Introduction
When Aung San Suu Kyi wore an ostentatious jade necklace to an official dinner for the Union Peace Conference at Naypyidaw in 2017, she was heavily criticized on social media and on the ground in Kachin state, Myanmar.Footnote 1 Her action was interpreted as a lack of care for the plight of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who remain in camps due to fighting between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state where jade is harvested. The collapse of a ceasefire (1997–2011) between the opposing parties renewed armed conflict and triggered the internal displacement of more than 100,000 people in that part of Myanmar. An earlier report released in 2015 by international human rights group Global Witness had highlighted to international observers how Myanmar's lucrative trade in jade contributes to the armed conflict and suffering of those in Kachin state—and verified the claims of aggrieved Kachin people.Footnote 2 These intertwined developments—a perceived lack of care by the National League Democracy (NLD) government represented by Aung San Suu Kyi as well as long-standing and new grievances felt by the Kachin people—have further fuelled Kachin aspirations for the creation of Wunpang Mungdaw, a geopolitical imaginary also known as ‘Kachinland’.
This article examines governance and aspirant state building in the context of humanitarian concerns in Kachin state, which lies on the China-Myanmar border. The situation there reveals contrasting territorial logics, the contingency of governance at a time of political transition, and distinct ‘regimes of care’,Footnote 3 as manifested through humanitarian relief. Drawing on ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews, this article considers how the politics of care evinced in the humanitarian situation in Kachin state contribute to aspirant state building and influence governance in a border area (henceforth border governance). The article further observes that the Kachin situation has wider implications for the peace negotiations taking place at the national level in Myanmar.
In my analysis of border governance, I approach the concept of borders in three ways: first, borders as characterized by ‘discordant multiplicity’,Footnote 4 namely the multiple, different, and shifting meanings that are associated with, and which constitute, borders. Second, borders as the ‘interface’ where ‘events, processes and decisions […] converge to constitute the power geometries in which humanitarian action take place’.Footnote 5 Third, through mobility or immobility, borders produce the spaces in which various types of care (or the lack of care) are found.Footnote 6 The article demonstrates how these distinct yet interrelated features of borders are manifested during the internal displacement of Kachin at the China-Myanmar (or Sino-Myanmar) border, contributing to the plurality of border governance.
My conceptualization of border processes and interfaces is informed by assemblage theory and extends it to address deliberations of care practices and care ethics that impact on the survival of vulnerable populations. Care practices operate at the local, national, and international levels, and, as this article shows, circulate through networks that may in fact traverse these scales. The discussion highlights how care deficits are met by a separatist government, community organizations (both faith-based and secular), and diaspora populations which mobilize a range of networks and resources—forming webs of connections and interfacing with one another—to provide humanitarian relief. However, their actions and the ensuing flows of care could produce or deepen political subjectivities that are geared towards territorial contestation and separatism, thus impacting on border governance. The article also considers the implications of care practices and ethics for the political transition in Myanmar.
The next section provides an overview of the article's conceptual themes, drawing on analyses about the multiplicity of borders, interfaces, and how (im)mobility produces the spaces in which care is provided, withheld, or deployed to enact control alongside care. The third section presents the context of the study and its research methodology. The fourth section discusses how a perceived lack of care by sovereign states, in this case Myanmar and China, interfaces with the care exhibited by a competing separatist government aspiring to statehood. The fifth and sixth sections bring into view the plurality of border governance by examining the humanitarian or care work displayed by a range of non-state actors—such as community organizations (both faith-based and secular) and diaspora groups—who inadvertently heighten demands for separatism. The sixth section extends the analyses from localized spaces of care to the distant spaces from which care is delivered to the border areas, engendering transnational care circulations. The article concludes by reflecting on the plurality of border governance and how a focus on both proximate and transnational demonstrations of care contributes towards our understanding of border governance.
Care and border governance
Border studies research has started to approach the border less from the prevailing framework of inter-state securitization (concerning the perceived vulnerability of borders to external threats) and more towards the ‘discordant multiplicity of borders’.Footnote 7 The latter approach ‘points to the variously divergent, simultaneous, conflicting, incongruous, complementary, or harmonious interests and actions of a whole range of actors and actions at borders’.Footnote 8 It also considers ‘alternative understandings of borders as a resource, as spaces of refuge, safety, opportunity and exchange’.Footnote 9 Although Walker and Winton's conceptualization of ‘discordant multiplicity’ provides a heuristic framework to describe the fluidity of borders, the analytical and practical outcomes of approaching border studies in this way remain to be further developed. This article's focus on care practices and care ethics reveals the barriers to humanitarian aid that impact on the survival of vulnerable populations, namely the Kachin IDPs, because of the geopolitical context at the China-Myanmar border. The article further argues that this perceived lack of care heightens demands for Kachin separatism in response to an ‘uncaring’ state represented by the Myanmar military and government.
