Policy and Governance | Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

The 2023 Myanmar Update aims to understand, celebrate, and explicate the Myanmar people’s resistance to the 1 February 2021 coup. The military’s violent crackdown on what was initially a peaceful popular uprising provoked a near-countrywide revolutionary movement, which has brought together an array of different political, ethnic, and religious groups fighting for the shared goal of ending military rule. While differences exist in objectives and strategies, the establishment of organisations like the National Unity Government (NUG) and the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), as well as the numerous other formal and informal alliances, has arguably created an unprecedented sense of unity among Myanmar’s diverse peoples and raised widespread hope that this time the struggle may succeed.

The conference seeks to explore the complexities of the revolutionary struggle; the effects of the coup on the state and economy; and, the myriad ways in which the people in Myanmar are coping with deepening violence and poverty.

How has the coup and the popular response to it reshaped Myanmar politics?
How are new armed groups forming, and how are they sustained?
What has happened to the civil disobedience movement?
What are the social, economic, and psychological implications of continued violence?
How is the diaspora contributing to the revolution?
How can foreign governments and the international aid community best support resistance to dictatorship?

We aim to address these kinds of questions, among others, in this conference.

The conference will take place at The Australian National University on Friday 21 July – Saturday 22 July 2023.

The two-day conference will feature scholars and experts from Australia, Myanmar, UK, North America and around the regions.

There are also pre-conference events on Thursday 20 July that we will list on our conference program with more information:

8.30am-4.30pm – Early Career Research workshop (by invitation)
4.30-5pm – Launch of Myanmar Update photo exhibition by Mayco Naing (Artist and Curator)
5.30-6.30 pm – Guest lecture ‘De-‘Area Studies’-izing Burmese History, The African (and African American) ‘Burma' Experience in the Twentieth Century’ by Michael Charney from SOAS, University of London

Convening Committee

Cecile Medail - Visiting Fellow, Department of Political and Social Change, ANU, cecile.medail@anu.edu.au
Morten Pedersen - Board member, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU, Morten.Pedersen@adfa.edu.au
Yuri Takahashi - Lecturer and Convenor of the Burmese Program, ANU, Yuri.Takahashi@anu.edu.au
Samuel Hmung - Research Officer, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU, Samuel.hmung@anu.edu.au

Sponsors

The 2023 ANU Myanmar Update is supported by the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the International Development Research Centre, Canada, the International IDEA, and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Conference Participation

IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE
We would love for you to join us in person, in the Auditorium, Australian Centre on China in the World Building #188 on the ANU Campus, on Friday 21 July and Saturday 22 July.

ONLINE-ATTENDANCE
The 2023 Myanmar Update will be live streamed via Zoom Events. Please note no Q&A from the online audience, and some sessions are in-person only, we apologies for this inconvenience.

REGISTRATION
Please register in-person and online tickets via Zoom Events. You will get both in-person and online tickets via Zoom Events. If you have any queries, or need assistance to register in the Zoom Eevents platform, please let us know. Email: parnerships.cap@anu.edu.au

PLEASE NOTE:

Free of charge

Reception for the launch of exhibition and guest lecture (20 July 2023)
Pre-conference dinner for speakers, chairs and invited guests (20 July 2023)
Conference reception (21 July 2023)
Morning tea and afternoon tea (21 July 2023)
Afternoon tea (22 July 2023)
Lunch for speakers, chairs and organisers (21-22 July 2023)

Fees for general participants

Conference lunch (21 & 22 July) is proudly provided by the Australia Mon Association in Canberra: $10 per meal for participant.

The ANU College of the Asia and the Pacific

The International Development Research Centre, Canada

The International IDEA

The Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

Pre-conference Events (Thursday 20 July)

8.30am-4.30pm Early Career Researcher workshop (by invitation)

4.30-5pm Launch of Myanmar Update photo exhibition by Mayco Naing (Artist and Curator)

Venue: Auditorium Foyer, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

Introduction by exhibition curator Mayco Naing
Photo exhibition by Mauk Kham Wah and Mayco Naing
Video documentary -1 minute per day in the 60 days following the coup by M. (screening all day on 21-22 July only, CIW seminar room)

5-5.30pm Refreshments (for exhibition and guest address)

