CHAIRPERSON
Assoc Prof Maitrii Aung Thwin, Department of History, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Myanmar’s on-going ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya minority, in which 660,000 people have been driven into Bangladesh and more than 6,000 have been killed, is a disaster of world-historic proportions. Yet, the reasons for the violence have remained mostly inscrutable. The talk will address potential variables generating the conflict, beginning by discussing the long-standing exclusion of the Rohingya from the Burmese polity. The talk will challenge reductionist accounts that attribute exclusion mostly to colonial era administrative procedures (such as the census, which ostensibly reified ethnicity) or to the racist and bigoted policies of the Burmese post-colonial military state without analyzing the particular processes that made those variables meaningful. The talk will then turn to the contemporary period, exploring why the exclusion of the Rohingya has turned to violent expulsion. In particular, the talk hypothesizes that the country’s rapid re-insertion into global capital circuits that has attended the country’s recent liberalization has led to massive precarity on the part of average people, who have been successfully mobilized by right-wing movements.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Elliott Prasse-Freeman is a PhD candidate at Yale University in Anthropology, where he researches Burmese political thought and practices. He holds an undergraduate degree with honors from Harvard College and a master’s degree in Development Economics from Harvard’s Kennedy School.
REGISTRATION
Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you click on the “Register” button above to RSVP.
