In his new work on Burma, Kiik tells the story of dictatorship and democratization through the lens of infrastructure mega-projects. From the early 2000s, the Myitsone Dam – a Burmese and Chinese collaboration – triggered widespread popular resistance. Although local in origins, these protests in effect became a starting point for the country’s surprising democratic reforms in the 2010s. But how did such a village-born social movement grow under a repressive military dictatorship? And what has become of this rural struggle now that Burma is once again a dictatorship?
There is already a rich literature on the Myitsone Dam, but this literature has tended to conflate the local rural resistance with the broader ethnic Kachin and Burmese anti-dam movements. In contrast, Kiik’s new research focuses specifically on the local villages directly affected by the project, exploring their diverse stories and responses to the mega-project. Combining published sources with ethnographic fieldwork and interviews done since 2010, Kiik tells a story of repression, resistance, social divisions, and complex relations with outsiders across two articles. Part 1 begins in the early 2000s, amid the long years of military dictatorship, with the unexpected arrival of Japanese visitors and traces the village struggles up to the project’s dramatic downfall. Part 2 begins with a bomb attack against the project and traces the movement up until a post-coup gold mining boom. Read the articles: Part 1 here and Part 2 here!