Contributors

Dr Adam Simpson is a senior lecturer in international studies within Justice & Society, University of South Australia. He has held a six-month visiting research fellowship at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, and visiting scholar positions at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London and Keele University. His articles have appeared in journals such as Environmental Politics, Third World Quarterly, Society & Natural Resources and Pacific Review. He is the author of Energy, Governance and Security in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma): A Critical Approach to Environmental Politics in the South (Routledge, 2014; NIAS Press, 2017) and is lead editor of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar (2018) and Myanmar: Politics, Economy and Society (Routledge, 2021).

Dr Anne Décobert is a development studies scholar, anthropologist of development and development practitioner who has worked since 2009 on questions related to conflict and peace-building, humanitarianism, development and the struggles for rights and justice of minority groups in Myanmar. Strongly committed to ethically engaged research, she is particularly interested in approaches to addressing inequities and injustices faced by marginalised communities whose lives are shaped by structural violence and conflict. Her work to date has notably explored how those who are often wrongly labelled as passive ‘victims’ of violence and injustices themselves challenge, and potentially redefine, humanitarian and development systems and approaches as part of wider attempts to achieve recognition and social justice. Anne is the author of The Politics of Aid to Burma: A Humanitarian Struggle on the Thai-Burmese Border (Routledge, 2016), as well as academic articles, reports and media pieces focusing on humanitarianism, development and peace-building in conflict situations. In addition to her academic work, Anne also continues to act as a consultant with aid agencies in Myanmar.

Associate Professor Anthony Ware is an associate professor of International & Community Development at Deakin University, and convenor of the Development-Humanitarian Research Group. He was director of the Australia Myanmar Institute (2013–17), secretary of the Development Studies Association of Australia (2019–22) and is a thematic editor of Development in Practice. He has published over 50 academic papers/chapters and four books (two monographs, two edited collections), including, as lead author, the highly regarded Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’ Conflict (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2018, with Costas Laoutides). His research focuses on humanitarian/international development approaches in conflict-affected situations, with a particular interest in conflict sensitivity, do no harm, everyday peace, peace-building and countering violent/hateful extremism via community-led programming. His major field of research has been Myanmar.

Dr Aung Naing (pseudonym) is an independent researcher who has spent much of the past two decades studying social protection, poverty reduction and inequalities in Myanmar, as well as training successive generations of new scholars in social research.

Dr Cecile Medail holds a PhD in international political studies from the University of New South Wales. Her main research interests include democratisation, state-building and ethnic identity in Myanmar. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked with Burmese grassroots organisations in Thailand and in Myanmar for eight years. She provided capacity building support to young community activists from various ethnic backgrounds, advocating for genuine democracy in Myanmar and campaigning for an economic development respectful of the rights of local indigenous communities. She is now a visiting fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University (ANU).

Dr Charlotte Galloway has been researching in Myanmar for over 20 years. An art historian, Charlotte has been actively involved with capacity building in the museum and heritage sector. She has participated in collaborative projects within the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, and was a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) expert for the preparation of Bagan’s world heritage nomination dossier. An experienced educator, she has been visiting faculty at the University of Yangon and has extensive involvement in capacity building and research activities for Myanmar’s higher education sector, including working with international donors. Immediately prior to the coup, Charlotte was involved in drafting the higher education components for the National Education Strategic Plan 2 (NESP2) (2021–30) for the Myanmar Ministry of Education. She is currently engaged in a project to investigate and develop alternative modes of education delivery for students in conflict areas.

Associate Professor Costas Laoutides is an associate professor of international relations at Deakin University, Australia. His area of expertise is ethno-political and separatist conflict, and its resolution. He is the co-author of Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’ Conflict (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2018, with Anthony Ware) and the sole author of Self-Determination and Collective Responsibility in Secessionist Struggle (Routledge).

Diya Jiang is a researcher specialising in the fields of international relations and political economy. Her research interests include non-state actors in international relations, foreign influence and democratisation. Following her experience conducting quantitative research for the Center for Policing Equity (policingequity.org/) in New York, she further developed expertise in comparative democratisation and international soft power dynamics during her postgraduate degree in international political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She now pursues her research endeavours at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (www.ceias.eu), where she has assisted on multiple projects including the Myanmar Coup Tracker (myanmarcouptracker.eu). She is an incoming PhD student in political science at McGill University.

Dr Gerard McCarthy is a research fellow at National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute (ARI) where he works on the politics of welfare and development in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar. He also co-leads ARI’s archival project ‘Living with COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Personal and visual experiences of crisis, control & Community’. His writing and commentary on welfare politics, non-state social actors, military capitalism and conflict has been published in outlets including Conflict, Security & Development and Journal of Contemporary Asia along with The New York Times, the Economist and the Washington Post. His book Outsourcing the Polity: Non-State Welfare, Inequality and Resistance in Myanmar will be published in 2023 by Cornell University Press. He earned his DPhil from the Department of Political and Social Change at ANU where he was associate director of the ANU Myanmar Research Centre from 2017 to 2019.

Jadyn (pseudonym) is a former computer engineer with diverse experiences including political analysis and monitoring, political campaigning, civic education and media. As a computer engineer during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, he witnessed how the power of the internet carried voices from within Myanmar throughout the entire world. When the country was still closed, Jadyn researched and presented internationally about the internet and the political situation in Myanmar. When the country opened up, he researched and presented locally on civic engagement with the media, politics in cyberspace and political trends in Myanmar.

