Invitation: RCSD Post-fieldwork Seminar (Wed. 20 Sept. 2017 at 1-3 pm)

[RCSD Chiang Mai University]

​Dear all,

You are invited to join RCSD Post-Fieldwork Seminar on 

“Spectral Governance: Anarchy, Affect and Spectres in the "KAW" Governance Systems of the Salween Peace Park, Northern Karen State”

By Tomas Cole, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm

Discussed by Dr. Robert Farnan, Department of Social Sciences and Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

Date: Wednesday 20 September 2017

Time: 13.00-15.00 hrs. 

Venue: Subaltern Room, Basement Floor of Operation Building, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

In this talk I sketch some preliminary thoughts on 7 months fieldwork in the former battlefields of Northern Karen state studying livelihoods and local/customary land governance systems, locally know simply as Kaw.  This war-torn landscape is slated to form the eastern rim of the Salween Peacepark where the Kaw will be at the ‘heart’ of this indigenous-run sanctuary and peace initiative.  I show how the explicit forms of governance of the kaw – as both demarcated territories and systems for governing these territories – appear often aleatory and anarchic, their nominal leaders possessing little practical authority. To begin to understand their workings one has to look to their tacit and affective forms that govern relations not only between humans but also relations to the environment and to other-than-human beings – to non-human-animals, the dead, spirits of places and the owners/guardians of the mountains, land and water – where the real authority lies. This is what I term spectral governance.     

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Regional Center for Social Science
and Sustainable Development (RCSD)
Faculty of Social Sciences
Chiang Mai University
Chiang Mai 50200 THAILAND
Tel: +66-0-5394-3595 to 6
Fax: +66-0-5389-3279
Email: rc...@cmu.ac.th
http://rcsd.soc.cmu.ac.th