Kai Scott's ARIA project:听Myanmar's Democratic Transition
听
I spent this past summer participating in an ARIA project alongside Professor Erik Kuhonta. This has been a tremendous learning opportunity, allowing me to delve into the politics of contemporary Myanmar in greater depth while also letting me interact with several Myanmarese scholars. While the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly made the project a unique one, I have found it a fulfilling and engaging process and have learned much.
More specifically, this project is focused on producing two pieces of output: a policy brief and a short article to be co-authored alongside Prof. Kuhonta. Both pieces are targeted towards the Myanmar federal elections in November and aim to address some of the broad trends at play in the lead up to the elections. Myanmar鈥檚 process of democratization has been a drawn-out process, rife with complications that relate to simmering ethnic tensions, the Rohingya refugee crisis, and the military鈥檚 deeply entrenched position within domestic politics. The brief mainly aims to provide a summary understanding of what is at play in the upcoming election. Later on, we hope to publish a separate article on an academic blog (newmandala.org, for example) that addresses the dynamics of political parties in Myanmar more directly. While the policy brief is currently undergoing the last few editorial check overs and should be finished near to the end of the month, the article still remains a work in progress and we hope to finish this sometime in the near future.
For me, this was an incredibly exciting opportunity. I developed an interest in Southeast Asian politics after spending time in the region during the past two summers. Having previously spent time teaching English on the Thai-Myanmar border, I had a specific interest in Myanmar and jumped at the opportunity to look more in depth at the political dynamics at play. While the shutdown of international travel scuppered plans to participate in an internship in Thailand over the past summer, this has been a more than satisfactory consolation prize and I have felt as though I have deepened my understanding of the regional dynamics significantly through my time spent working on this project.
Starting this project, I had several objectives that went beyond simply developing my contextual knowledge of Myanmar. First of all, I had expected that the process of contributing to a published work would give me a chance to learn about putting together publishable work. Secondly, I thought that engaging in a significant research project of this type would give me a great platform to test out my writing and research skills. Overall, I have more or less had a fulfilling experience. The first draft that I put forward for the brief was the largest piece of writing that I had ever produced, along with the most intensively researched one. Completing my contribution to the brief was certainly a high point, as I was able to finally see all the work that I had put into the project in one place. I also thoroughly enjoyed being able to participate in weekly seminars, organized by the IDRC that centred around different aspects of Myanmar鈥檚 democratic transition. This served as a great forum to both listen to, and ask questions of, experts on Myanmar.
However, many fellow ARIA recipients may also agree that doing research work during the current pandemic was a difficult process. I felt that the main effect was on the contact with both my project supervisor and with other collaborators on the project. While Prof. Kuhonta was a very open communicator, I can鈥檛 help but feel as though this might have been a much more enriching experience if I had been able to be physically present at 缅北强奸. Furthermore, despite the great support provided by the AIO, there is little that can be done to replicate the chance for engagement with other ARIA students that would have been possible if we had all been on campus together.
Nevertheless, this was a fantastic experience and I am extremely grateful for the chance to participate. I hope that this experience can drive me to continue to both engage with academic work, but also to engage more meaningfully with my interests going forward. Thanks goes not only to my supervisor Prof. Erik Kuhonta, but also to Ms. Anne Turner and Ms. Katherine Kuang of the AIO, who made this possible for me. Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Harry Samuel, whose generosity continues to make such great educational opportunities available to undergraduates like myself. Thank you.
