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1 February 2024 marked the third year since the military in Myanmar attempted to take power but was instead met with fierce civil resistance which has continued up to today. The post-coup resistance movement, referred to locally as 'Spring Revolution', forms a new phase for civil society in Myanmar, a widely diverse group of actors … Continued

Guest blogger and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Media and Communication at LSE, Dr Grace Yuehan Wang writes about ASEAN's AI Governance guide as it diverges from EU rules, emphasising innovation and cultural sensitivity and discusses the challenges in balancing regional nuances with global AI governance standards. _______________________________________________   ASEAN’s Approach to AI Governance– … Continued

Most areas in North Jakarta are undoubtedly experiencing unprecedented environmental, social and economic pressures. But does a language of crisis really bring us closer to the lived world? The author invites us to look beyond mere subsistence and pay attention to the ways in which communities in vulnerable conditions create novel social relations, identities, and … Continued

Vested interests have been actively reclaiming land from Jakarta Bay for speculative real estate development since the mid-1990s. Widespread institutional reforms and a changing urban political economy have invited greater contestation over these plans. However, one prominent developer's recent success in developing two islands into upmarket properties highlights the resilience of such interests today, writes … Continued

In recent years, the fisheries sector has gained significant global attention in response to challenges such as declining fish populations and overfishing. This has fueled consumer demand for sustainable and traceable seafood, particularly in the Northern European and North American markets. Amid this global shift, Indonesia, as one of the most important fish and seafood … Continued

“The incumbent president and his predecessor opted for this particular kind of accommodation because of perceived and imagined fears of what might happen to them if they were to choose the path of taking down these coalition partners. The coalition partners also appear to have taken a similarly defensive stance, thus perpetuating existing political arrangements … Continued

To rescue Vinh from its ruins, East Germany provided substantial material and technological assistance that was designed to transform it into Vietnam's model socialist city. However, this transformation was not without its challenges, as Vinh's rapid ascendance was followed by a quick fall into 'unplanned obsolescence', writes Xue Xuan, reviewing Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East … Continued

Based on ethnographic research conducted in early 2019 along a 'corridor' of the Asia Highway 1 (AH1) in Southeast Myanmar part of the EWEC (East West Economic Corridor), this blog post reflects on a presentation given at the 15th International Burma Studies Conference 2023 hosted by the Myanmar-Institut and the University of Zurich, writes Dominique … Continued

The British Museum presented a special exhibition called "Burma to Myanmar", which explores the complexities of Myanmar's contemporary art and rich cultural history from the era of dynastic rule through colonialism and military rule. It offers a good start to showcase Myanmar's art and culture, even if it sometimes feels fleeting, disconnected and dissatisfying, writes … Continued

Lost futures however do not mean that they are immaterial or unseeable. In the case of Malaysia and Singapore in fact, these lost futures have, even until now, been the subject of mass suppression as the post-colonial is intent in consolidating its hegemony, writes Armand Azra bin Azlira _______________________________________________ Doing fieldwork research in Malaysia and … Continued

Animals, both livestock and others (including pets) have long needed state-enacted legal protections for their welfare. In the next post in this series, Aye Mar Win looks at the corpus of laws and legal provisions that are aimed to protect them in Myanmar, and what more can be done for their welfare.   _______________________________________________ Natural resources … Continued

From my own search and their shared expertise, I found that the academic literature on Ibanag history, and the indigenous peoples of the Cagayan Valley more broadly, was regrettably scarce. The opportunity to review Stephanie Joy Mawson's monograph, was a welcome change of pace, and in the first few paragraphs I began to imagine myself … Continued

Herzfeld's model of subversive archaism offers us an example of understanding how marginalised groups challenge and subvert authority. Herzfeld is not proposing that any given group needs to fit neatly into the category of subversive archaists, but rather how some groups reach back into the past to offer an alternative future, writes Olivia Porter, reviewing Subversive Archaism: … Continued

Punk rock is acknowledged globally as the in-the-face, anti-Establishment music genre. Through this moving, first-person, and personal ethnography of Sküm, Burma's legendary punk rocker, Tobiasz Targosz tells a multi-layered story of Burma's society, politics, military rule and democracy in recent times, seen with defiance — 'Infernal Damnation' (title of this blog) is the title of one of … Continued

The Burma Baptist Chronicle is a unique text published in Rangoon in 1963 — just 3 years before Christian missionaries were asked to leave Burma — combining stylistic and symbolic elements of Burmese royalty and religion, whilst serving as a commemorative text of American Baptist Christianity in the country. Alexandra Kaloyanides takes a close look at it.   _______________________________________________ When … Continued