Living with Myanmar

Living with Myanmar
Author: Justine Chambers
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2020-10-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814881058

Since 2011 Myanmar has experienced many changes to its social, political and economic landscape. The formation of a new government in 2016, led by the National League for Democracy, was a crucially important milestone in the country’s transition to a more inclusive form of governance. And yet, for many people everyday struggles remain unchanged, and have often worsened in recent years. Key economic, social and political reforms are stalled, conflict persists and longstanding issues of citizenship and belonging remain. The wide-ranging, myriad and multiple challenges of Living with Myanmar is the subject of this volume. Following the Myanmar Update series tradition, each of the authors offers a different perspective on the sociopolitical and economic mutations occurring in the country and the challenges that still remain. The book is divided into six sections and covers critical issues ranging from gender equality and identity politics, to agrarian reform and the representative role of parliament. Collectively, these voices raise key questions concerning the institutional legacies of military rule and their ongoing role in subverting the country’s reform process. However, they also offer insights into the creative and productive ways that Myanmar’s activists, civil society, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and everyday people attempt to engage with and reform those legacies.

Citizenship in Myanmar

Citizenship in Myanmar
Author: Ashley South
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814786225

Myanmar is going through a period of profound - and contested - transition. The country has experienced widespread if sometimes uneven reforms, including the start of a peace process between the government and Myanmar Army, and some two dozen ethnic armed organizations, which had long been fighting for greater autonomy from the militarized and Burman-dominated state. This book brings together chapters by Burmese and foreign experts, and contributions from community and political leaders, who discuss the meaning of citizenship in Myanmar/Burma. The book explores citizenship in relation to three broad categories: issues of identity and conflict; debates around concepts and practices of citizenship; and inter- and intra-community issues, including Buddhist-Muslim relations. This is the first volume to address these issues, understanding and resolving which will be central to Myanmar's continued transition away from violence and authoritarianism.

Myanmar Transformed?

Myanmar Transformed?
Author: Chit Win
Publisher:
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2018
Genre: Burma
ISBN: 9789814818551

The triumph of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy at the 2015 election was supposed to mark the consolidation of a reformist trajectory for Myanmar society. What has followed has not proved so straightforward. This book takes stock of the mutations, continuities and fractures at the heart of today's political and economic transformations. We ask: What has changed under a democratically elected government? Where are the obstacles to reform? And is there scope to foster a more prosperous and inclusive Myanmar? With the peace process faltering, over 1 million people displaced by recent violence, and ongoing army dominance in key areas of decision-making, the chapters in this volume identify areas of possible reform within the constraints of Myanmar's hybrid civil-military governance arrangements. This latest volume in the Myanmar Update Series from the Australian National University continues a long tradition of intense, critical engagement with political, economic and social questions in one of Southeast Asia's most complicated countries. At a time of great uncertainty and anxiety, the 13 chapters of Myanmar Transformed? offer new and alternative ways to understand Myanmar and its people.

Everyday Economic Survival in Myanmar

Everyday Economic Survival in Myanmar
Author: Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 029932060X

Reforms in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have eased restrictions on citizens' political activities. Yet for most Burmese, Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung shows, eking out a living from day to day leaves little time for civic engagement. Citizens have coped with extreme hardship through great resourcefulness. But by making bad situations more tolerable in the short term, these coping strategies may hinder the emergence of the democratic values needed to sustain the country's transition to a more open political environment. Thawnghmung conducted in-depth interviews and surveys of 372 individuals from all walks of life and across geographical locations in Myanmar between 2008 and 2015. To frame her analysis, she provides context from countries with comparable political and economic situations. Her findings will be welcomed by political scientists and policy analysts, as well by journalists and humanitarian activists looking for substantive, reliable information about everyday life in a country that remains largely in the shadows.