5.30-6.30pm Guest Lecture - De-‘Area Studies’-izing Burmese History: the African (and African American) ‘Burma” Experience in the Twentieth Century

Venue: Auditorium, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

Michael Charney, SOAS, University of London

7-8.30pm Preconference Dinner (by invitation)

Day 1 (Friday 21 July)

Venue: Auditorium, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

9-9.30am Welcome

Welcome to the Country by Paul Girrawah House, First Nations Portfolio, ANU
Opening remarks by Helen Sullivan, Dean of the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

9.30-10.30am Keynote Address

Chair: Nick Cheesman, ANU

H.E. Zin Mar Aung, Minister of Foreign Affairs, National Unity Government of the Union of Myanmar (online)
Discussant: Tun Aung Shwe, Representative to Australia of the National Unity Government of the Union of Myanmar

10.30-10.45am Morning Tea

10.45am-12.45pm Political Update

Chair: Andrew Selth, Griffith University

Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Ye Myo Hein, Wilson Center (online)

12.45-1.45pm Lunch Break

1.45- 3.15pm Panel 1: The Revolutionary Movement

Chair: George Lawson, ANU

Samuel Hmung and Michael Dunford, Australian National University - “Understanding Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement”
Ellen, McMaster University, Canada - “Women's agency in armed struggles in Myanmar's Spring Revolution”
Lukas Nagel, Griffith University - “Creative resistance and nationalism among youth activists in post-coup Myanmar”

3.15-3.30pm Afternoon Tea

3.30-5pm Panel 2: Revolutionary Governance

Chair: Jane Ferguson, ANU

Gerard McCarthy and Kyle Nyana, Erasmus University - “Governing revolution: Post-coup insurgent social order in Chin State and Sagaing Region” (online)
Tay Zar Myo Win, Deakin University - “Emerging local governance in Anyar”
Khin Zaw Win, Tampadipa Institute - "Reimagining the goals of the Spring Revolution"

5-6.30pm Conference Reception (In-person only)

Venue: Auditorium Foyer, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

Promotion of Art Exhibition: How to quantify FEAR? by artist and curator Mayco Naing

Day 2 (Saturday 22 July)

Venue: Auditorium, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

9.30-10.00am Book Launch: "Myanmar in Crisis" (In-person only)

Book author: Michael Dunford, Australian National University
Discussant: Cecilia Jacob, Australian National University

Book Sale - A limited number of books are available for sale for AUD $25 (card only).

10am-12pm Economic Update and Humanitarian Issues

Chair: Paul Burke, ANU

Jared Bissinger, Independent analyst
Tom Kean, International Crisis Group
Anne Décobert, and Tamas Wells, University of Melbourne -“Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis and the conflict paradox for local aid organisations"

12-1pm Lunch Break

1-3pm Policy Panel & Closing Remarks (In-person only)

Chair: Morten Pedersen, UNSW Canberra

Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Khin Zaw Win, Tampadipa Institute
Jared Bissinger, Independent analyst
Representative, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

3-3.15pm Afternoon Tea

3.15-4.45pm Burmese Language Roundtable: "Researching and reporting in post-coup Myanmar" (In-person only)

Venue: Seminar Room, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU

Chair: Samuel Hmung, ANU

Swe Win, Myanmar Now
Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Khin Zaw Win, Tampadipa Institute

မြန်မာဘာသာ စကားဝိုင်း၊ “အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် သုတေသနပြုလုပ်ခြင်းနှင့် သတင်းတင်ဆက်ခြင်း”

သဘာပတိ - Samuel Hmung (ANU)

ဦးဆောင်ဆွေးနွေးသူ - Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung (University of Massachusetts Lowell)၊ ဆွေဝင်း (Myanmar Now)၊ ခင်ဇော်ဝင်း (Tampadipa Institute)

Transforming our economies to serve people and the planet is the big challenge of our time. However, there is no alternative, we need to move away from the current unhealthy and unjust economic practices that are harming the Earth’s ecosystems, which include all of us. Taking the lead to drive this necessary change is something that many are doing all around the world.

On November 8, join the 2023 Fellows of the Future Leaders Program of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse in an open conversation with external guests to talk about why this economic transformation is so pivotal to achieve Planetary Health Equity and where they see their contribution.

