?s
most ethnically diverse countries. Surrounded by Bangladesh, China, India,
Laos and Thailand, it is also one of the most strife-torn and lawless along its
3,650-mile border. Its post-colonial experience exemplifies how illicit economies,
insurgent or military-based politics and cross-border human movement can
flourish in the wake of failed attempts to create a modern nation-state...Since Burma?s independence from Great Britain in 1948,
an array of state, quasi-state and insurgent groups have
used armed violence to pursue their goals across all three
political eras: parliamentary democracy (1948-62), General Ne
Win?s Burmese Way to Socialism? (1962-88), and the military
State Peace and Development Council (post-1988). In the 21st
century, Burma?s socio-political landscape continues to reflect
conditions of conflict. Particularly in the conflict zones, the
line between legality? and illegality? is frequently blurred....
Martin Smith
Source/publisher:
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) (Newsletter 42)
Date of publication:
2006-10-00
Date of entry/update:
2009-03-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
more
Description:
"The dialectical relationship between the nation state and zones of relative autonomy isn?t unique to mainland Southeast Asia, but it is of particular salience there,
demarcating the social cleavage that shapes much of the region?s history: that between hill peoples and valley peoples. It led to a process of state formation in valleys
and peopling of hills, and left the latter largely absent from the historical record...Non-state spaces? are where the state has
difficulty establishing its authority: mountains,
swamps, mangrove coasts, deserts,
river deltas. Such places have often served
as havens of refuge for peoples resisting
or fleeing the state. Only the modern state
possesses the resources to bring non-state
spaces and people to heel; in Southeast
Asia it represents the last great effort to
integrate people, land and resources of the
periphery and make them contributors to
the gross national product. The state might
dub it development?, economic progress?,
literacy?, social integration?, but the real
objective is to make the economic activity
of peripheral societies taxable and assessable
? to make it serve the state ? by, for
example, obliging nomads or swidden
cultivators to settle in permanent villages,
concentrating manpower and foodstuffs.
Thus the padi-state was an enclosure? of
previously stateless peoples: irrigated rice
agriculture on permanent fields helped
create the state?s strategic and military
advantage. In fact, the permanent association
of the state and sedentary agriculture
is at the centre of this story (a story by no
means confined to Southeast Asia, which
this article targets). The vast barbarian?
periphery became a vital resource: human
captives formed a successful state?s working
capital. Avoiding the state used to be a
real option. Today it is quickly vanishing..."
James C. Scott
Source/publisher:
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) (Newsletter 49)
Date of publication:
2008-11-00
Date of entry/update:
2009-03-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
more