Editor’s Note: Special Issue: Gender and Social Change in Myanmar

Abstract

The Myanmar military’s 1 February 2021 coup d’etat of the elected government quickly provoked widespread protests, namely the Civil Disobedience Movement and the Spring Revolution. During the earliest days of these manifestations, people of various gender identities were at the forefront of the demands for political change. They made use of numerous creative tactics to fight the military’s political imposition and to bring their grievances to the public sphere. Following the government’s brutal suppression of the nonviolent protests emerged the organization of People’s Defense Forces. In the years since, fighting, repression, and resistance continue. Now, as ever, it is imperative to interrogate how gender—as produced, experienced, and mobilized—operates across cultural fields, and relates to social transformation in Myanmar. Using nuanced, dynamic methodologies, the four research articles in this special issue of The Journal of Burma Studies take up that challenge. They reconsider gender in varied contexts of social activism, everyday practices, identity politics, and religious histories. Gender discourses in Myanmar are reforged through the work of many different agents, from renunciants to punks, to revolutionaries, and to keyboard warriors. Powerful ideologies are confirmed, The Journal of Burma Studies Vol. 27, No. 1 (2023), pp. 1–27 © 2023 Center for Burma Studies