Many researchers today acknowledge that the production of knowledge is shaped by uneven power relations at numerous scales. This principle is particularly salient when considering Myanmar’s borderlands: the complex and diverse areas surrounding Myanmar’s Bamar-dominated heartlands, which have historically had ethnic, linguistic, and kinship ties to neighbouring states. Not only have borderland inhabitants been sidelined in official narratives of the country’s history, colonial authorities and state actors have framed these places as “backward”, “primitive” and inherently violent to justify state violence and other incursions. Researchers and educators from Myanmar’s borderlands have thus long engaged in the uphill task of producing knowledge about society, politics, and history in these areas in a way that resists state-centrism, similar to how the area’s inhabitants have long resisted or evaded the state.

The 2021 coup has added new urgency to debates over the politics of knowledge in Myanmar, as research disseminated beyond the country shapes how outsiders view and respond to the Spring Revolution. At the same time, the Spring Revolution has opened up political space for the creation of new research and education institutions that facilitate the production of local knowledge, independent of the military regime.^[1] Many of these institutions seek not only the production of more data about Myanmar, but to ensure that knowledge is produced equitably and in line with ongoing debates about the role of borderland actors, including ethnic education providers, in Myanmar’s future.

All of this also takes place amidst broader shifts in the social sciences, as global calls to decolonize knowledge are debated among researchers in many places. While heterogeneous and unfinished, those involved in these debates concur that ‘systems of power’ and the ‘inclusion and exclusion of voice’ are underlying issues in need of reflection. In the Myanmar context, the debate on decolonizing knowledge has entailed criticizing both the epistemic legacies of Burmanization and so-called “international” interventions into Myanmar, including how Western epistemologies have long structured dominant academic knowledge production about the country.

In reflecting on the conditions under which “borderland knowledge” is produced – including the institutions and actors that produce and transmit research about Myanmar’s borderlands, and train researchers that hail from these places – this piece contributes to debates about knowledge politics in Myanmar. It summarizes points made by the authors at a roundtable on “Research and learning in Myanmar’s borderlands” at the 2024 International Conference on Myanmar’s Borderlands at Chulalongkorn University. Organized by Shona and Anders, the roundtable aimed to bring together participants contributing to uplifting voices from Myanmar’s borderlands. Radka, Dan, Peter, and Anders are or were associated with, respectively, the School of Governance and Public Administration, the Kachinland Research Centre, the Chin State Academic Research Network, and Spring University Myanmar.

Here, we offer not a definitive summary of the status of borderland knowledge in Myanmar, but rather introduce topical debates with a hope to spark reflection and discussion among the wider community of researchers and educators of which we are a part. These issues are further framed by the wider task of challenging military rule.

Centre-periphery inequalities

Researchers face specific challenges when seeking to resist state-centric narratives about Myanmar’s borderlands. These challenges are particularly salient for researchers who hail from Myanmar’s borderlands themselves. Educational institutions in borderland areas have long been under-resourced, and the politics of language have added further access barriers for ethnic minority scholars, within a culture of Burmanisation. Moreover, small improvements to the central education system in the decade before the coup did not amount to substantial efforts to make it more inclusive of ethnic languages, cultures, and histories. Complicating the matter further, conflict often disrupted education  – whether provided by the central government or local providers. Such historic inequalities shape the pathways through which borderland inhabitants have acquired the ability to not only receive knowledge, but produce it on their own terms and “speak back” to state-centric narratives about themselves. 

This is not to say that borderland-based research and education institutions do not exist. Many do, as evident in the experiences of the authors of this article, most of whom have been building up research capacities in Myanmar’s borderlands long before the coup. In addition, a wide swath of education actors exist whose work falls outside Western norms of a secular, state-centric education system. For example, faith-based education providers have been prominent in Karen, Kachin, Shan, and Chin states, complementing the significance of Christianity to these groups’ struggles for self-determination. Many ethnic armed groups also have education departments, which since the coup have provided schooling to up to one million children. Furthermore, in the realm of research, many community-based organisations have published extensively researched reports that document issues affecting Myanmar’s borderlands. There are many examples, among them the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), whose extensive efforts to document villagers’ self-protection strategies in the midst of conflict (what the KHRG conceptualises as ‘village agency’) have captured international attention.

Still, building up borderland research capacities has been an uphill struggle. For one, in the absence of a state that would support such initiatives, the production of knowledge relies on donor money for which borderland organisations must compete with mainstream institutions. Language also complicates matters: competence in Burmese among local researchers and students is not a given, nor is competence in English, restricting some researchers’ abilities to contribute to both countrywide dialogues and international dialogues. One may be a skilled researcher, but lack the social capital and networks needed to communicate one’s research to a wider public. Or one may wish to develop research capacities, but be unable to seek out training or education in a language that one speaks fluently. In part, this is because funders seeking to provide capacity-building in research skills can base their decisions on quantity, access, and “risk” minimization: for example, on paper, it is easier and cheaper to train one hundred researchers in Yangon, than it is to train one hundred researchers in borderland areas, where funding for travel is necessary. Moreover, it takes time to develop an ease with asking critical questions – the basis of research practice – something that is often a luxury when borderland institutions are faced with issues related to funding, ongoing conflict, and the everyday challenges of surviving state violence.^[2]

Finally, the research process itself – ranging from collecting background information to dissemination – can pose challenges specific to Myanmar’s borderlands. Borderland researchers can be hampered by the limited availability of background material, particularly material that is published in their own languages or from their perspectives. While Myanmar’s borderlands have sometimes been studied by foreign scholars writing in English, these studies are often guided by the security imperatives of Western governments. Generally, the social sciences are also plagued by a tendency to focus on “heartlands” rather than “borderlands”. These lenses foreground what borderlands are perceived to lack rather than highlighting the types of social, ecological, and political relationships that do exist there. Moreover, such publications may not be accessible to borderland researchers without a library subscription. Besides language issues, the tail end of the research process – dissemination – may also be challenging. Even so, to our observations, many borderland peoples are often happy when researchers and journalists are interested in their social stories and issues.

