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ABSTRACT
Predominant approaches in the rebel governance literature have looked at control over the means of violence as a prerogative of rebel-rulers, or armed/non-armed actors, somehow deterministically linked to territory. Here weapons have been understood as either autonomous technical-factors or as analytically invisible objects instrumental to human agencies and interactions aiming to territorial control. This paper challenges understandings of control over the means of violence as a central property radiating outwardly through hierarchically and geographically ordered spatial containers. It argues that the means of violence are relational networks among heterogeneous human-non-human entities – e.g. weapons, stockpiles, militarised architectures, forms, armed individuals/groups – that generate territory. These networks are controlled and stabilised via diffused techniques and rationalities of control. Drawing on the study of Ta’ang areas of Northern Shan State – among the few in Myanmar where well-established rebel movements have experienced official disarmament and later undertook a full-fledged re-armament – I find that controlling the means of violence occurs via turbulent combinations of technical objects, techniques and rationalities that relate to four main domains: narcotics eradication; institutionalisation; ethnonationality; and humanitarian security. Processes and practices through which attempts to control the means of violence are made entail alternative strategies to re-generate spatial organisational control and shape multiple shifting territories. Empirically exploring a highly under-researched case, the paper provides a view of the diffused character of controlling the means of violence and its mutually constitutive relations with territory, while illuminating also the role of weapons, other technical objects, and techniques.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank all the interlocutors and friends who rendered the study possible by donating their time, knowledge, and openness. I am also grateful to Alessandra Russo, Georgios Glouftsios, Francesco Strazzari, Timothy Raeymaekers and the Political Geography Research Lab at the University of Zurich for commenting and engaging on earlier drafts. Lastly, I thank all the anonymous reviewers who provided invaluable help in making the paper’s argument stronger.
Declaration of interest statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. * = Informant and places were assigned fictious names and location.
2. Fieldwork was organised through different channels of access. A preliminary fieldwork period was carried out independently and in collaboration with mountain guides in Kyaukme; the second phase was embedded in a humanitarian mine action organisation; while the last was performed liaising with a local civil society organisation (CSO). Throughout these phases the author alternated periods of approximately 10 days-2 weeks between northern Shan State and Yangon. Periods in northern Shan State entailed also living in mountainous villages and towns in Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Lashio townships in particular. Two of these alternated periods were carried out embedded with two EAOs, respectively: PSLF/TNLA in the area of Namhsan and Namtu, and SSPP/SSA-N in Wan Hai. A total of 106 interviews and field notes were conducted, distributed as follows: PSLF/TNLA leadership and rank and file (28); SSPP/SSA-N leadership and rank and file (9); RCSS/SSA-S rank and file (4); village heads (12); villagers (8); Buddhist monks (1); community defence militiamen (7); local Shan and Ta’ang CSOs/CBOs operating in mountainous villages (11); local humanitarian workers (18); mountain guides (8). Findings were triangulated via interviews with mine action researchers and workers, analysts, researchers, and field journalists. Essential was the help of a translator who also facilitated access. At the same time though, channels of access represented also restrictions shaping data collection. Fieldwork was constrained mainly by negotiations with EAOs officials and translator/assistants, and by security concerns related to areas with limited access.
3. The Ta’ang are a group of Mon-Khmer speaking people living mainly in Myanmar, Thailand, and China. In Myanmar they are commonly referred to as Palaung by the Bamar majority. The term ‘Ta’ang’ is used for collective self-identification, however, and includes 20 sub-ethnic groups all considered to be simply Ta’ang.
4. Estimates of the number of militias in Myanmar shift between the hundreds and the thousands. The highest reported being 5,023 with 180,000 members (Min Zaw Oo Citation2014, 33).
5. As Hoffmann and Verweijen (Citation2018) note, there are exceptions, such as Huang (Citation2016) does not consider territory as a precondition for governing.
6. A full genealogy of a rationality of narcotics eradication in relation to control over the means of violence is out of the scope of this article but one could arguably trace these logics back to earlier conjunctures such as the dismantlement of the Ka Kwe Ye (KKY) militia programme in 1973 (Meehan Citation2011).
7. For an account of the factors leading to the 1991 ceasefire, see Meehan (Citation2016). The two main founding figures behind PSLF were Mai Tin Moung and Tar Aik Bong.
8. Interview with Ta’ang CSO, April 2019, Lashio.
9. Interview with Ta’ang CSO, Lashio, April 2019
10. Interview with former TNLA combatant, northern Kyaukme township, March 2019.
11. Ibid.
12. Interview with TNLA Lieutenant, Namhsan Township, TNLA Mobile Temporary HQ, April 2019.
13. Interview with frontline journalist, May 2019, undisclosed location. Especially in the townships of Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Lashio
14. Interview with Ta’ang CSO, Lashio, April 2019.
15. Field Note, Puang Neyt Village, April 2019.
16. Interview with Ta’ang CSO, Lashio, April 2019.
17. Interview with former TNLA combatant, Kyaukme township, March 2019.
18. Field Note, Puang Neyt Village, April 2019.
19. Interview with deputy village chief, Kyaukme township, March 2019.
20. GAD is now under the structure of the democratically elected government, but until the end of 2018 it was a prerogative of the army, according to the 2008 constitution.
21. Interview with Ta’ang village head in northern Kyaukme township, March 2019.
22. Interview with T.H.K village head, T.H.K, March 2019.