John Pakyurek L&S Social Sciences
Patchwork Rights: Non-state Human Rights in Myanmar
In Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, her phrase “the right to have rights” has arguably spawned a growing subfield of human rights (HR) literature dedicated to the study of HR exogenous to the nation-state. The guiding question of this subfield is thus, “what are we to make of HR in the absence of the nation-state, or one’s membership therein?”
This project will contribute to a more complete picture of the answer to this question by inquiring the extent to which HR were protected, maintained, and expanded in areas controlled by Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) in Myanmar during Aung San Suu Kyi’s 2016-2021 State Counsellorship, and why/how. Did Myanmar’s brief shift to expanded democratic governance correlate with increased HR protections in these EAO-controlled areas?
My research aims to elaborate on the mechanisms and institutions through which HR are protected, maintained, and expanded under ethnic insurgent nonstate governance; analyze which types of HR this applies to (economic, social, civil/political, etc.); and determine the relationship between nation-state structure and EAO HR protections.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you so much for funding my research. Because of your support, I am able to investigate a severely under-researched, yet significantly important area of human rights inquiry. I get the opportunity to expand my understanding of qualitative archival and process tracing methods, in addition to data for social scientific research. I hope to continue this research throughout my upcoming academic years, and I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to pursue this opportunity.