unregistered land (QSEM, forthcoming).<sup>13</sup> In over a third of villages there were also reports of administrative barriers to registration at the time of registration. These included requests for informal payments to facilitate the process or inaccurate registration as officials drew on outdated land records. The research identified numerous instances where villagers, emboldened by their understanding of the new operating environment, pushed back against these administrative barriers. For example, a farmer in Shan State who was asked to pay 120,000 _kyat_ to change the name on the land certificate from the previous owner’s name only agreed to pay if the official issued a formal receipt from the department acknowledging that this was an official cost (QSEM 2016).

Villagers also identified perceived changes in the behavior of local officials in implementing their duties and linked these to the national reforms. Research in 2014 identified specific areas where officials were instructed to be more cautious in their engagement with communities. As discussed above, respondents across numerous villages claimed village tract administrators received instructions in their regular township meetings that the collection of fees from villagers to cover operational costs was no longer permitted now that the government was providing monthly allocations for administration of the village tracts. Similarly, in the same round of research, villagers in Rakhine State and Ayeyarwady Region claimed that fisheries officials were less likely to visit villages to collect licensing fees, as the officials had been instructed to avoid actions that could generate complaints (QSEM 2015).

# 5. Connectivity: From Local to Global

Since the reforms of 2012, QSEM has documented that the social and economic networks of people living in villages have expanded significantly. Telecommunications access has increased massively; migration networks have improved; road infrastructure has expanded; and access to markets has increased. Together, these have the potential to result in intense social transformation as identities, family structures, occupational stability, encounters with ‘foreign’ groups, prevailing rules, norms and procedures, social protection mechanisms, aspirations for the future, and access to more sophisticated financial instruments (potentially enabling greater opportunities for saving, lending and consumption-smoothing) are all significantly altered.

Whereas the research shows that villages have become much more connected to national and global networks following the transition, networks already existed before the reforms. Authors such as Wells (2014) and Paung Ku (2010) have documented the building of ‘bottom-up’ civil society networks that existed prior to the transition in parts of the country. Prior to 2012, these networks most commonly were mobilized as responses to specific issues such as the natural disasters of cyclones Nargis and Giri, and conflicts or concerns relating to the environment, natural resource projects or the like (Paung Ku 2010). Migration networks had also been established throughout the country. Although data on levels, types and destinations of migration have been lacking until recently, sufficient information exists to ascertain that migration was a common livelihood strategy across Myanmar, with significant variations in destination and levels dependent on states or regions (Turnell 2008, IOM 2014, World Bank 2015). Recent analysis suggests, for example, that approximately 5 percent of households in Ayeyarwady Region and slightly more in Magway Region had a family member migrating either domestically or abroad in 2010 (World Bank 2015).

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