Date: Thursday 16 May 2024

Time: 13.30 - 15.30 

Venue: Subaltern room, Operations Building, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

'Outsourcing the Polity' (Cornell, 2023) offers a new account of social outsourcing and non-state social provisioning in post-independence Myanmar. Grounded in extensive research during Myanmar's decade of partial civilian rule (2011–2021), the book examines how ideals and practices of non-state welfare - charity, philanthropy and social provisioning beyond the state - can both sustain democratic resistance and entrench inequality over time.

In this roundtable Gerard McCarthy and RCSD Fellows & CMU friends will explore the book in light of the extraordinary resilience of Myanmar's revolutionary movement since the 2021 military coup. In particular the panel will consider how legacies of autocratic market reform and austerity have shaped the material and ideological basis of the ongoing struggle against dictatorship in Myanmar. 

On the panel will be:

• Dr. Gerard McCarthy, International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague
• Min Aung Mann, RCSD Fellow
• Sabai Aung, RCSD Fellow
• Dr. Ashley South, RCSD University Research Fellow & Independent Scholar
• Dr. Sirada Khemanitthathai, Chiang Mai University