Putting Rohingya Voices Back into the Rohingya Crisis

Presented by Wagner's Office of International Programs and the New York Southeast Asia Network

November
13
12:30pm - 1:30pm EST
Public
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Date:
November 13, 2018
Time:
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Location:
The Puck Building - 295 Lafayette Street, Lafayette Conference Room (Room 3066), 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10012

In the wake of the ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Rohingya from Myanmar, various debates have proliferated over what the Rohingya want (their own state? safe return to Burma? relocation?) - and even 'who' they are (an indigenous ethnic group? 'Bengali' interlopers masquerading as Burmese autochthons? a religious minority?). This talk, based on on-going research in refugee camps in Cox Bazaar and with members of the Rohingya diaspora, considers Rohingya social and political identity from a number of locations and sociopolitical contexts, presenting historical, linguistic, and political data to complicate narratives advanced by disparate sides of the debate. In doing so, the talk reintroduces voices of non-elites - Rohingya widows forced to flee Burma; Rohingya youth attempting to 'pass' in Bangladeshi society - that have been excluded from many of these discussions.

 

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is an Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore in Anthropology/Sociology. His research focuses on social movements, daily politics, and ethnicity in Burma and Southeast Asia more broadly.

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