No matter their area of expertise, from food and urban development to gender and climate, they are all working with the same vision in mind: a healthy planet where all people today and tomorrow can live and thrive. Are you working on a similar path or simply curious to learn more? Would you like to share your point of view and experience or simply just listen? Then join us!

This is an event part of Earth4All Action Week 2023.

Find out more about the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse

Event Speakers

Amy Carrad

Amy Carrad is a Research Fellow within the ANU’s School of Regulation and Global Governance. Prior to joining ANU, Amy worked on an Australian Research Council-funded project exploring the role of Australian local governments and civil society organisations in food system governance. She is particularly passionate about food systems, which also leads her advocacy work outside ANU.

Hridesh Gajurel

Hridesh is a political economist specialising in comparative capitalism, financialisation, corporate short-termism, and institutional theory. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in public policy based in Nepal and was previously a Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Queensland.

Sandra Samantela

Sandra is an environmental planner and assistant professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning, University of the Philippines Los Baños where she teaches courses in human settlements/environmental planning and human ecology. Her research interests include climate and disaster vulnerability, urban land governance, and local development planning.

Steven Lade

Dr Steven Lade is an ARC Future Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment & Society. He takes a systems approach to sustainability, working with the resilience and planetary boundary concepts across a variety of cases.

Betty Barkha

Dr Betty Barkha brings over a decade of experience in research, advocacy and business development across the Pacific and Asia. Betty's PhD focused on examining the Gendered impacts of Climate Change-Induced Displacement and Planned Relocation in Fiji, which has since informed the development of Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility.

Burnt Moria Camp, Lesbos, Greece 22/11/2022. Photo by Bina D'Costa.

Humanitarian Emergencies, Protection, and Forced Displacement

Professor Bina D'Costa won an ARC Future Fellowship to conduct research on the displacement of children and young people during humanitarian emergencies.

A series of webinars created by the Hothouse at ANU, discussing the intersections between climate change, inequity, and human health. The focus is on actions that enable transformative change away from the harmful consumptogenic system to systems that promote good health, social equity and environmental wellbeing.

This episode featured Dr Annabelle Workman, Research Fellow at Melbourne Climate Futures.

The health and other impacts of climate change highlight an imperative for urgent climate action. The health community continues to increase its efforts in raising the alarm on climate-related health impacts and emphasising the health and economic benefits of ambitious and timely action. Yet, projections based on the analysis of current policies and action see us remain on a dangerous path of global warming over 2°C. Using insights from the political economy literature, this seminar will explore what strategies might exist to secure the urgent action needed to develop healthier climate policies.

Find out more about the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse

Event Speakers

Annabelle Workman

Belle is a social scientist driven by the urgent need to develop healthier climate policies. With a background in political science and public health, Belle is now a Research Fellow at Melbourne Climate Futures, co-leading the Health, Wellbeing and Climate Justice Research Program with Professor Kathryn Bowen.

Megan Arthur

Megan is a Laureate Research Fellow with the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse. She is an interdisciplinary qualitative researcher working at the intersection of social policy and public health. She studies the politics of governance for health and wellbeing at multiple levels, with a particular interest in the social and environmental determinants of health equity.

Professor Sharon Friel

Sharon Friel is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Health Equity.

This episode will feature Beck Pearse, a sociologist at the ANU School of Sociology and the Fenner School of Environment & Society.

Beck will discuss the social realities of Australia’s energy workforce and the resultant difficult questions about the political economy and geography of ‘just transition’ advocacy. Answers to questions about the where and who of transition management will be negotiated at multiple scales. The presentation will conclude with provisional thoughts on the institutions and reform strategies that will shape the future conditions, and therefore health, of energy labour.

Beck Pearse is a Lecturer jointly appointed to the ANU School of Sociology and Fenner School of Environment and Society. Beck’s current research projects investigate labour and land relations in the transition to a 'net zero' economy. She's interested in how people work and negotiate industrial change. Beck's doctoral thesis on the political economy of Australia’s emissions trading scheme was published as a monograph Pricing Carbon in Australia (Routledge/Earthscan, 2018). More recently, she co-authored Renewables and Rural Australia (2022) - the first social study of rural people's perspectives on the NSW Renewable Energy Zones.

