The attempted coup of February 2021 by the State Administration Council (SAC) has catalysed dramatic shifts in Myanmar's political and security landscapes. As the SAC has failed to assert its political authority, new governance systems have emerged under the National Unity Government (NUG) and a range of local level revolutionary coalitions. Meanwhile, ethnic resistance organisations (EROs) both aligned and non-aligned to the NUG, have been able to expand their areas of control.

This chapter examines the ways that political authority is established by competing actors in the context of Myanmar's post-2021 civil war and explores the implications of emerging governance dynamics for the country's future. I draw on a range of concepts from the international literature to highlight the importance of political authority and governance for the resistance movement's immediate struggle to take down the military junta and for its long-term agenda of establishing a lasting, peaceful, federal democratic union of Myanmar.

The governance systems of Myanmar's many resistance organisations have not gained significant academic attention until recent years, despite large areas of the country having been governed by them for many decades. The political authority and governance systems of resistance organisations are only mentioned in passing in the most influential studies on armed conflict and ethnic politics in Myanmar (Yawnghwhe 1987; Gravers 1999; Lintner 1999; Smith 1999; Thawnghmung 2007; Callahan 2007; South 2008; Sakhong 2010; Woods 2011; Sadan 2013). But recent years have seen increased interest in these themes, with Brenner (2017; 2019) exploring the politics and governance of so-called “rebels”, South (2017) discussing “hybrid governance” and Kyed et al. (2020) providing a seminal contribution on informal justice systems in both ERO and government-controlled areas (see also Decobert 2016; Paul 2018; Loong 2019; Ong 2020; and Kim 2021, among others). These recent works have demonstrated how large populations of the country have been subject to overlapping forms of localised authority completely independent from the central state. They have also demonstrated how the governance systems of EROs often demonstrate considerable legitimacy, especially in relation to the violent and invasive Myanmar Armed Forces, due to bottom-up collaboration between EROs and community-based actors.

In March 2020, the world was transformed in a matter of weeks as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across borders, forcing governments to implement restrictive measures to try and contain the spread of the highly contagious virus. During this time, people in Myanmar faced significant challenges as they were forced to adapt to new restrictions on movement, with many losing their primary source of income. In Kyauk Myaung, a fishing community of seven villages, the nationwide restrictions put in place significantly impacted livelihoods. Alongside various lockdown orders, fishing communities in Myanmar experienced prohibitions on fishing, stay-at-home restrictions, as well as a of series of other restrictions and new household expenditures concerning health, including masks, face shields, antiseptic handgel and additional personal protective equipment (PPE) (in some cases). In addition to these restrictions, markets and small businesses were closed, meaning fishermen had nowhere to sell their wares. While these measures were put in place to try and curb the spread of the virus, they had a significant impact on people's livelihoods. During 2020–2021, people in Kyauk Myaung who depend on fishing faced many difficulties as a result of stay-at-home orders and severe restrictions on fishing. Their main source of income was lost overnight and many households faced new challenges for their everyday survival.

This chapter examines the impacts of the restrictive measures put in place in Myanmar to try and combat the virus in Kyauk Myaung. This is a response to recent calls to provide detailed analysis about the impacts of COVID-19 on fishing communities across the globe. N.J. Bennett et al. (2020) and C.J. Knight et al. (2020) state that the impacts of COVID-19 on the social, economic and environmental sectors are yet to be quantified globally, although some efforts have already been made at the regional level. Research from Myanmar, highlights the devastating impacts of the pandemic on fishing communities and their livelihoods. This chapter is focused on Kyauk Myaung in Shwebo district, Sagaing region, which is famous for relying on freshwater fisheries. When I began research for this study in 2020, I found that there was an overwhelming crisis in the fisheries sector due to the restrictions put in place to combat the spread of the virus.

On the 1st of February, the Sit Tat1 staged a coup that overthrew the democratically elected government. After a brief period of stunned silence, the country erupted with anger and dismay. From eight o’clock that evening, Yangon and Mandalay were overtaken with the sound of mass pot-and-pan banging: long a traditional symbol of casting out demons, the pot-banging was repurposed as a symbol of mass protest, couched within the plausible deniability of the traditional act of exorcism. Within a few days, such nebulous and inchoate acts gave way to a mass social movement, started by nurses and doctors. Health sector workers exhorted their fellow public servants to refuse to work for the junta; knowing that this was in violation of civil service laws (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw 2013), they knew they would likely be arrested, and — citing Gandhi — released a statement on Facebook referring to their actions as “civil disobedience”. Myanmar's Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) was born. Teachers and other education sector staff were quick to follow health workers, joining demonstrations and releasing public statements; in a little over a week, the CDM had snowballed into a general anti-coup uprising. “CDMers,” or striking civil servants, were joined by labour unions, political activist networks, and a huge assortment of other groups and associations, forming the largest street demonstrations the country has witnessed since the mass demonstrations of 1988.

