New Books on Myanmar

The Rohingya, Justice and International Law

Kriangsak Kittichaisaree Routledge Publisher, 2021

Focusing on the plight of the ethnic and religious group of persons called the ‘Rohingya’, normally residing in Myanmar, as the case study, the book elaborates the complex legal technicalities and impediments in international courts and foreign domestic criminal courts exercising ‘universal jurisdiction’ in relation to acts amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and/or war crimes.

Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar

Ken MacLean University of California Press, 2022

Using Myanmar as case study, Ken MacLean examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global NGO-led campaign. Foregrounding fact-finding, in critical yet constructive ways, prompts long overdue conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truthseeking. MacLean compels practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights “fact” production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern.

Along the Integral Margin: Uneven Capitalism in a Myanmar Squatter Settlement

Stephen Campbell Cornell University Press, 2022

In recent years anthropologists have focused on informal, unfree, and other non normative labor arrangements and labeled them as “non-capitalist.” In Along the Integral Margin, Stephen Campbell pushes back against this idea and shows that these labor arrangements are, in fact, important aspects of capitalist development and that the erroneous “noncapitalist” label contributes to obscuring current capitalist relations.

Heritage Drinks of Myanmar

Luke J. Corbin & Photographs by Shwe Paw Mya Tin Silkworm Press, 2022

Heritage Drinks of Myanmar takes the reader on an anthropological journey through emerald mountains and rust-red valleys to showcase some of the myriad alcoholic drinks made in this unique and fascinating country. In Myanmar, freshly brewed and distilled beers, wines, and spirits are integral parts of village economies, providing health, communal, and financial benefits. Rice whiskeys infused with insects and fresh beers made from a cornucopia of grains await eager drinkers, brewed as they have been for generations by village residents with their own individual customs and traditions.

Crafting Parliament in Myanmar’s Disciplined Democracy (2011-2021)

Renaud Egreteau Oxford University Press, 2022

This book offers a compelling account of Myanmar’s halting efforts to develop the institutional framework and practice of a parliament-based democratic governance between 2011 and 2021. It charts the stages of such a legislative resurgence, tracing its causes, and exploring how various institutional and political legacies both informed and constrained the reestablishment and operations of the Union legislature, or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. Renaud Egreteau’s analysis concentrates on key legislative mechanisms, processes, and tasks pertaining to government oversight, budgetary control, representation, and lawmaking and interrogates how they were learned, (re)appropriated, and (mis)performed by Myanmar’s new breed of legislators and parliamentary staff until the 2021 army takeover.