Find out more about the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse

Event Speakers

Beck Pearse

Beck Pearse is a sociologist at the ANU School of Sociology and the Fenner School of Environment & Society. Her teaching and research focuses on inequalities and environmental policy. Beck is interested in how people from different walks of life experience environmental change and how environmental policy can contribute to building a fair and ecologically abundant world.

Megan Arthur

Sharon Friel

Sharon Friel is an ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor of Health Equity and Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Governance at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), Australian National University. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and co-Director of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in the Social Determinants of Health Equity.

DISCUSSING AI, AUTOMATED SYSTEMS AND THE FUTURE OF WAR SEMINAR SERIES

This seminar series is part of a two-year (2023-2025) research project on Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making, generously funded by the Australian Department of Defence and led by Professor Toni Erskine from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.

How should states balance the benefits and risks of employing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in nuclear command and control systems? Dr Ben Zala will argue that it is only by placing developments in AI against the larger backdrop of the increasing prominence of a much wider set of strategic non-nuclear capabilities that this question can be adequately addressed. In order to do so, he will make the case for disaggregating the different risks that AI poses to stability as well as examine the specific ways in which it may instead be harnessed to restabilise nuclear-armed relationships. Dr Zala will also identify a number of policy areas that ought to be prioritised by way of mitigating the risks and harnessing the opportunities identified in the short-medium term.

About the speaker
Ben Zala is a Fellow in the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at ANU. His work focuses on the politics of the great powers and the management of nuclear weapons. He has been a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Harvard University and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK contributing to the Third Nuclear Age project (https://thethirdnuclearage.com/).

About the chair
Toni Erskine is Professor of International Politics in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University (ANU), and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University. She is Chief Investigator of the Defence-funded 'Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making' Research Project and a Chief Investigator and Founding Member of the 'Humanising Machine Intelligence' Grand Challenge at ANU.

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please contact bell.marketing@anu.edu.au.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a hybrid event and will take place in-person as well as on Zoom.

The idea of ownership was put at the heart of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the key policy for global aid reform, in 2005. Despite the global consensus in Paris, ownership emerged as a contested idea.

In this final seminar for her doctoral thesis, Suzanne O’Neill presents her research which examines the influence of the idea of ownership on development partnerships in two Pacific countries, Samoa and Kiribati. Her research unpacks the model for policy change underpinning the idea of ownership in the Paris Declaration. The findings show that local policy actors attributed a different significance to ownership. Instead, policy actors chose to assert locally-situated values and beliefs around aid and development. This reflected the exercise of ownership in each site in ways that contested the policy logic claimed by the Paris Declaration. It challenged Australia’s expectations of aid relations.

Event Speakers

Suzanne O’Neill

Suzanne O’Neill is a PhD Candidate with DPA. She has extensive experience as a development practitioner across remote Australia and the Pacific. Her research interests are equity in development, the influence of ideas on policy change and interpretive methodologies, particularly oral histories.

While rentierism, tactical politics and coercion can come together to strengthen a regime, that is not necessarily a given. In the Iraq case, rentierism and effects from political decision-making led to an increased reliance on coercion by ruling regimes to maintain power.

Drawing upon literature on rentier state theory, the politics of survival, and the role of coercion in state consolidation as well as the author’s experience in Iraq, this thesis addresses the question of how resource dependency, elite strategies to gain or maintain control, and coercion have shaped state cohesion in Iraq?

Given the broad academic interest in the persistence of authoritarianism in different country contexts and the effects of international intervention, the contribution of this thesis is its integration of different theories to allow for a richer discussion regarding how elite competition and international intervention can impact state development.

SPEAKER

John D. Moore
With over 20 years of experience across the Islamic world serving in a mix of development, security as well as energy sector roles, John’s research interests focus on the relationship between resource dependent economies, politics, security, and development outcomes.

Having first engaged on Iraq during the 1997-1998 period while with the US Department of Defense, he spent several years working on and living in the country during the 2003 – 2012 period. John is currently pursuing his doctoral degree, having earned a Masters Degree in Political Economy and International Security Studies from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from the Virginia Military Institute.

Join via Zoom link
Meeting ID: 867 1834 3082
Password: 198184

28 May 2019

Protecting children on the move

A refugee camp is not the easiest place to conduct field research, but when you are exploring how best to protect children during their migration journey, that is where the need is greatest.

Policy and Governance