In the months that followed, “CDM” became a kind of shorthand for one's political allegiances. Striking government staff became known as “CDMers;” government staff who remained in their posts began to be called “non-CDM”. If someone is spoken about as “non-CDM,” the implication is that they are pro-junta. “Non-CDM” workers (and even their families) were identified online and recommended for a tactic that came to be known as “Social Punishment” (SP): the public (or online) harassment and ostracism of those non-CDM workers, particularly soldiers, and often their families as well, with particular focus on shutting down or boycotting militaryaligned businesses. As long-time Myanmar observer and anthropologist Courtney Wittekind puts it, “neutrality is no longer possible” (2021) in post-coup Myanmar. A side must be chosen.

What Myanmar1 is currently experiencing is often referred to as a ‘post-coup crisis’. Within the country, people call it the ‘Spring Revolution’, because it began in February, Myanmar's ‘Spring’. As significant parts of the country descended under armed conflict, political analysts and pundits began to start speaking of ‘civil war’ and the concept of a ‘failed state’. All these terms are accurate to some extent and reflect a certain kind of reality. And yet, they are inadequate and incomplete. In a world where unspeakable happenings occur almost daily, those who write pieces on Myanmar for the media will find the words ‘crisis’ and ‘tragedy’ a common feature of their news articles. In Myanmar we see and encounter such things with numbing regularity. And yet even we, ourselves, have not come up with a common term or phrase to label what we are faced with on a daily basis.

By calling it a ‘cataclysm’ one comes closer to the mark. Sifting through different descriptive terms of trauma goes together with plumbing the nature of the upheaval. An outsider may not comprehend the magnitude of the trauma and the depth of suffering that is being experienced — or indeed, that has been experienced collectively over the course of our history. That is one reason the remedies prescribed by external actors (like ‘dialogue’ for instance) fall flat on Myanmar ears. The United Nations and its various representatives have become the butt of jokes for their repeated expressions of ‘concern’. Because what is happening is unprecedented in living memory. While one can go back a number of decades to look at comparable circumstances, those cases simply don't do justice to the present. To the fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, sadness, anxiety, confusion and overall deep sense of utter devastation at what has and continues to take place on a daily basis.

One event that comes to mind is the fall of the Kingdom of Burma, etched into the history books by the deposition and exile of the last King, Thibaw, and annexation to the British Empire in 1886. Not many people are aware that the subsequent ‘pacification’ of the country took ten more years, and the deployment of 60,000 troops from the British Empire to quell various forms of resistance.

This chapter analyses the compounding effects of the COVID-19 health crisis and the political crisis of the February 2021 military coup in the context of Myanmar prisons. We want to start off this analysis by describing a particular photo. We suppose most fellow researchers and other people, who try to follow and understand both COVID-19 and the coup have been inundated with intense and disturbing photos and accounts of suffering in Myanmar. Unsurprisingly, we did so too in preparation for writing this chapter. One photo stood out for us. It is a photo of a young man by the name of Ko Manzar Myay Mon, an activist from Chang-U township in Sagaing region, who was arrested and detained on 8 June 2021. The photo, which was posted on Twitter, among others by the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar,2 shows Ko Manzar Myay Mon sitting crossed legged with his hands tied behind his back. One sees the boot and the camouflaged arm of a security officer next to him, who seems to pull his head back for the camera. The young man's face is bruised but expressionless, his t-shirt torn. Accounts of the injuries and torture that Ko Manzar Myay Mon was victim of after his arrest caused widespread condemnation3 and his trial is still pending as we write this chapter. Yet, in direct relation to the issue in focus here something else also stands out as particularly absurd and deeply disturbing. His captors have blindfolded him with a disposable facemask, which is lifted off his mouth to cover his eyes, strings around the ears still attached.

The photo documents as well as symbolizes — in a basic and brute way — how detention and COVID-19 collide in Myanmar today. The facemask over Ko Manzar Myay Mon's eyes shows how the agents of the junta menacingly distort and disregard the need to respond with minimal care and caution to the threat of COVID-19. Most apparently, placing the facemask over Ko Manzar Myay Mon's eyes shows a disregard for basic health safeguards. At a deeper level, this seemingly banal act changes a formally protective health technology into a tool of coercion and connotes the junta's readiness to distort the pandemic response and turn the threat of COVID-19 against the public.

