Today our #P4P Grant project spotlight shifts to #Myanmar, and Dan Seng Lawn (@dansenglawn) & Maran Ja Htoi Pan's examination of political representation of the ethnic Kachin people in Kachin state.
This is @dansenglawn's second #P4P Grant. His first was for a project analysing discourses of representation, instability and exclusion in newspapers in the post-Independence period in #Myanmar, with special reference to Kachin state; & included @britishlibrary archival research.
The new project brings into focus the unresolved and tense relationship between unionism, federalism, and minority rights in Myanmar.
Significantly, the team continues to apply arts and humanities approaches, this time drawing on Maran Ja Htoi Pan's anthropological training, and with support from Anthropology Today's editor Gustaaf Houtman and our very own @RAxelby in ethnographic research methods.
Maran Ja Htoi Pan is a postgraduate alumna of @LSEAnthropology, and a former Chevening Scholar. She has extensive experience in research, consultancy, and community engagement on issues of Kachin state identity, community, youth, policy, and development
@dansenglawn is Director of the Kachinland Research Centre and a political analyst with a Master's Degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. He is an expert on Myanmar and Kachin State politics.
Over the coming weeks and months we will sharing updates from our P4P Grant awardees and their projects studying cultures of political engagement, representation, and participation using collaborative and interdisciplinary methods and approaches.
So, we thought, who better to kick off our P4P Project Spotlights series than Jeepyah Civil Society Development Organisation (JCSDO). Mi Cherry Soe Mon is the undeniable powerhouse behind JCSDO, committed to women's empowerment in Myanmar - starting with her home state of Mon.
The arts and research festival cohosted by @GRNPP1 and @EMReF_Myanmar continues on day 3 with a book launch and discussion by Dr Myint Zaw about mass violence in Myanmar history. Follow EMReF on FB where the event is being live streamed
Dr Myint Zaw says that genocide starts with the thought that ‘they’ are not like us, followed by the conviction that ‘they’ can’t live amongst us, culminating in the decision that ‘they’ must not live. Human violations become a habit. They occur again and again.
Our social and individual responsibility is to acknowledge the horrors that are committed against the other, and to reflect on the causes and effects of such atrocities.
A thread about the 2nd day of the Ahnu Thutaythana festival and exhibition we are co-hosting with our Myanmar partners @EMReF_Myanmar
Htein Lin, whose exhibit deals with socio-cultural issues and taboos surrounding the longyi, discusses its consequences for gender equality, and the concept of male emasculation that arises when men pass under their wives’ longyis and when husband/wife longyis are washed together
Hilary Faxon and colleagues introduce their exhibition using participatory photography on issues of gender and land grabs, and how they’ve oriented their approach around Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledge. Allowing women to be experts on their own lives provided rich..
The arts and research festival in Yangon is launching now. @EMReF_Myanmar Director Myat Thet Thitsar opens by talking of our shared humanity; @jaskaurphd talks about the importance of nurturing relationships and working with each other’s rhythms...
And Sayama Ma Thida of PEN Myanmar gives a powerful keynote speech about art as the search for truth, and for us to consider research as art too. @ahrcpress
Panel discussion: pursuing arts in research.
Arts and research are natural collaborators and the festival is paving the way to amplify the potential of this relationship
Today's #P4P Grant spotlight falls on yet another vital and timely project, led by Assefa Fiseha and Nicole Beardsworth (@NixiiB), and examining #Ethiopia's youth and their relationship with state and federal politics.
Young #Ethiopians affected by recent protests in the country form an integral part of this research: they will be trained in ethnographic video-making to help express their unfiltered views on access to political representation and representatives.
These ethnographic films will then form the foundation for conversations and advocacy with state and federal level politicians, in order to improve their engagement with, and outreach amongst, #Ethiopia's youth and make them part of critical reform processes in the country.
We have more fantastic P4P Grant research projects to share with you this week! First up are @sewithst, @atomicsentences and @IrenaGrizelj who explore the innovative and creative ways in which #Ethiopia's youth are striving for peace and democracy
The team are using audio-visual & documentary reporting, as well as arts-based and participatory approaches, to construct positive narratives about young people’s agency and highlight the skills they can bring to develop a more inclusive political environment in Ethiopia
PI @sewithst has a background in economic development and gender issues, and aims to bring into focus a new and positive perspective on youth political participation in #Ethiopia