Complementing approaches that are attentive to the plurality of borders is the concept of interfaces, which refers to the ‘physical or metaphorical surface regarded as the common boundary shared by [a range] of social actors and institutional structures’.Footnote 10 The concept of interfaces is undergirded by assemblage theory, which draws attention to how the instability of relations can express power in plural ways that open up or foreclose possibilities.Footnote 11 Within assemblages, interfaces are where diverse relations rub against one another to produce webs of connections. Interfaces and webs of connections provide an analytical lens for studying the multiple modes of care practices and care ethics that exist at borders, such as through the delivery of humanitarian aid or by withholding such aid. Giving attention to the spaces in which care practices and care ethics materialize at borders helps to counterbalance realist portrayals of state power and further trains the lens on the manifestations of care that take place alongside or outside of the care disbursed under an inter-state system. While this article gives attention to the relational aspects of care, it also responds to critiques of normative framings towards care by ‘grounding’ it in actual practices and locations.Footnote 12
By enacting controls that allow or refuse the mobility of people and resources, borders generate the spaces in which various types of care (or a perceived lack of care) are found. Debates around care practices and care ethics in conflict zones have been dominated by analyses of humanitarianism that focus on the role of international organizations and non-governmental organizations, or the aid disbursed by other sovereign states.Footnote 13 For Pallister-Wilkins, the operational logics of such actors ‘enact differentiated categories of life between those deemed worthy of help and those not, and between those who help and those who need help’.Footnote 14 Rather, she signals the existence of other types of humanitarian interventions that alleviate violence at borders—what she refers to as ‘humanitarian borderwork’. There appears to be a turn within the literature on humanitarianism towards how care is enacted by a range of social actors operating at different scales and across networks, such as by community organizationsFootnote 15 (faith-based and secular) or ‘peer-to-peer’ aid which draws on a range of affinity identifications.Footnote 16 In the absence of humanitarian intervention by the sovereign state—Myanmar—and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), humanitarian borderwork at the China-Myanmar border in the Kachin context is carried out by the separatist Kachin Independent Organisation (KIO) government, community organizations (faith-based and secular), and diaspora populations. This article argues that the care practices and care ethics manifested produce or deepen political subjectivities that are geared towards territorial contestation and separatism. These political subjectivities extend across borders and thicken through care circulations, which in turn augment the plurality of border governance and change governance processes.
Care circulations—a concept introduced by anthropologists Baldassar and Merla—refer to the flows of care across borders that enable transnational families to maintain a sense of togetherness and well-being.Footnote 17 Such care circulations can be found in community-led humanitarian work as well, characterized by the delivery of aid to ensure the survival of vulnerable populations and premised on a sense of solidarity and care towards those in the ‘community’ who are suffering. However, Ticktin's ‘figure of the universal suffering body’ reminds us that bodies can function as a political device ‘to create the conditions for care’ and recognition of who should ‘qualify as a member of universal personhood’.Footnote 18 Care and compassion are imbued with pragmatic and political considerations. A growing body of work on humanitarianism highlights how care can be surreptitiously deployed to advance control and exclusion. For example, in a study of NGOs contracted to administer community detention, Gerard and Weber argue that these NGOs are complicit in the securitization of borders to exclude or deter asylum seekers from arriving and staying in Australia, while in another study of citizen aid as humanitarian work in Cambodia, Fetcher observes that the brokerage of care encompasses forms of control over resources.Footnote 19 Such politics of ‘care and control’Footnote 20 were observed in my study of Kachin humanitarian assistance as well, extending from local processes to diaspora networks.
This article bridges approaches that see care as disembodied and distant, on the one hand, and as intimate and proximate, on the other. Its focus on interfaces illuminates the politics of care made manifest through webs of connections that are forged when the actions of ‘uncaring states’ (Myanmar and China) prompt an array of other social actors (the KIO government, community organizations, and diaspora populations) to improvise for the delivery of humanitarian aid under challenging conditions. Under such circumstances, the actions of uncaring states in fact deepen demands for separatism and aspirant state building.
Study context and research design
From 2011 onwards, conflict between the Myanmar (Burma) military and Kachin separatists has precipitated internal displacement in northern Myanmar. Despite the transition to a civilian government in Myanmar, the elected NLD lacks real power to curtail the violations committed by the Myanmar military. Although the NLD won the popular vote in Kachin state during the 2015 elections, on the ground there appears to be a sense of growing disillusionment towards what the NLD government will do and can do for the Kachin people.
