Description

The talk will show various widespread and regularized adaptive strategies adopted by individuals, households, and communities. It will demonstrate that not all locally initiated strategies to survive on a daily basis and to address individual and collective needs lead to the promotion of trust, autonomy, collective welfare, or democratic culture. Most of these efforts are responses by individuals, households, communities, and organizations to manage, evade, or take advantage of constraints and opportunities that are often specific to local areas and they may have long-term detrimental effects on society, polity, and the economy. The research highlights the utility of applying interdisciplinary and holistic lenses to assess political implications, and suggests context specific policy prescriptions that are more sensitive to the needs of targeted populations.

Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung is Associate Professor of Political Science Department. Her areas of specialization are on Burma/Southeast Asian politics, ethnic conflicts, and political economy. She teaches Introduction of International Relations, Research and Simulation in International Organization, Southeast Asian Politics, Politics of Identity, and Democracy and Democratization in Southeast Asia. She is the author of the “Other” Karen in Myanmar (Lexington books 2012), Beyond Armed Resistance (East West Center 2011), Karen Revolution in Burma (2008), and Behind the Teak Curtain: Authoritarianism, Agricultural Policies and Political Legitimacy in Rural Burma/Myanmar (2004). Her articles appeared in Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Survey, Asian Journal of Political Science, Southeast Asian Affairs, Journal of Peasant Studies, Sojourn: Contemporary Southeast Asian Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and in edited volume published by Stanford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Ardeth has received fellowships from Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad, the Australia National University, Asian Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, East West Center Washington DC, and Southeast Asian Institute Singapore.