Document Type

Honors Project (Campus Only)

Abstract

This thesis examines the ways in which the struggle for state legitimacy in Myanmar has shaped the trajectory of the postcolonial nation's future. It analyzes how disregard for the country’s deeply heterogeneous social, economic, cultural, and religious public by the Tatmadaw contributed to the recurring patterns of oppression and repression. Synthesizing methods such as critical theory, historical analysis, and discourse analysis, I argue that the fragmented Burmese state maintains power by institutionalizing Bamar supremacy in three distinct yet interconnected mechanisms—the historical erasure of non-Bamar agency, the ideological destruction of religious discourse, and the economic fragmentation of ethnic territories. In addition, I introduce the concept of the "Peripheral Paradox," that occurs when the Bamar-Buddhist core offers ethnic minorities in the peripheries conditional inclusion in the national project in exchange for their oppression of other subaltern groups, undermining counter-hegemonic coalescence and fracturing potential solidarity across stratified communities. As the world enters an era of unprecedented upheaval, Myanmar’s struggle to forge a unified national identity can offer us a blueprint to confront emerging legitimacy crises across the entire world-system.

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