Healthcare, solidarity, and moral community in Myanmar's humanitarian crisis and revolution

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth qualitative research, this article explores how the experiences and practices of health workers responding to humanitarian crises can foster new forms of solidarity, moral community, and state–society relations in situations of conflict, structural violence, and disputed governance. Focusing on partnerships formed between ethnic minority and former government health workers since Myanmar's coup of 2021, it shows how shared experiences of suffering, and relationships of care forged to address it, foster more inclusive and equitable notions of moral community. Community-level health partnerships are key not just for crisis response, but also for challenging divisive and exclusionary forms of citizenship, service delivery, and governance, and for building more just and emancipatory models of civic identity, social welfare, and state–society relations—health workers being potential agents of revolutionary change. International aid must support community-led social welfare mechanisms that build solidarity and social justice ‘from below’ in contexts of structural violence and disputed governance.