Twilight over Burma

Twilight over Burma
Author: Inge Sargent
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1994-08-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780824816285

Just married and returning to live in her new husband's native land, a young Austrian woman arrived with her Burmese husband by passenger ship in Rangoon in 1953. They were met at dockside by hundreds of well-wishers displaying colorful banners, playing music on homemade instruments, and carrying giant bouquets of flowers. She was puzzled by this unusual welcome until her embarrassed husband explained that he was something more than a recently graduated mining engineer - he was the Prince of Hsipaw, the ruler of an autonomous state in Burma's Shan mountains. And these people were his subjects! She immersed herself in the Shan lifestyle, eagerly learning the language, the culture, and the history of the Shan hill people. The Princess of Hsipaw fell in love with this remote, exotic land and its warm and friendly people. She worked at her husband's side to bring change and modernization to their primitive country. Her efforts to improve the education and health care of the country, and her husband's commitment to improve the economic well-being of the people made them one of the most popular ruling couples in Southeast Asia. Then the violent military coup of 1962 shattered the idyllic existence of the previous ten years. Her life irrevocably changed. Inge Sargent tells a story of a life most of us can only dream about. She vividly describes the social, religious, and political events she experienced. She details the day-to-day living as a "reluctant ruler" and her role as her husband's equal - a role that perplexed the males in Hsipaw and created awe in the females. And then she describes the military events that threatened her life and that of her children. Twilight over Burma is a story of a great happiness destroyed by evil, of one woman's determination and bravery against a ruthless military regime, and of the truth behind the overthrow of one of Burma's most popular local leaders.

Myanmar

Myanmar
Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2009-07-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9812309683

On 2-3 May 2008 Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar, causing almost 140,000 deaths and leaving 2 million in the Ayeyawaddy delta homeless. As Myanmar's initial delay in responding to the humanitarian crisis was evident, ASEAN emerged as mediator and convenor, coordinating international and regional efforts. This led to a tripartite cooperation mechanism among the Government of Myanmar, the United Nations and ASEAN. Through June-December 2008, Pavin Chachavalpongpun and Moe Thuzar documented ASEAN's role in helping Myanmar respond to Nargis.

Myanmar on My Mind

Myanmar on My Mind
Author: H. C. Matthew Sim
Publisher:
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Our Home in Myanmar

Our Home in Myanmar
Author: Jessica Mudditt
Publisher: Jessica Mudditt
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-05-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0648914232

Myanmar – shrouded in mystery, misunderstood and isolated for half a century. After a whirlwind romance in Bangladesh, Australian journalist Jessica Mudditt and her Bangladeshi husband Sherpa arrive in Yangon in 2012 – just as the military junta is beginning to relax its ironclad grip on power. It is a high-risk atmosphere; a life riddled with chaos and confusion as much as it is with wonder and excitement. Jessica joins a small team of old-hand expat editors at The Myanmar Times, whose Burmese editor is still languishing in prison. Whether she is covering a speech by Aung San Suu Kyi, getting dangerously close to cobras, directing cover shoots with Burmese models, or scaling Bagan’s thousand-year-old temples, Jessica is entranced and challenged by a country undergoing rapid change. But as the historic elections of 2015 draw near, it becomes evident that the road to democracy is full of twists, turns and false starts. The couple is blindsided when a rise in militant Buddhism takes a personal turn and challenges their belief that they have found a home in Myanmar.

In the Name of Pauk-Phaw

In the Name of Pauk-Phaw
Author: Maung Aung Myoe
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2011
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814345172

Since its independence in January 1948, Myanmar has tried to find a way to deal with (at one time) ideologically hostile and traditionally chauvinistic China which has pursued a foreign policy aimed at restoring its perceived influence in Myanmar. To counter China's attempts to influence Myanmar's foreign policy options has always been a challenge for the Myanmar government. Since the 1950s, successive Myanmar governments have realized that Myanmar's bilateral relations with the People's Republic of China should best be conducted in the context of promoting the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the Bandung spirit and the Pauk-Phaw (kinsfolk) friendship. The term Pauk-Phaw is exclusively devoted to denote the special nature of the Sino-Myanmar relationship. This work argues that Myanmar's relationship with China is asymmetric but Myanmar skilfully plays the "China Card" and it enjoys considerable space in its conduct of foreign relations. So long as both sides fulfill the obligations that come under "Pauk-Phaw" friendship, the relationship will remain smooth. Myanmar has constantly repositioned her relations with China to her best advantage. Myanmar's China policy has always been placed somewhere in between balancing and bandwagoning, and the juxtaposition of accommodating China's regional strategic interests and resisting Chinese influence and interference in Myanmar's internal affairs has been a hallmark of Myanmar's China policy. This is likely to remain unchanged.