Scholarship on Myanmar has historically been state and Bamar-centric. This has been to the exclusion of perspectives from borderlands, including autonomous and semi-autonomous territories. In the wake of the coup, and the ongoing struggle for political legitimacy, the importance of these borderlands has come into sharper focus. This is as political activists from central Myanmar, as well as members of the National Unity Government, have sought haven and military training in borderlands, which currently and historically have provided a space from which to oppose authoritarianism in Myanmar. These recent developments are in addition to decades-long struggles for self-determination on the part of ethnic and Indigenous peoples situated in Myanmar’s borderlands.

These struggles are as pertinent today as ever, yet scholars working on the country’s diverse borderlands have rarely had opportunities to engage in extended conversations with one another. The coup has also exacerbated the need for Myanmar-focused scholars to find safe spaces to engage with one another, given the threats that researchers and activists face within the country.

These laboratory format and free-flowing discussion will allow the participants to identify cross-cutting themes in their work that could form the basis of future collaborations. There will also be time designated for further discussion and planning about the structure of the Myanmar Borderlands Studies Collective. This builds upon groundwork laid for the formation of the collective during a workshop on Myanmar Borderlands at the University of Copenhagen in Spring 2023, which Terese organized. The aim of the collective is to provide a collaborative space to center critical and de-colonial scholarship on Myanmar’s borderlands.