Full Description
This volume explores how ordinary people in present-day Myanmar obtain justice and resolve disputes and crimes in a time of radical transition in government, politics, society, economy, etc. Its empirical questions serve as a lens to analyze the wider dynamics of state making, the role of identity politics, and the constitution of authority in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and civil war. Based on a unique collection of ethnographic studies with ordinary people's experiences to the fore, its contributions illustrate that legal pluralism exists in urban as well as rural contexts: from the cities of Yangon and Mawlamyine to the Naga hills, the Pa-O self-administered zone, the Thai refugee camps, and villages in the Karen and Mon states. In all of these places, the official state system is only one among many avenues for people seeking resolution in criminal and civil cases. Indeed, a common practice is to evade the state whenever possible. Most people prefer local and informal resolutions, and therefore the main actors consulted in everyday justice are village elders, local administrators, religious leaders, spiritual actors, and the justice systems or individual members of ethnic organizations. Prevailing are also a range of alternative understandings of (in)justice, misfortunes, and disputes that differ from those of the state-legal system. These alternatives are based on different cultural norms, religious beliefs, and forms of identification. Despite the ongoing transition in Myanmar, the long history of military rule and conflicts based on ethnic divisions continue to foster a mistrust in the state and an orientation towards 'the local' in everyday justice. The book explores these forms of state evasion and what it means more broadly for state-society relations in the current transition.
Contents
Everyday Justice in the Myanmar Transition Edited by Helene Maria Kyed Contents Introduction: Everyday justice in a contested transition Helene Maria Kyed1 Chapter 1: Forum shopping and plural authorities in southern Mon State Mi Thang Sorn Poine and Helene Maria Kyed38 Chapter 2: The shadow power of armed actors: justice seeking practices in a rural Pa-O self-administered zone Mi Thang Sorn Poine and Nan Tin Nilar Win63 Chapter 3: Why is customary law so strong? Political recognition and justice practices in the Naga self-Administered zone Lue Htar, Myat The Thitsar and Helene Maria Kyed90 Chapter 4: Religious and spiritual non-state authority in a legal plural setting in Karen State Marie Knakkergaard126 Chapter 5: Dispute resolution and security perceptions among urban Karen: the role of religious and ethnic identity Lwin Lwin Mon150 Chapter 6: Are we so different? Inter-religious collaboration in a rural Karen-Muslim village in Hpa-An township Than Pale172 Chapter 7: Being excluded - Muslim and Hindu communities in the Karen State Mikael Gravers and Anders Baltzer Jorgensen199 Chapter 8: Everyday trepidation: State affects and mental absconding in a marginal neighbourhood in Myanmar Annika Pohl Harrisson230 Chapter 9: Informal (justice) brokers: Buying, selling, and disputing property in Yangon Elizabeth Rhoads257 Chapter 10: Everyday justice in Karen refugee camps Kirsten McConnachie284