Securitizing borderlands and its impact on knowledge production

The production of borderland knowledge is impacted by the realities of borderland life. Borderlands are by definition located between the territories of two states. In the Myanmar context, states on both sides have often subjected people in these spaces to underdevelopment, marginalization, and violence. In response, historic movements for autonomy have arisen, led by ethnic armed groups. They too shape the conditions under which borderland knowledge is produced.

This contested political situation means that borderland researchers often have to anticipate the responses of multiple actors in the process of doing and publishing research. To take one example, in assessing the risks of their research, researchers from Chin State have to navigate not only what the Myanmar junta considers “sensitive” but also what might upset the Indian government. This is why some local organisations in Chin State have not been able to publish their findings publicly; a decision that – while critical to ensuring the safety of these organisations and their staff – also comes at the cost of invisibilizing their own work. Another issue is that borderland-based researchers may not be able to travel out of their local area, especially in conflict areas that are heavily securitized. Donor demands for bigger research projects, involving multiple townships or even states and regions, can thus be difficult to implement for borderland researchers despite their extensive knowledge of the different localities. Travel risks can also be exacerbated for women.

Still, being based in borderlands may afford researchers certain advantages. Borderland researchers are often able to work across both sides of the border by virtue of their location, the multiple languages they speak, and the personal relationships they have built. Amidst the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, which has caused people to flee across borders (often multiple times), a full understanding of the impact of armed violence on civilians necessitates a cross-border perspective. In addition, borderland-based research actors can at times access resources that their counterparts deeper inside the country cannot since meetings with foreign donors and foreign scholars often occur across the border, outside Myanmar. Institutional links are being forged between local research organisations in Myanmar’s borderlands and their counterparts, for example, in India and Thailand, despite significant challenges.

However, there is unequal access to external expertise, funding, training, and international networks across Myanmar’s borderlands, especially because of the policies of neighbouring countries. The Thai-Myanmar border was a hub for multi-ethnic activists and organizers from Myanmar long before the coup. This is largely because the border has historically been relatively open, albeit informally, and has also attracted foreign activists supporting the resistance – a trend that has been renewed since the 2021 coup. Exchanges between local and foreign activists have thus created a thriving borderland ‘political space’ despite periodic crackdowns on undocumented people, in contrast to the closure of political space inside Myanmar. Nevertheless, these opportunities are not universal, and are not available to the same extent in the China-Myanmar and India-Myanmar borderlands, where neighbouring states are more hostile towards the Spring Revolution and towards people from Myanmar crossing the border, even if they have personal and kinship ties to those on the other side.

Looking forward: borderland knowledge in the Spring Revolution

The ongoing Spring Revolution has created unprecedented space for new political imaginaries. By equipping young scholars in Myanmar with the intellectual tools they need, education and research institutions independent of the military regime are integral to this struggle. In addition to decades-old ethnic-based education providers, new online education institutions (such as Virtual Federal University, Spring University Myanmar, and Burma Academy) emerged in the post-coup space. These institutions are not merely trying to provide a stop-gap solution to ethnic or Civil Disobedience Movement students who cannot access formal education, but are actively experimenting with new pedagogies that empower students to think critically and develop future-ready skills, including how to address entrenched centre-periphery inequalities in Myanmar.

However, these inequalities cannot be undone overnight. In addition to the logistical challenges of trying to provide both in-person and online courses to students in the midst of civil war with irregular access to electricity and telecommunication, there are deep political scars that need to be overcome for political and education stakeholders to strengthen links between borderland knowledge institutions and the countrywide Spring Revolution. To be sure, there are promising signs. For the first time, through online education, “central” students are studying and collaborating with borderland students in the same (virtual) classrooms. Nevertheless, these efforts can be hampered by the necessary evil of faceless anonymity in risky digital environments. 

Besides addressing centre-periphery inequalities, the Spring Revolution also holds opportunities for borderland researchers themselves. Amidst displacement, conflict, and the Myanmar military’s “divide and rule” strategies, borderland people in Myanmar have sometimes struggled to come up with a common repository of meaning over say, what it means to be Chin, Kachin, or Karen. Formal archives and libraries, so central to nation-building in other contexts, are often unavailable. The current impetus within the Spring Revolution toward ‘cooperation and consensus’ among multiple groups can be a driver for research centred around the histories and experiences of those at the state’s margins, which incorporates a nuanced understanding of intra-group differences and diversity.

Moreover, the Spring Revolution invites stakeholders inside and outside Myanmar to address inequalities in knowledge production. First, by finding ways to formally or informally mentor Myanmar researchers while paying and crediting them equitably for the knowledge they help create. Second, to encourage critical self-reflection among students when delivering educational content, and to similarly adopt a more self-reflexive praxis as education providers that encourages students to co-create knowledge. Third, to create more spaces for young scholars to create and share their own work, such as the recently completed International Myanmar Student Research Symposium. Fourth, to more actively facilitate exchanges across research silos – whether across center-borderland boundaries, national-international actors, or even between academic and non-academic spaces – to promote knowledge sharing as well as more collaborative research. 

Notes

[1] It is worth noting that even the term “Spring Revolution” (နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး,) can be (mis)used to insinuate a Bamar-centric process of resistance that ignores decades of revolution and resistance by various ethnic minority groups around the country. 

[2] We acknowledge that borderland students may still be advantaged in relation to students from some rural areas of Myanmar. The point here is not to compare, but rather to highlight the particular challenges that education and research institutions in borderland areas face.