PRFDHR Spring Seminar Series, Mass Violence and Mass Exodus: The Causes and Consequences of the Rohingya Crisis, Mayesha Alam

Event time: 
Thursday, March 1, 2018 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Rosenkranz Hall (RKZ ), 241 See map
115 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

In August 2017, the Myanmar military launched “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine State in wake of insurgent attacks on local security posts. Though the government claimed it was targeting ARSA militants, the scale, pace, and nature of state-led violence against the Rohingya population drew widespread international condemnation. Many observers have struggled to make sense of why a country ostensibly transitioning from a military dictatorship to a civilian democracy would perpetrate ethnic cleansing against an already disenfranchised minority. This puzzle motivates the research presented here, which leverages a causes-of-effects approach to differentiate between historically embedded drivers of violent persecution and the proximate factors that have enabled the elimination and expulsion of almost 1 million Rohingya over the course of six months. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and historical and archival materials, I show that counterinsurgency in this case serves as pretext for ethnic cleansing, which I argue is a product of the convergence of ethnoreligious nationalism and political rivalry in a quasi-military regime. I also highlight the gendered dimensions of dehumanization, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement that are critical to understanding the plight of Rohingya men and women in Myanmar, from where they came, and in Bangladesh, to where they fled.

Mayesha Alam, Political Science, Yale University