Apart from the Kachin struggle for autonomy, a resource war over territory that is rich in jadeite and other natural resources, including opportunities for hydropower, is also fuelling the conflict. Chinese demand for natural resources and energy is complicit in the contestation over territory in Kachin state.Footnote 21 The majority of Kachin displaced by fighting flock to the China-Myanmar border for safety but those who try to cross the border into China are barred by the Chinese police. Against the backdrop of these developments lies Kachin nationalism, which has been fuelled by deep-seated grievances towards decades of Burmese assimilation policies, military oppression, and economic deprivation, despite the divestment of natural resources in Kachin state by the military junta.Footnote 22
China closes an eye to the border presence of the insurgent KIO which in 2005 set up its own government structure in Laiza.Footnote 23 The KIO and its military arm, the KIA, controls pockets of territory within Kachin state. The KIO and KIA challenge the state order while seeking to rebuild a new territorial state order. Fighting between the military junta in Myanmar and the KIA resulted in the displacement of more than 100,000 Kachin villagers. Some flee to Myanmar government-controlled areas for safety, but since most villages affected by the fighting are located near the border area shared with China, the majority of IDPs flock towards KIO-controlled areas that are closer to the border zone shared with China (also known as ‘non-government controlled areas’).
In turn, the efforts of the KIO government to alleviate suffering (despite its role in the conflict) and to provide leadership have rallied greater popular support for separatism among the Kachin people. In a zone of contested territorialities and duplicitous sovereigntyFootnote 24 (where one state's actions and claims to sovereignty are disputed or undermined by another state or aspirant state), the community organizations that deliver humanitarian relief find that they have to work closely with the KIO government to coordinate their work and extend their reach to vulnerable populations in remote parts of the China-Myanmar border.
This article draws on two stages of fieldwork. The first stage consisted of multi-sited fieldwork conducted from 2012–2015 in Kachin state (Myanmar) and Yunnan province (China) in towns and villages along the China-Myanmar border. The fieldwork encompassed ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews at the sites where the Kachin humanitarian workers carry out their work. The research focused on the role of humanitarian organizations in displacement situations. The Kachin humanitarian workers that I followed include representatives from secular community and non-governmental organizations, as well as faith-based organizations and KIO government offices that manage internal displacement issues. This approach enabled research access to several IDP camps to observe the work done or the constraints faced by humanitarian workers. Through ethnography I interacted with the Kachin humanitarian workers, volunteers, and other brokers of humanitarian aid.
The second stage of fieldwork, ongoing since 2016, extends the research to the role of the Kachin diaspora in participating in humanitarian efforts, advocacy, and knowledge transfer. This fieldwork focuses on the Kachin diaspora in Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These research sites were chosen to reflect the opportunities for and constraints on the diaspora populations in those parts of the world (which will be explained in this article).Footnote 25 The fieldwork consists of semi-structured interviews with the overseas Kachin and go-along ethnography (that is, joining the Kachin diaspora from Singapore when they went to Kachin state for a ‘missions’ trip and attending events organized by the Kachin Baptist Convention for diaspora churches).
Crucially, these types of religious and humanitarian relief and other types of charitable or caring initiatives are integral to aspirant state-building efforts towards the establishment of a wider geopolitical imaginary known as ‘Kachinland’ (Wunpang Mungdaw). Next, I discuss how care practices and care circulations are integral to aspirant state building. As my respondents are engaged in risky humanitarian and advocacy initiatives, the article provides only key referents (for example, their roles or the type of organization they belong to) to contextualize the interview excerpts so as not to jeopardize their safety.
Border governance and uncaring states
On my way to Putao in 2011, I stopped to get petrol but the owner did not want to sell [the petrol] because he was worried there would be no more petrol once war breaks out. For me, those were the first signs of war. [During that trip] I saw different check points that I had not seen before when I used to go to the border line near to the KIO territory.Footnote 26
The above quote captures the recollections of the onset of war back in 2011 of a humanitarian worker. The quote not only reflects how borders are experienced by those who regularly move within and across border zones, but also signals the changes to governance at the border when the 17-year-long ceasefire agreement between the Myanmar military government and the separatist KIA broke down. As the conflict gained in intensity, more checkpoints were set up by the Myanmar military to scrutinize the passage of goods and people moving across territories that were under the competing jurisdiction of the Myanmar military and the KIA. On the ground in Kachin state, the Myanmar military government has been perceived by the Kachin people as an ‘uncaring state’ on account of its decades-long abuse of power.
