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Indigeneity, ethnopolitics, and taingyinthar: Myanmar and the global Indigenous Peoples’ movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2019

Michael R. Dunford
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Abstract

In Myanmar, the idea of ‘indigeneity’ has been mobilised in two radically different ways. Ethnonationalist groups such as the Chin National Front and the Karen National Union have utilised the concept to lobby for increased autonomy in international forums such as the United Nations, while the Burmese state has used the idea of indigeneity (or native-ness, typically translated as taingyinthar in Burmese) to exclude certain minorities — most prominently the Rohingya — by explicitly striking them from the official list of Myanmar's ‘national races’. To clarify how this definitional tension has developed, this article will situate the competing Burmese appeals to indigeneity within the history of international indigeneity politics, and compare the Burmese ‘Indigenous situation’ to other Asian countries that have addressed the question of who counts and does not count as Indigenous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 51 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2019 

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References

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49 Ibid., pp. 899–900; saopha refers to members of the Shan hereditary nobility.

50 Ibid.

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52 Ibid.

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59 Ibid., p. 10.

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74 Cheery Zahau, interview, 11 June 2017, Yangon.

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80 Ibid., p. 10.

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82 Cheery Zahau, interview, 11 June 2017, Yangon.

83 Cheesman, ‘How in Myanmar “national races” came to surpass citizenship’, p. 462; this article provides an excellent extended investigation of the genesis of the term taingyinthar and its role in Myanmar's ethnopolitics up to the present.

84 Thawnghmung, ‘The politics of indigeneity in Myanmar’, p. 527.

85 Office of the President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, ‘We have never had ethnic nationals called “Rohingya” according to official list of indigenous ethnic groups of Myanmar as well as our historical records’, 31 Aug. 2014, http://www.president-office.gov.mm/en/?q=issues/rakhine-state-peace-and-stability/id-4125 (accessed 17 Sept. 2015).

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 This view appears to be changing in the wake of the catastrophic violence that broke out between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, on 25 Aug. 2017. Bangladesh state media reported hundreds of thousands of Rohingya pouring into their country; in an address to the UN General Assemply on 21 Sept. 2017, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's prime minister, acknowledged that over 800,000 Rohingya were living in camps in southeastern Bangladesh, possibly signalling a change in both Bangladesh's chosen terminology and perhaps also in their position vis-à-vis the political status of the Rohingya. It should be noted that this is an evolving situation.

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98 Ibid.

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101 Ibid.