Experiences of violence and forms of mobilisation in Myanma – EVIMOB

Contemporary forms of mobilisation are multiple, modular and variable. Scholars of social protests have long debated the making and extent of collective action. EVIMOB leverages a case study on an understudied Southeast Asian country, Myanmar, and investigates how memories, experiences and a history of violence can inform and generate new types of contentious action. The coup d'état of February 1, 2021, abruptly put an end to Myanmar’s democratic experiment and was followed by a massive rejection of military rule that took many forms. We propose an interdisciplinary approach to the relationships between violence and mobilisation, in urban, rural and diasporic settings and across the political and the religious fields through different periods. Building on historical, political sciences and anthropological methods, we argue that, in a society where the public mediation of the past is contested, mobilisations reveal alternative ways of mediating shared memories grounded in experiences of violence that serve as a basis for social change. Through archival, online and field research, the project seeks to answer a) how past mobilisations inform contemporary collective action by investigating continuities and innovations in repertoires and forms of contention; b) how mobilisations inform experiences of violence by analysing the (re)creation of memories, narratives and places. EVIMOB aims to refresh discussions on the relations between violence, memory, and politics which, in Myanmar, have long focused on communal and ethnic conflicts and on the systematic use of state coercion. Based on an ongoing collaboration between three generations of French and Myanmar scholars that intensified since the democratic opening of the country in the 2010s, EVIMOB offers a unique opportunity to foster research exchanges in the recently labelled “rare field” of Burma Studies.