Ananda Rajah

Bio: Ananda Rajah is an academic researcher from National University of Singapore. The author has contributed to research in topics: Refugee & Asian studies. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 4 publications receiving 27 citations.

Power, territoriality and cross‐border insecurity: Regime security as an aspect of Burma's refugee crisis

Abstract: At the time of writing there are approximately 120,000 refugees from Burma along the border with Thailand, mostly on the Thai side. In addition there are an unknown number of escapees and unforced migrants who are working in Thailand and elsewhere. Along the Burma‐Bangladesh border there was an even larger transboundary movement of Rohingyas during the early 1990s. The total number of Rohingya refugees was over 250,000 at its peak. We focus on some of the critical security issues underlying the refugee crisis, particularly in relation to the on‐going state‐societal and ethno‐territorial conflicts. Central to an understanding of the recent refugee problems is a consideration of how the Burmese military regimes security concerns have territorial and ethnic dimensions. Certainly the coercive territoriality employed by the Burmese army has transformed the political geography of several borderlands areas in recent years. In turn the very existence of a significant transborder refugee population raises many que...

Political assassination by other means: Public protest, sorcery and morality in Thailand

Abstract: The past decade in Thailand has seen an increasing occurrence of the employment of sayasaat (magical knowledge) in the form of phithii saap chaeng (rites of cursing) in public protests and demonstrations. The performances are in fact acts of sorcery and, as argued below, exorcism. The last reported instance was in Chomthong District of Chiang Mai Province in June 1999. The Chomthong protests were staged by Northern Thai farmers. Together with the Dhammanaat Foundation (a Buddhist environmental conservation non-governmental organisation or NGO) and the Doi Inthanon National Park Authority (DINPA), they demanded the sequestration of the watershed in the area on the grounds that forest utilisation there reduces the availability of water in foothills and lowland areas. The farmers argued that this threatened their livelihood, which depends on cash crops such as kidney beans, garlic, cabbage, potatoes and fruit trees. They also demanded that ethnic minority hill communities should be resettled from the 'watershed' as defined by Dhammanaat, a definition based on that of the Royal Forestry Department (RFD). Representatives of the hill communities, however, argued that both upland and lowland forests should be conserved to ensure water flow and that their cultivation methods are environmentally sound, whereas lowland forests have been all but denuded for cash cropping and charcoal production. Their arguments were to no avail and, indeed, they were subjected to attempts at forced eviction by the Chomthong Watershed Conservation Club (CTWCC), a NGO established by the Northern Thai farmers, with the support of Dhammanaat, DINPA and the RFD. (1) The events of June 1999 in Chomthong (which spilled over into Chiang Mai city) represented the eruption of simmering conflicts between Northern Thai farmers and minority hill communities over access to montane forests. The conflicts have become extremely complex and highly politicised, involving lowland communities, ethnic minorities, NGOs, academics and intellectuals concerned with a host of inter-related issues: sustainable development, environmental conservation, lowland farmers' rights vis-a-vis those of hill communities, social inclusion/exclusion, and the role of academics in civil society. (2) The Chomthong demonstrations saw five Chiang Mai University faculty burnt in effigy: Nidhi Aeusrivongse, a distinguished historian; Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, a political scientist; and Shalardchai Ramitanond, Anan Ganjanapan and Yos Santasombat from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. They were also the targets of sayasaat in the form of a phithii saap chaeng, which employed a ritual technique called phithii phaw phrik phaw khlya (rite of burning chillies, burning salt), publicly enacted by a group of local farmers. The academics were targeted because they had advocated the rights of minority hill communities to forest access in opposition to CTWCC, having consistently argued that the cultivation systems of some of these communities (especially the Karen) are in fact environmentally sustainable, contrary to the views held by the RFD and the Land Department, as well as Dhammanaat and CTWCC. As a result of petitions by the farmers, the then Governor of Chiang Mai, Pravit Srisopone, singled out Chayan for public condemnation because of his out-spoken support for the hill communities. In a related incident the following month, Chayan was accused by the Deputy Secretary--General of the National Security Council of Thailand (NSCT) of being a 'traitor' (khaay chat, 'selling [out] the nation') because he had, in an international forum, 'barked like a dog' (haw) about the problems--exclusion from citizenship in particular--faced by these communities. (3) These events reflect a heightened awareness of environmental and civil rights and other public interest issues in Thailand and the ways such concerns are consciously articulated in the public domain. Such issues, however, are not the immediate focus of this article; rather, it is the employment of sayasaat in demonstrations and protests over matters of community and public interest. …