The 1 February 2021 coup in Myanmar prompted a diverse range of responses from foreign governments and intergovernmental organisations, revealing considerable misunderstanding within Myanmar on the scope of feasible international responses. This chapter describes these responses and discusses the challenges in navigating tensions between contact and legitimation. It discusses the utility of condemnations, calls for accountability, the release of detainees and recognition of the National Unity Government, and the handling of competing claims to represent Myanmar in international organisations. In the context of calls on the international community to “save Myanmar”, this chapter also considers whether the United Nations Responsibility to Protect concept could be invoked and discusses attempts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to encourage dialogue between the parties.

I argue that while there is a performative dimension to the post-coup diplomatic response, it is also important for the international community to articulate its understanding of what constitutes acceptable conduct. Since the coup there has been a growing discourse and anxiety amongst people from Myanmar that, with the passage of time, nations, international organisations and businesses will increasingly become engaged with the military council. This anxiety is reflected in condemnation of contact, criticism of ASEAN efforts to find a pathway out of the political crisis and the calling out of all contact as “legitimising” the regime (Forum Asia 2021; Oo and Liu 2021). This tactic attempts to deny the military council any form of legitimacy. This chapter argues that some contact is necessary and useful and should not be stigmatised. To move on from the current situation to a restoration of democracy requires more than hope that the military council, on the basis of international opprobrium and a denial of international recognition, will eventually and voluntarily admit defeat and seek a return to parliamentary democracy.

The analysis in this chapter is based on observations of the first 18 months following the coup. Responses by advocacy groups — such as fundraising, lobbying for referral to the International Criminal Court, and other activities — and responses by the international donor and business communities, while important, are beyond the scope of this chapter.

We are in an era of both crisis and disappointment: the hopes and plans of millions have been ruined by the myriad political-economic problems caused by COVID-19, but mostly by the impact of Myanmar's military coup. However, within disappointment, there is generative potential. Amidst the chaos and despair caused by the coup, a revolutionary movement has grown, pointing towards new and innovative political possibilities for Myanmar. This revolutionary turn has been indexed by a radical decolonial turn in Myanmar-focused academia: even in the “ivory tower”, many desire a fundamental shift in the terms of engagement. We view this decolonising movement as part of a revolutionary zeitgeist in Myanmar right now, a historical conjuncture in which the terms of political engagement are being renegotiated across the board. In this contested historical moment, we see potential for disappointment and frustration to drive a kind of paradoxical optimism. Much of the work being done now, in politics as in academia, is being done under the assumption that the future will be better than the present, that there is something worth working toward both in the politics of Myanmar itself and in Myanmar-focused research. The purpose of this concluding chapter is to trace a line from disappointment to revolution, and to consider what directions Myanmar research might be able to take in the future.

We will begin with a meditation on disappointment and frustration, with a particular focus on people who grew up during the “transition” (people born between the late 1990s and the 2010s — so-called Generation Z), who came of age during the peak of Myanmar's recent international research engagement. Unlike older generations, who have seen cycles of liberalism and military authoritarianism, Generation Z has never really had to contend directly with military dictatorship in Myanmar. They are disappointed, and they are angry. From there, we will examine how this anger has produced not only a revolutionary political movement within Myanmar, but also a radical shift towards decolonial praxis in Myanmar studies (see for example, Chu May Paing and Than Toe Aung 2021; Tharaphi Than 2022) — a shift that is still somewhat nascent, but undeniably an important feature of contemporary Myanmar research.

Introduction

Over the last generation the Vietnamese migrant population in South Korea has grown significantly and become quite visible. Vietnamese in South Korea number over 170,000 and now count as the largest expatriate population in the country after Chinese (Park 2018). One of the most significant remittance corridors is now South Korea-Vietnam, which has outpaced Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) flows. The majority of Vietnamese in Korea tend to fall into three categories— labour migrants, spouses, and students. Migrant labour from Vietnam to South Korea dates to the 1990s, and since 2004 an E-9 Employment Permit System and C-4 seasonal visas place Vietnamese in long and short-term contract positions in factories, agriculture and aquaculture throughout the country. Marriage migration, in which South Korean men contract matchmaking agencies and arrange tours to identify suitable Vietnamese women for marriage, rose quickly in the 2000s. In 2009, 47 per cent of foreign marriages in South Korea were to Vietnamese, and the first decade of the twenty-first century alone saw the number of Vietnamese-Korean cross border marriages increase one hundred-fold (Onishi 2007; Kim 2012). Marriage migration to Korea is often associated with younger women marrying rural bachelors as well as taking on ageing in-law care duties. Driven in part by South Korea's low birth rate, ageing population, rural-urban migration, rapid industrialization, and tourism to and targeted investment in Vietnam, the demand for foreign migrants in South Korea has steadily risen. This also extends to education, where Korean universities have sought to boost declining domestic enrollment numbers by recruiting more overseas students (Nguyen 2018). Mirroring the general foreign population, Vietnamese students in South Korea rank the highest among international students, along with Chinese. There are over 44,000 Vietnamese marriage migrants, over 50,000 labourers, and over 59,000 students according to recent reports (Lee 2022; ILO 2021; Kim 2021). There is also a significant population of undocumented workers living below the official radar.

