Tesi etd-03192021-131050
Link copiato negli appunti
Tipo di tesi
Dottorato
Autore
BUSCEMI, FRANCESCO
URN
etd-03192021-131050
Titolo
Becoming and Being a Weapon: Means of Violence and Geographies of Rule in the Borderlands of Myanmar
Settore scientifico disciplinare
SPS/04
Corso di studi
Istituto di Diritto, Politica e Sviluppo - JOINT PHD IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, EUROPEAN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Commissione
relatore Prof. STRAZZARI, FRANCESCO
Membro Prof. Prasse-Freeman, Elliott
Membro Dott. Marsh, Nicholas
Membro Prof.ssa CASAGLIA, ANNA
Membro Prof. Prasse-Freeman, Elliott
Membro Dott. Marsh, Nicholas
Membro Prof.ssa CASAGLIA, ANNA
Parole chiave
- arms control
- borderlands
- means of violence
- Myanmar
- territory
- weapons
Data inizio appello
01/10/2021;
Disponibilità
parziale
Riassunto analitico
This research explores the ways in which means of violence – i.e. both weapons and armed individuals/collectives – are governed and how processes and practices of governing them re-shape geographies of rule on the edge of state authority, in borderlands and frontiers.
Studies on small arms, armed violence, and rebel governance that have investigated the role of weapons and armed actors in relation to social and political orders in highly contested areas have been characterised by a blend of materialist and instrumentalist approaches to arms and have tended to understand control over the means of violence as a prerogative of institutions, armed/non-armed actors, or networks of authority. This has limited the analysis of processes and practices of controlling weapons and armed collectives. In particular, the ways in which such processes and practices of control both unfold through and shape socio-spatial relations of rule and (dis)order on the edge of the state remain under-explored.
Combining material semiotic/ActorNetworkTheory (ANT) sensibilities with post-structuralist thinking, this work challenges understandings of control over the means of violence as a central property radiating outwardly through hierarchically and geographically ordered spaces of rule. The research harnesses case study and ethnographic fieldwork methods to analyse borderlands and frontiers in Myanmar’s long-standing armed conflicts. In particular the empirical focus rests on the highly under-researched case of Ta’ang areas of northern Shan State – among the few in Myanmar where well-established rebel movements part of broader landscapes of resistance and rebellion have experienced official disarmament-cum-demobilisation and later undertook a full-fledged re-armament.
Adopting a marginal perspective, the thesis argues that the means of violence are relational networks involving heterogeneous human and non-human entities (guns, gunmen, forms, uniforms, militarised architectures ecc). Processes and practices of governing the means of violence are performed and stabilised through techniques and rationalities of control diffused throughout societies. The work needed to hold configurations of the means of violence “in place” unfolds through and reproduces socio-spatial relations rule. It provides alternative strategies to generate or re-negotiate spatialised effects of authority and rule that operate to regulate people and resources. In the borderlands of Myanmar, I find that controlling the means of violence occurs via turbulent combinations of technical objects, techniques and rationalities that relate to four main domains – ethnonationality; institutionalisation and stateness; narcotics eradication; and humanitarian security and arms control – and reproduces shifting, intertwined, and overlapping socio-spatial relations of place, scale, and territory.
This research provides a view of the diffused character of controlling the means of violence and its mutually constitutive relations with geographies of rule at the putative state margins, while illuminating the role of weapons, other technical objects and supposedly subaltern agencies. It contributes to research on the production of authority and order in borderlands and frontiers by exploring control over weapons and the means of violence as a scantly researched topic in this literature. It feeds into the ambit of rebel governance by reassessing the role of control over the means of violence as a dimension of rebel rule and linkages with the notion of territory. It engages studies on small arms and armed violence offering valuable insights on how weapons and armed humans are governed and how they themselves become an arena where techniques and rationalities of control are reproduced, diffused, and contested. Lastly, to the literature on Myanmar’s fragmented sovereignties and armed orders, this study grants an unprecedented research on Ta’ang areas and rebel movements.
Studies on small arms, armed violence, and rebel governance that have investigated the role of weapons and armed actors in relation to social and political orders in highly contested areas have been characterised by a blend of materialist and instrumentalist approaches to arms and have tended to understand control over the means of violence as a prerogative of institutions, armed/non-armed actors, or networks of authority. This has limited the analysis of processes and practices of controlling weapons and armed collectives. In particular, the ways in which such processes and practices of control both unfold through and shape socio-spatial relations of rule and (dis)order on the edge of the state remain under-explored.
Combining material semiotic/ActorNetworkTheory (ANT) sensibilities with post-structuralist thinking, this work challenges understandings of control over the means of violence as a central property radiating outwardly through hierarchically and geographically ordered spaces of rule. The research harnesses case study and ethnographic fieldwork methods to analyse borderlands and frontiers in Myanmar’s long-standing armed conflicts. In particular the empirical focus rests on the highly under-researched case of Ta’ang areas of northern Shan State – among the few in Myanmar where well-established rebel movements part of broader landscapes of resistance and rebellion have experienced official disarmament-cum-demobilisation and later undertook a full-fledged re-armament.
Adopting a marginal perspective, the thesis argues that the means of violence are relational networks involving heterogeneous human and non-human entities (guns, gunmen, forms, uniforms, militarised architectures ecc). Processes and practices of governing the means of violence are performed and stabilised through techniques and rationalities of control diffused throughout societies. The work needed to hold configurations of the means of violence “in place” unfolds through and reproduces socio-spatial relations rule. It provides alternative strategies to generate or re-negotiate spatialised effects of authority and rule that operate to regulate people and resources. In the borderlands of Myanmar, I find that controlling the means of violence occurs via turbulent combinations of technical objects, techniques and rationalities that relate to four main domains – ethnonationality; institutionalisation and stateness; narcotics eradication; and humanitarian security and arms control – and reproduces shifting, intertwined, and overlapping socio-spatial relations of place, scale, and territory.
This research provides a view of the diffused character of controlling the means of violence and its mutually constitutive relations with geographies of rule at the putative state margins, while illuminating the role of weapons, other technical objects and supposedly subaltern agencies. It contributes to research on the production of authority and order in borderlands and frontiers by exploring control over weapons and the means of violence as a scantly researched topic in this literature. It feeds into the ambit of rebel governance by reassessing the role of control over the means of violence as a dimension of rebel rule and linkages with the notion of territory. It engages studies on small arms and armed violence offering valuable insights on how weapons and armed humans are governed and how they themselves become an arena where techniques and rationalities of control are reproduced, diffused, and contested. Lastly, to the literature on Myanmar’s fragmented sovereignties and armed orders, this study grants an unprecedented research on Ta’ang areas and rebel movements.
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