A Naturalist’s Guide to the Birds of Myanmar is an introductory photographic identification guide to 280 birds found in the most frequently visited parts of Myanmar, with a further 100 related species referred to in the descriptions.
Progress, Retrenchment and Ambiguity Amidst Liberalization
The optimism provoked by Myanmar's political reforms in 2011-2012 has now given way to a sense that the uneven nature of change in this nation of 54 million has lead to instability and uncertainty. The liberalization of critical sectors and expansion of certain freedoms - such as political and legal opportunities for expression and mobilization ......
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 ......
Studies of the Tai world often treat 'state' and 'community' as polar opposites: the state produces administrative uniformity and commercialisation, while community sustains tradition, local knowledge and subsistence economy. This assumption leads to the conclusion that the traditional community is undermined by the modern forces of state ......
The clash between an exile community making art and the expectations of others A groundbreaking exploration of how diasporic Burmese artists navigate the intricate intersections of art, politics, and humanitarianism, Performing Vulnerability delves into the complexities of vulnerability as both a personal and a performative act. These diasporic ......
The clash between an exile community making art and the expectations of others A groundbreaking exploration of how diasporic Burmese artists navigate the intricate intersections of art, politics, and humanitarianism, Performing Vulnerability delves into the complexities of vulnerability as both a personal and a performative act. These diasporic ......
Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border
Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's strongest insurgent army on Myanmar's border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages ......
One Soldier's Account of Jungle Warfare in WWII Burma
Born and raised in Mississippi, Peter K. Lutken, Jr. (1920-2014) joined the army in 1941 and was assigned to the Coast Artillery. Originally sent to India to guard airfields, he was reassigned to the British V Force, then the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services and precursor to the CIA) after he volunteered for reconnaissance missions ......
Non-State Welfare, Inequality, and Resistance in Myanmar
Outsourcing the Polity offers a new account of social outsourcing in post-independence Myanmar, demonstrating how the bankrupt post-socialist junta mediated market reform in the 1990s and 2000s and forced private and non-state actors to take the burden for social welfare. Informed by research during Myanmar's decade of partial civilian rule ......