EADI Virtual Dialogue #23: Land Conflict in Myanmar - 2020/06/22
Channel: EADI
Date: 2020-08-05

Myanmar faces enormous development challenges in the midst of a rapidly changing and uncertain political and economic landscape. The European Journal of Development Research is pleased to present a special issue on development challenges in Myanmar. In this webinar, we draw on the findings of two papers within the special issue, examining land conflict in Myanmar.

Competition over land is at the core of many sustainable development challenges in Myanmar: villagers, companies, governments, ethnic minority groups, civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations from local to the international level claim access to and decision-making power over the use of land. Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen talks about research that investigates the actor interactions influencing land-use changes and their impacts on the supply of ecosystem services and human well-being.

Dr Stefan Bächtold addresses the land conflicts that have increased across the country’s ethnic-minority area, amid Myanmar’s political transition and despite its new government’s discourse of inclusion and dialogue. This online-seminar will demonstrate that land plays a central role in the complex interplay of state formation, armed conflict and international development in Myanmar’s contested borderlands and that land conflicts can provide an entry point to make sense of these dynamics.


Speakers:

Dr Stefan Bächtold is an Associated Researcher at the Analysis & Impact Program (https://www.swisspeace.ch/topics/analysis-and-impact/), specialising in evaluation approaches and collaborative learning processes for conflict-affected environments. He is currently based as a visiting post-doctoral fellow at Monash University in Kuala Lumpur. His research focus is on critical/postcolonial approaches, the role of new technologies in conflict, and the power relations that are structuring peacebuilding and aid in Myanmar and globally. Read his paper: Assembling Drones, Activists and Oil Palms: Implications of Multi stakeholder Land Platform for State Formation in Myanmar.
https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1057/s41287-020-00267-y

Lara Lundsgaard-Hansen is a PhD Candidate in the Sustainability Governance cluster at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) in Bern, Switzerland. Her PhD research looks at land governance in Myanmar. She works at the University of Bern as a scientific project manager in the field of sustainable development. She has a degree in geography and a Masters in International Development. The paper she co-authored is "Sustainable Development Under Competing Claims on Land: Three Pathways Between Land-Use Changes, Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being" and is available open access.
https://link.springer.com/journal/41287/32/2



EJDR is pleased to showcase the recent Special Issue on 'Development Challenges in Myanmar'. Volume 32, Issue 2, April 2020:
https://link.springer.com/journal/41287/32/2

The latest EJDR articles can be found on the EADI website:
https://www.eadi.org/ejdr/


The EADI Virtual Dialogue Series has been running successfully since 2017. It gives participants the opportunity to engage with critical thinkers and innovative new research findings. 

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https://www.eadi.org/eadi-virtual-dialogue-series/