Juliette McIntyre is a lecturer in law at the University of South Australia, and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD thesis examines the rules of procedure of the International Court of Justice. She holds a first-class LLM in international law from the University of Cambridge and is a recipient of the Law Foundation of South Australia Fellowship. She also has significant litigation experience, including before the International Court of Justice. She has published in several leading international journals such as the Michigan Journal of International Law, the Leiden Journal of International Law and AJIL Unbound.

Dr Kristina Kironska is a socially engaged interdisciplinary academic with experience in Myanmar affairs, Taiwan affairs, Central and Eastern Europe – China relations, campaigns and activism. In 2015–16, she lived in Myanmar, where she worked for a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) and conducted research on the 2015 elections, the political transition of the country and the issue of the Rohingya. In 2017–18, she worked for Amnesty International as a campaigner. In 2019–20, she lived in Taipei where she conducted research under the Taiwan Fellowship program, lectured at the University of Taipei and organised monthly human rights talks. Currently, she is the advocacy director at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (www.ceias.eu) and a senior researcher at the Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Moe Thuzar is senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, and coordinator of the Myanmar studies program. Moe joined ISEAS in 2008, serving as a lead researcher in the ASEAN Studies Centre up to August 2019. Prior to joining ISEAS, Moe spent 10 years at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat, where she headed the Human Development Unit from 2004 to 2007. A former diplomat, she is researching Burma’s foreign policy implementation from 1948 to 1988 for her PhD studies at the National University of Singapore. Moe has contributed to several compendia on ASEAN and on Myanmar, including Myanmar: Life After Nargis (ISEAS, 2009), a co-authored report with Pavin Chachavalpongpun on ASEAN’s response to the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and a coedited volume with Yap Kioe Sheng on Urbanisation in Southeast Asia: Issues and Implications (ISEAS, 2012).

Professor Monique Skidmore is an honorary professor with Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute. She is an award- and grant-winning Burmese political and medical anthropologist, and international expert media commentator. She has published seven books on Myanmar, including the very highly regarded Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). She convened the Burma Studies Update at ANU for eight years, and has held senior positions at the University of Tasmania, University of Queensland and ANU, among other institutions. She is the current director of the Australia Myanmar Institute.

Associate Professor Nicholas Coppel is an adjunct associate professor (practice) at Monash University and a former career diplomat and ambassador. He was Australia’s ambassador to Myanmar for four years from 2015 to 2018. Previous postings were as special coordinator of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, deputy high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, deputy ambassador to the Philippines and first secretary in the Australian Embassy, Washington DC. The Solomon Islands government awarded him with the Cross of Solomon Islands for his work towards restoring peace and governance. Among various roles in Canberra, he headed the Economic Analytical Unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade where he oversaw and contributed to the research, writing and publication of 10 reports covering major trade and economic issues. He holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from ANU and a Master of Business Administration degree from London Business School. From 2004 to 2010 he was on the Editorial Advisory Board of Asia-Pacific Economic Literature.

Professor Nicholas Farrelly studied at ANU and the University of Oxford. Over the past 20 years he has researched political conflict and social change across the borderlands where Myanmar meets Thailand, India, Bangladesh and China. In 2006, he founded New Mandala, a website that has become a prominent public forum in Southeast Asian studies. He then held a range of academic positions in the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU, including as deputy director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs and as director of the Myanmar Research Centre. From 2017 to 2019, Nicholas was an associate dean in the College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU. In 2020, he was appointed to the Board of the Australia-ASEAN Council. As head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Nicholas leads a vibrant multidisciplinary academic team.

Saw Moo (pseudonym) is a social researcher and project manager currently working with an international organisation in Myanmar. He holds a master’s degree in development studies from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Tamas Wells is an academic at the University of Melbourne where he is also coordinator of the university’s Myanmar Research Network. His research focuses on contested meanings of democracy, human rights and accountability in Southeast Asia, and the impact of these on development policy. His book Narrating Democracy in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2021) examines the Burmese opposition movement in the lead up to the historic 2015 elections in Myanmar and diverging narratives of democracy within the movement and among its international supporters. Before entering academia, he worked as an aid and development adviser and consultant with various NGOs including Save the Children, with seven years living and working in Myanmar. He has been active in developing stronger connections between academics and practitioners in the field of aid and development and is the editor of the PK Forum, an online discussion forum on aid and development in Myanmar.

Tay Zar Myo Win is a lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science, Ubon Ratchathani University. His main research interests include analysing electoral systems, decentralisation, democratisation, federalism, social conflict and human rights, both in Myanmar and in the wider Southeast Asian context. His current research projects are the communal conflict in Rakhine State, Myanmar, and the rights of the Rohingya people and the Civil Disobedience Movement in Myanmar’s democratisation process. Apart from his research work, Tay Zar has longstanding experience working in development practice, focusing on civic education, democracy and electoral support. Collaborating with civil society organisations and international NGOs in Myanmar, he was involved in developing a series of civic education curricula for young students and adult learners and managed training and workshops. He also closely worked with the Union Election Commission in Myanmar as a member of a technical support team to assist national and local elections in Myanmar.

Dr Ye Min Zaw is an independent researcher and writer in contemporary politics and conflict in Myanmar. His research is focused on sub-national conflict, peace-building and social cohesion in Myanmar, and humanitarian assistance in protracted and fragile conflicts. He has been working in the humanitarian and development sectors for 10 years, with a wide range of international non-profit organisations and the United Nations.