Giving Land Back: Property, Authority and Agrarian Change in Myanmar

ended

In the wake of violence, dispossession, and regime change, giving back land offers a critical opportunity to address historic injustice. Yet seeking to reconcile the past invites conflicts over material distribution and political inclusion in the nation’s future. This project investigates land restitution in Myanmar, a formerly authoritarian, predominantly agrarian nation currently undergoing a rapid, public and bumpy transition towards democracy. Building on over five years of research on land reform and agrarian change in Myanmar, I ask how the new government’s efforts to return land are taking shape, and what these processes mean for the nation’s future and for the place of rural land in global development. Under the guidance of Prof. Christian Lund, a leading scholar on the production of property and citizenship in developing societies, this project will contribute new empirical analysis, conceptual insights, and policy recommendations to inform urgent debates on rural transformation, democratization and social inequality.