Not surprisingly these migration streams have led to various discontents and calls for intervention, including addressing the high migrant broker fees paid prior to migration and disillusionment often encountered by migrants afterwards (Song 2015).

On the morning of 3 December 1959, Yusof bin Ishak, smartly dressed in a beige Baju Melayu, arrived at the centre of Singapore town in a Rolls-Royce. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew greeted Yusof and ushered him into a chamber at the heart of the City Hall building. Dozens of politicians, officials and foreign dignitaries were already waiting for Yusof. Following his entry, the magisterial melody of God Save the Queen reverberated off the chamber's walls, followed by the confident tune of the new state anthem, Majulah Singapura.

All present were standing. Ahmad Ibrahim, the advocate-general, then read out the Commission of Appointment from Queen Elizabeth II, recognizing Yusof as Her Majesty's representative in Singapore. Yusof recited his oath of allegiance in Malay:

Prime Minister Lee and the chief justice, Sir Alan Rose, witnessed the oath. After the signing of all official documents, both anthems echoed once more, but this time, Majulah Singapura took precedence. Yusof was now Singapore's first Malayan-born Yang di-Pertuan Negara

(“he who is made lord”). Even though he represented the sovereign power of the British monarch on the island state, the Queen's portraits were nowhere to be seen in the chamber.

After the solemn procedures, the newly appointed Yang di-Pertuan Negara and his entourage emerged from City Hall to much fanfare. Fleets of buses and lorries had ferried schoolchildren and youths to the grand ceremony. In spite of the light drizzle, the 10,000-strong exuberant crowd greeted the Yang di-Pertuan Negara with shouts of “merdeka”, which was by now a familiar rallying cry meaning “freedom” or “independence” in Malay. City Hall's grandiose structure and its colossal Corinthian columns towered over the crowd and had for many decades projected the might of British imperium. During official events, Singapore's colonial rulers often stood at the very top of the perron, lifting their visual presence over crowds assembled at the grassy forecourt of the Padang. This spatial arrangement projected the hierarchical realities of the relationship between rulers and subjects. The Padang itself has a deeper history. As a “colonial civic space”, it was the site of commemorative events to display the might of the reigning imperial power, whether it was the British or the Japanese.

Introduction

All three demographic components—births, migration, and mortality— influence multiple aspects of families and households. Southeast Asia has witnessed substantial demographic changes notable of which are steep declines in fertility, increase in both intra-regional and international migration, and considerable lengthening of life expectancy. While the family continues to be a central institution, many aspects of the family are changing. Demographic literature on the causes and consequences of family change in the region is limited. At a more fundamental level, what constitutes a family during times of demographic change, as observed by Farris (2020, p. 4) in a different context, needs to be redefined to “include any group of people who are unified, cooperative, and care for each other”.

Using census and survey data from seven countries in the region and reviewing demographic reports between 1980 and 2017, this chapter examines demographic changes and their linkages to transformations in the family structure in the region. The chapter highlights the changes in family structure resulting from later marriage, greater marital instability, delay in young people leaving home, and a growing number of older persons.

Demographic Changes in Southeast Asia

Changes in births, migration, and life expectancy are discussed first. This is followed by an extended discussion of changes in marriage. Although marriage is not a formal demographic component (as it cannot directly alter population size or structure), it is closely tied to births in the region. Most births in the region occur within marriage, and the institution of marriage has not lost its relevance.

Declining number of children. In just over three decades, the average fertility rate has declined from more than five to replacement levels in most of the region (United Nations 2019b). Even in countries with relatively higher fertility, such as the Philippines, fertility has been declining though at a gradual pace. The declines have been attributed to various factors from the success of family planning programmes to economic development. One key reason for the decline is the impressive expansion of education, especially for girls, which has led to delays in marriage and brought about ideational changes regarding family sizes (Hull 2012).