Law and Religion in Myanmar

The project investigates modes of governance through religion from a historical and a contemporary perspective, focusing on the legal geography of Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar. Probing the concept of the ‘ethnocratic city’ (Yiftachel), the project investigated the dialectics of ethnonational urban control on the one hand and the ethnic and religious minorities’ strategic manoeuvring of land policies and planning policies on the other. The project payed particular attention to the role of religion in disputing processes concerning land and property. The project’s focus was on the Christian communities in Yangon. During the funding period, fieldwork was carried out for a total of six month.

The project was part of the Project Group ‘Legal Pluralism’ (Profs. Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann) and was connected to research activities at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Martin-Luther-University and associated with the Max Planck Fellow Group “Connectivity in Motion: Port Cities of the Indian Ocean.” (Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schnepel).