Sécurité, gouvernance rebelle et formation de l’État au Kivu, République Démocratique du Congo (2004 – 2013)

Abstract: This thesis explores the political significance of rebel governance on state formation in the context of civil wars in the aftermath of the Cold War. It is based on an in-depth case study of security provision by Congolese rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) that emerged in the Kivu region during the post-conflict transition in 2004, and which turned into the Movement of March 23rd (M23) in 2012. The study of security governance on the rebel territory raises complex issues that are both theoretical, methodological and political. These issues relate to the trends towards the depoliticization of civil wars in mainstream approaches since the 1990s; ethical challenges of ethnographic research on sensitive security objects; as well as the marginalization of rebel governance institutions in the implementation of peacebuilding programs. Relying on critical approaches in international relations (peace and security studies), this thesis suggests a heuristic framework for analyzing the relationship between civil wars and state formation today, which is inspired by the concept of state autonomy that fed the scholarship debate between the first and the second waves of the Neo-Weberian Historical Sociology: negotiating state autonomy under rebellion. Based on this heuristic framework, this thesis defends the idea that rebel governance is a dynamic and partially undetermined process of negotiating the state autonomy shaped by the imbrication of domestic and inter/transnational issues at stake (multispatiality); involving a multiplicity of social forces, both military, political, economic and ideological (multicausality); and impacting the institutionalization of power relations at both the domestic and inter/transnational levels (dual reflexivity). The analysis is based on a multiplicity of sources, mainly the ethnographic observation of the factors and actors influencing security dynamics on the rebel territory; semi-structured interviews with rebels and civilians; as well as the consultation of the reports of the UN mission and the UN Panel of experts on the DRC. Cette these explore les implications politiques de la gouvernance rebelle sur la formation de l’Etat dans le contexte des guerres civiles de la periode post-Guerre froide. Elle est basee sur une etude de cas approfondie de la fourniture de la securite par les rebelles congolais du Congres National pour la Defense du Peuple (CNDP), apparu en 2004 dans la region du Kivu en pleine transition post-conflictuelle et qui s’est transforme en Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) en 2012. L’etude de la gouvernance de la securite sur le territoire rebelle souleve des enjeux complexes qui sont a la fois theoriques, methodologiques et politiques. Ceux-ci portent a la fois sur la tendance a la depolitisation des guerres civiles d’apres les annees 1990 dans les approches dominantes ; les defis de l’ethique de la recherche ethnographique sur des objets de securite sensibles ; ainsi que la marginalisation des institutions de gouvernance rebelle dans la mise en œuvre des programmes de consolidation de la paix. S’inscrivant dans la suite des etudes critiques des relations internationales (etudes de paix et de securite), cette these suggere un cadre heuristique pour analyser les rapports entre guerres civiles et formation de l’Etat aujourd’hui, lequel cadre s’inspire du concept d’autonomie de l’Etat qui a nourri le debat entre la premiere et la deuxieme vague de la sociologie historique neo-weberienne : la negociation de l’autonomie de l’Etat sous la rebellion. En se fondant sur ce cadre heuristique, cette these defend l’idee que la gouvernance rebelle est un processus dynamique et partiellement indetermine de negociation de l’autonomie de l’Etat faconne par l’imbrication des enjeux domestiques, inter- et transnationaux (multispatialite) ; impliquant une multiplicite des forces sociales, a la fois militaires, politiques, economiques et ideologiques (multicausalite) ; et impactant l’institutionnalisation des rapports de pouvoir aux niveaux domestique ainsi que inter- et transnational (reflexivite duelle). L’analyse repose sur une multiplicite de sources incluant principalement l’observation ethnographique des facteurs et des acteurs des dynamiques securitaires sur le territoire rebelle ; la realisation des entretiens semi-structures avec les rebelles et les civils ; et la consultation des rapports de la mission onusienne et du Groupe d’experts de l’ONU sur la RDC.

Defining Southeast Asia and the Crisis in Area Studies: Personal Reflections on a Region

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