SRIc Managing Director presented at Conference Conjuring Violence in Myanmar in Paris, France

04 June 2026

SRIc Managing Director presented at Conference Conjuring Violence in Myanmar

🌍 Mr Tin Shine Aung, Managing Director of SRIc, discussed the paper with the title "Echoes of the Past: Myanmar’s Polycrisis As A Legacy of Historical and Structural Injustices" at the International Conference Conjuring Violence in Myanmar in Paris, France. 

Echoes of the Past: Myanmar’s Polycrisis as a Legacy of Historical and Structural Injustices

Abstract

Myanmar’s contemporary polycrisis can be understood as an “echo” of historical violence and structural injustices that continue to shape patterns of exclusion, contestation, and mobilisation across governance, social, economic, and environmental domains. This paper links these historical legacies to present instability by applying a sustainability-oriented, four-phase analytical framework that traces how localized disputes evolve into systemic crises through institutionalisation and cross-domain interaction. 

Legal and political transformations, including the State Religion Act 1961 under U Nu and the Citizenship Law 1982 under Ne Win, entrenched ethno-religious hierarchies and marginalised minority communities, embedding structural violence within state institutions. These dynamics were reinforced by economic nationalisation and a militarised political economy, deepening inequality, weakening resilience, and intensifying resource dependence. 

Environmental degradation, driven by extractive practices, deforestation, and weak disaster governance, further amplified vulnerability to shocks such as Cyclone Nargis and subsequent climate-related disasters. These intersecting crises illustrate how environmental risk, political repression, and social fragmentation reinforce one another.

By situating Myanmar’s polycrisis within these historical trajectories of violence and memory, the paper contributes to understanding how past injustices are continuously reproduced in present crisis dynamics, shaping both instability and constrained pathways for recovery and mobilisation. Addressing Myanmar’s polycrisis, therefore, requires confronting these historical legacies.