Undoing exclusions/expanding inclusion: Conceptualizing spaces for gendered learning and citizenship constructions in Myanmar’s transition

Abstract

Education sites, particularly in situations of conflict and transition, can play multiple and changing roles, including validating reproductions of state-sanctioned citizenship along exclusive strata, or conversely presenting alternative models of more inclusive citizenship. This article seeks to explore the dynamics and contributions of differing education practices within the context of Myanmar, with a focus on the ways such practices and the emerging presentations are gendered. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of striated and smooth spaces, I highlight the differing dimensions of Myanmar’s education environments that reveal alternate practices of learning. In so doing, I draw on examples of practices in non-formal education to highlight how smooth learning dynamics may provide opportunities to undo the fixity of hierarchies currently reproduced in state schooling and allow for greater opportunity for young women in particular to contest subordination.

KEYWORDS:

• Education spaces
• citizenship
• inclusion
• gender
• Myanmar

Notes

1 These include, for example, the Karen Education Department (KED) and the Mon National Education Committee (MNEC). These ethnic schools design their own textbooks and curricula largely delivered in their ethnic languages (Lall & South, 2013). These ethnic education systems are understood to be alternative yet equally formal and nationalistic in their orientation catering to distinctive, small sections of the population. Consequently I do not include these schools as a main focus within the discussion presented in this paper. However further research on the contributions and roles of ethnic education providers can be found in Lopes Cardozo and Maber (2018).

2 See also Maber (2016a) for further details of components of the research relating to feminist activism and Maber (2016b) for research relating to cross-border education movements.

3 These connections stem from my work as a teacher, teacher trainer, and curriculum writer in Myanmar and Thailand between 2009 and 2013, as well as my role as a member of the inter-agency and civil society coalition Gender Equality Network (GEN). For further discussion of the work of GEN, please see Maber (2014).

4 These organizations were identified through a mapping exercise conducted in 2014 and purposively selected to ensure a balance of organizations from metropolitan and regional areas of Myanmar and Thailand, a balance in focus on the major themes identified through interviews, and based on their willingness to participate in the study.

5 This presentation also calls to mind Freirean imagery of fabrication in relation to constructing learning environments (Freire 2014/1992).

6 For further discussion of the gendered nature of Myanmar’s state curriculum see GEN (2015, p. 86-97) and RAINFALL (2017).

7 Hpon is the Myanmar concept of male superiority and masculine power which is interwoven with Myanmar Buddhist notions of gender hierarchy. For a fuller explanation of the ways hpon is enacted in social relationship see Nwe (2009), GEN (2015) or Miedema, Shwe & Kyaw (2016).

8 Cultural practices commonly portray menstruation as ‘dirty’ and ‘shameful’ and dictate that women’s clothes, especially those covering the lower body such as panties or longyi, should not be washed with a man’s or placed higher than theirs to dry.