Washington has rediscovered Myanmar’s chaotic borderlands—again. After cutting aid to the countryin early 2025, the US now promises Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “strike forces” who claim to work with the Royal Thai Police in their War Room Task Force in Bangkok, investigating and combatting scam compounds in Myanmar. Washington is even rumored to be offering a $25-million reward for the arrest of people organizing scam centers across Southeast Asia, although no Myanmar names have yet appeared on Department of State lists.…
Author: Tony Waters
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania. In the past, his main interests have been international development and refugees in Thailand, Tanzania, and California. This reflects a former career in the Peace Corps (Thailand), and refugee camps (Thailand and Tanzania). His books include: Crime and Immigrant Youth (1999), Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan (2001), The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life Beneath of the Marketplace (2007), When Killing is a Crime (2007), and Schooling, Bureaucracy, and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child (2012). His hobby is trying to learn strange languages–and the mistakes that that implies. Tony is a prolific academic, you can read more of his work at academia.edu.or purchase one (or more!) of his books from Amazon.com.
An Ethnography of Health Insurance Claims—How Blue Shield lawyers ignore subpoenas from consumers
For the last 6 years, I have been dealing with a health insurance claim for my wife’s hip operation in Thailand in January 2020. We were insured by Blue Shield of California at the time which is an administrator for my employer’s health care program at the time, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CALPERS). The policy Blue Shield administered included coverage for global emergency and urgent health care needs. In November 2019, Blue Shield pre-approved an operation on my wife’s hip because she could barely walk, and agreed the condition was considered urgent.…
Myanmar’s Endless Turning Points
Published as a Guest Column in The Irrawaddy, Reading Time: 7 mins read
In 1949, the newly independent Burma was said to be on the verge of collapse as Communist Party of Burma (CPB) forces occupied Mandalay, and the Karen Army encircled Yangon. In the early 1960s, Ne Win’s coup was supposed to restore stability but in fact led to a resurgence in highland ethnic armed groups, and in the lowlands, initiated the terror of the secret police with their dank prisons.…
General Ne Win, Burmanization, and the Problem of Peace in Modern Myanmar
I have been remiss in posting to Ethnography.com. For about ten years, this ws a forum I really enjoyed. There was a community of bloggers, and the quality of ethnography posted was unusual in both its geographic spread, and the vigor of its writings about places as diverse as Dominica in the Caribbean, Tunisia, Madagascar, Tanznia, Myanmar, Romania, and other places around the world. I think I am one of the few people in the world who actually enjoys editing ethnograhpic writing. …
Alienated Labor, Sex Work, and Intimacy among Thai Sex Workers
I lived many years in Thailand where a subject of fascination for outsiders is the “sex industry.” I have of course known many people who were involved at various levels, but have never turned much of an ethnographic eye toward the subject. Until now. Thanks to the interests Petra Lemberger, a MA student at Chiangmai University in Thailand, I recently with her published an article “Thailand’s Sex Entertainment: Alienated Labor and the Construction of Intimacy” in Social Sciences. …
British Colonialism and Railways to Nowhere in Northern Burma
In Northern Burma there is a railway bridge, the Gokteik Viaduct. It was completed in 1900 by a Pennsylvania steel company under contract to the British government, which had recently conquered northern Burma following the British-Burma War of 1884-1885.
The British Empire was focused on their version of free trade and they wanted to project British notions of mercantilism to all corners of the world, including southern China. So they decided to build a railway from their new colony in Burma with its port on the Indian Ocean, to Kunming in southern China. …
An Ethnography of San Francisco by Thai writer Rong Wongsavun now published in English
‘Rong Wongsavun (1932-2009) was a prolific Thai author and photographer who began publishing in the 1950s, continuing until he passed away in 2009. Throughout his life spent writing, he claimed to never age beyond age 28, which is why he always signed his name as “Young Man!”. Hugely popular with Thai readers during his lifetime, his work is now, for the first time, being published in English. The Man From Bangkok: San Francisco Culture in the 60s, first printed in 1978 is about his travels in California, and has now been published by White Lotus Press of Thailand. …
Trying to Out the CIA, and Other Musings about Ethnography.com
Last June, I published an article about the role of the CIA in the post-World War II world order. I rather liked it, but no one seems to read it! So here’s a link, so that anyone who follows Ethnography.com might check it out!
This post is mainly though to get myself re-engaged with Ethnography.com, and perhaps you too. We have had several excellent submissions posted since just 2020 from Tunisia, Madagascar, Dominica, Tanzania, and India.…
Ghosts Look Over the Shoulders of Myanmar Peace Negotiators
Peace Studies researcher Elise Boulding wrote that peace, including the type sought today in Myanmar, is focused by a “two hundred year present.” By this she meant that how people think about their values, fears, loyalties and dreams is inherited from the memories of parents and grandparents who recall the emotional events they heard about as children from their elders.
This is how they came to think about who is the “us” that is loved and trustworthy, and the “them” that is to be feared, avoided and distrusted. …
One (dis)placed ethnographer’s movements during the pandemic: Is the on-line world a lesser ethnographic world?
– guest blog By Sarah Huxley –
The joys and pains of ethnography, as many an ethnographer might tell you, focus on the immersive, and experiential conundrums that ‘real life’ invariably spits up. That’s not to say that there is no/ little preparation, but rather to say that the very nature of the ethnographic methodology, that is– the ontology, allows for and acknowledges that, just as in life, research must have a space for the unknown, or uninvited dinner guest.…
The Fear of Dahalo Bandits on a Drive Through the Alaotra Night (Madagascar)
– guest blog by Anders Norge Lauridsen –
Why are we stopping? The shadows are growing longer and the twilight is near, but we still have a long way home to the village of Anororo ahead of us. A man at a run from the other tractor several ridges behind us catches up with our tractor and announces between his gasps for breath the bad news. The other tractor has broken down.…
Reading Myanmar—‘Miss Burma’ and the Liberal Conscience
Miss Burma (2017) by Charmaine Craig is a historical novel that tells the story of Burma from the perspective of a Karen family that was part of Rangoon’s elite after World War II. The book describes the Karen perspective on mid-20th-century wars in Burma, beginning with the Japanese invasion in 1942 and continuing today. Resonating particularly well is the focus on the betrayals that underlay ceasefire and peace negotiations conducted in the name of liberal democracy starting in the 1940s.