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Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen
Centre for Development and Environment and Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

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Special issue article
Published: 03 March 2020 in The European Journal of Development Research
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Amid Myanmar’s political transition and despite its new government’s discourse of inclusion and dialogue, land conflicts have increased across the country’s ethnic-minority areas. We argue that land plays a central role in the complex interplay of state formation, armed conflict and international development in Myanmar’s contested borderlands and that land conflicts can provide an entry point to make sense of these dynamics. We use ethnographic data and a framework combining Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblages with Foucault’s conception of power to provide a detailed analysis of a multi-stakeholder platform (MSP) addressing land disputes in Myanmar’s south-east. Analysing the platform’s discourses, practices and technologies, we argue that, despite its emphasis on inclusion, participation and dialogue, it is the operation of power that upholds this inherently conflictive assemblage. The platform opens spaces for agency for less-influential actors, but it equally produces de-politicising and exclusive effects. While scholars have typically used assemblage thinking to analyse how state authority is disassembled by the growing role of non-state actors, we aim to further post-structural reflections on state formation and international development by arguing that the central state in Myanmar actually expands its reach into the borderlands through assemblages such as the MSP. This happens at the expense of the authority of quasi-state formations of ethnic armed organisations. Thus, this process is reminiscent of how the Burmese state expanded its reach through assemblages of land and resource extraction during the ‘ceasefire capitalism’ before the transition.

ACS Style

Stefan Bächtold; Joan Bastide; Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen. Assembling Drones, Activists and Oil Palms: Implications of a Multi-stakeholder Land Platform for State Formation in Myanmar. The European Journal of Development Research 2020, 32, 359 -378.

AMA Style

Stefan Bächtold, Joan Bastide, Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen. Assembling Drones, Activists and Oil Palms: Implications of a Multi-stakeholder Land Platform for State Formation in Myanmar. The European Journal of Development Research. 2020; 32 (2):359-378.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Stefan Bächtold; Joan Bastide; Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen. 2020. "Assembling Drones, Activists and Oil Palms: Implications of a Multi-stakeholder Land Platform for State Formation in Myanmar." The European Journal of Development Research 32, no. 2: 359-378.

Journal article
Published: 22 October 2018 in Sustainability
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Myanmar has experienced profound transformations of land use and land governance, often at the expense of smallholders. Empirical evidence on the agency of actors included and excluded in land use decision-making remains scarce. This study analyses who influences land use decision-making, how they do this, and under what circumstances smallholders are included. Comparing three land use trajectories in southern Myanmar, we analysed actors’ agency—conceived as the meanings and means behind (re)actions—in land use decision-making using data from focus groups and interviews. Results showed that uneven distribution of means can lead to unequal decision-making power, enabling actors with more means to exclude those with less means: smallholders. However, this only applies in the case of top-down interventions with mutually exclusive actor interests regarding use of the same land. Where interests are compatible or a mediator supports smallholders in negotiations, actors are likely to develop a collaboration despite unequal means, leading to smallholders’ inclusion in decision-making. Transformation of current land governance towards sustainable development could be promoted by providing mediators to actors with few means, ensuring equal access for all to formal land tenure, engaging with brokers in the land governance network, and improving access to knowledge and financial capital for actors with few means.

ACS Style

Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen; Flurina Schneider; Julie Zaehringer; Christoph Oberlack; Win Myint; Peter Messerli. Whose Agency Counts in Land Use Decision-Making in Myanmar? A Comparative Analysis of Three Cases in Tanintharyi Region. Sustainability 2018, 10, 3823 .

AMA Style

Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen, Flurina Schneider, Julie Zaehringer, Christoph Oberlack, Win Myint, Peter Messerli. Whose Agency Counts in Land Use Decision-Making in Myanmar? A Comparative Analysis of Three Cases in Tanintharyi Region. Sustainability. 2018; 10 (10):3823.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen; Flurina Schneider; Julie Zaehringer; Christoph Oberlack; Win Myint; Peter Messerli. 2018. "Whose Agency Counts in Land Use Decision-Making in Myanmar? A Comparative Analysis of Three Cases in Tanintharyi Region." Sustainability 10, no. 10: 3823.