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Entangled Geographies, Spatiotemporal Frames, and Territorial Claims-Making in Southern Shan State

Sat, March 18, 10:45am to 12:45pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, Provincial Ballroom North

Abstract

Traveling through Myanmar’s Shan State, attempts to lay claim to the region’s land are visible at every turn. After decades of ethnic insurgency, ceasefire agreements and linked military-state development strategies have resulted in a struggle for access to land in the country’s previously isolated, resource-rich peripheries. Yet, as I argue in this paper, it is not only land that is up for grabs in ongoing conflicts, but also the spatial and material conceptions of the past that motivate such claims-making. As such, I argue that claims to resources cannot be divorced from the ground upon which they are made, as distinct senses of time are activated, embodied, and re-animated through encounters with particular geographies. I conclude by proposing that the spatiotemporal frameworks land claims are made within must be considered alongside such claims’ political-economic implications, as their resolution results not only in a realignment of spatial authority, but a revision of history itself.

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