Editor’s Note: Dr. Htet Thiha Zaw’s postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of British Columbia was supported by the UBC Myanmar Initiative, with generous funding from the IDRC-K4DM Grant.
Story of Change: Htet Thiha Zaw (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of British Columbia)
I envisioned two goals when I joined the UBC Myanmar initiative as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in August 2024. First, I aimed to further develop my research that investigates the relationship between education and violent conflict between authoritarian states and civilians. Second, I planned to help grow and sustain the growing community of researchers that the initiative has cultivated since its inception.
Thanks to the fellowship, I made progress on several projects that build on the political history of Myanmar, from the times before colonial rule to the events since the 2021 military coup. In one project, I show that, when democratization processes fail, investments in public education before the failure enable strong and sustained civilian resistance against the incoming authoritarian regime. So far, I have presented the project at two disciplinary conferences in the United States and a speaker series at UBC. As part of the project, I finished compiling a series of novel datasets on education statistics and instances of civilian resistance, which I intend to share for future use by interested researchers in the near future. The fellowship has also allowed me to publish a peer-reviewed article at Education and Conflict Review, where our research teams discuss how education research in crisis-affected settings like Myanmar can develop with insights from on-the-ground stakeholders and ensure that findings engage with those from other crisis-affected contexts.
During the fellowship, I also recognized that it was challenging to receive feedback on early-stage research projects on Myanmar, since most disciplinary workshops on campus predominantly host advanced projects. Therefore, I started the UBC Myanmar research lab, creating a space for early-career researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds to present their Myanmar-related research projects and receive feedback. The workshop also served as a place to generate research ideas and provide peer support with writing.
The fellowship also allowed me to contribute to the “Futures of Myanmar” project. Recognizing the uncertainties that continue to surround Myanmar’s political development, the project brings together early-career researchers to use their subject matter expertise and imagine potential future scenarios for Myanmar’s political future along six critical subjects: identity, institutions, federalism, economy, civilian-military relations, and international engagement. Rather than predicting what will happen, an impossible task in Myanmar’s case, the six thought pieces discuss multiple feasible scenarios and important events that will shape their likelihoods. We have presented the multiple iterations of the pieces at various conferences and events in Thailand and Canada, with active engagement from Myanmar’s civil society actors, diaspora, and academics.