Activist Becomings Myanmar

In my ethnographic fieldwork in the Southeast Asian metropolis Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital, I have joined a group of young Burmese adults, most of them from the local Punk scene, in their occupation as activists of a movement called “Food Not Bomb Yangon” (FNBY). The movement builds on Food Not Bombs International which its political origin in the anti-nuclear movement of the US but now exists 1.000 cities in 65 countries worldwide.  Participating in their everyday lives, I engage in preparing and offering food to people who are forced to live on the street, every Friday night. I also help out with the group’s merchandise products, accompany them on short field trips and attend their Punk concerts during which they raise money for their cause.

In mostly Buddhist Myanmar, food is offered to monks and nuns by laypeople, often irrespective of their own religious affiliation. By offering food to the poor, Food Not Bombs Yangon align local practice with the international movement’s aim of “shared humanity”.

The place, where the syncretistic practice of donating food is happening is the public street. While the country is said to have “opened up” since 2008, public space in Yangon is shrinking as high-end shopping malls, hotels, and roads are expanding. Street vendors and local shops vanish and thus poverty and homelessness are growing. As access to the street is more and more restricted, the focus of Food Not Bombs Yangon is on the people who need the street for their survival. Through their weekly walks and by focusing on the people who live on the street, they reclaim public infrastructure for themselves and those who depend on it.

On the one hand, my project investigates how international concepts and ideas are appropriated and reinterpreted to fit the everyday practices and needs of local activists and the people they are addressing. On the other hand, I probe how activists’ lifeworlds in contemporary Yangon are shaped by more traditional Burmese practices.  Moreover, my project shows how urban space is reclaimed through activism, by building on existing infrastructure while challenging the current capitalistic tendency to privatize and thereby narrowing public space for all.