In ethnic minority areas like Kachin state, the actions of the former military regime and current military forces are perceived by ethnic minority populations as being responsible for BurmanizationFootnote 27 or assimilation policies that suppress minority rights, by engaging in resource exploitation with minimal benefits for local populations, encouraging population transfers of Burmese people to Kachin state in order to change its demographic profile, and violating human rights.Footnote 28 Despite a ceasefire agreement that lasted from 1994 to 2011, the actions of the military government are viewed with suspicion by the Kachin people.Footnote 29
Since conflict started again in 2011, widespread internal displacement has renewed arguments for separatism. Despite the existence of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement,Footnote 30 the concept of state sovereignty remains the basis of the framework. Implementing and enforcing protection for IDPs can be challenging for international agencies when it has to seek permission from the sovereign state that may be engendering the conflict conditions leading to displacement.Footnote 31 As one humanitarian worker from a faith-based organization puts it, there is ‘a lack of trust’Footnote 32 on the part of the Kachin IDPs, leaders, and community towards the Myanmar government and military. In particular, the humanitarian worker cited cases of ‘double-displacement’, that is, when IDPs suffered displacement once and were resettled in temporary shelters, only to experience displacement once again when fighting spreads to those areas where the IDP camps are based.
The Kachin people who are not directly affected by the fighting are also affected by internal displacement when they adopt the role of host communities, but their goodwill is depleted when the fighting and displacement progresses into a prolonged, rather than emergency, situation. A Kachin community leader told me that the Kachin pastors and church members have ‘carried the burden for a long time’. The INGOs had gradually reduced funding, partly because of needs elsewhere in the world, and also to encourage displaced persons to develop self-reliance. The same community leader also noted that the churches have become ‘less interested’ because the host communities have ‘their own struggles’.Footnote 33
As discussed earlier, those who experience displacement had fled to the pockets of territory controlled by the KIO which lie near the China-Myanmar border, but were barred by Chinese security forces from crossing the border to safety in China. Thus, China is perceived by the Kachin people as another ‘uncaring state’, on account of its refusal to recognize or accept refugees. But China tacitly allows displaced persons to remain in camps on the Myanmar side of the border (that is, as IDPs only). The ambiguity of the humanitarian situation is multilayered. The Chinese state skirts the responsibility of care by treating those who cross the border as illegal migrants with economic motivations, rather than as displaced persons fleeing distress. For example, Chinese employers send trucks to the IDP camps on the Myanmar side of the border to ferry casual labourers to work on their plantations. Such employers broker deals with local government officials in Yunnan province who agree to close an eye to the illegal crossing. The camp leaders said that the Kachin who cross the border risk being arrested by the Chinese police (who may seek additional small bribes) as they do not have documentation to prove their identity. Some had not obtained identity cards earlier in Myanmar, while others had left behind their personal belongings when they fled their homes during the conflict. Although those in camps at Laiza—the headquarters of the KIO—can obtain KIO-issued identity cards, these are not recognized by the Chinese authorities or in other parts of Myanmar. The humanitarian workers and camp leaders disapprove of the illegal crossing, but they are not always able to enforce restrictions and doing so may have the reverse effect of driving desperate families to seek even riskier ways of earning incomes (which might result in human trafficking).Footnote 34
An Agambian reading might consider this as a situation in which the sovereign state has stripped unwanted populations to ‘bare life’.Footnote 35 However, I offer a different interpretation wherein the political subjectivity of displaced persons can lead to individual and collective mobilization, whether by themselves or through others acting on their behalf.Footnote 36 The Kachin case examined here reveals how the parallel exercise of sovereignty by both Myanmar and China reinforces the abjection of the Kachin IDPs. Yet there is a third actor—the aspirant state represented by the KIO government—which exercises a competing claim to sovereignty and legitimizes its actions as an urgent endeavour to recuperate the human dignity of those who have been displaced. Functioning alongside these key actors are the humanitarian operations of not only INGOs, but also diaspora populations around the world who identify as Kachin. I examine next how the care work done by plural social actors contributes to aspirant state building through framings of suffering, displacement, and claims to universal personhood. These plural social actors interact in the interfaces of the webs of connections produced through competing sovereignty claims and humanitarian work, bringing into view the politics of care at borders.
Aspirant state building and plural governance at the border
This section establishes the plurality of border governance manifested through humanitarian work at the China-Myanmar border. During research, I found that humanitarian relief delivered to the IDP camps in KIO-controlled territories along the China-Myanmar border faces restrictive conditions due to the camps' geographical location. Not only is access to the camps challenging because of their remote locations and poor road conditions in Myanmar, humanitarian aid is further hindered by the geopolitical context. International humanitarian agencies that wish to access the camps in KIO-controlled territories have to obtain permission either from the Myanmar military and government to travel through heavily securitized zones or from the Chinese government on the other side of the border. It took more than a year after the conflict broke out in 2011 for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to obtain permission from the Myanmar government to visit some of the IDP camps in KIO-controlled territories on the China-Myanmar border. Even then the visits were sporadic and food and basic humanitarian supplies were limited. Camp leaders and humanitarian workers whom I met regularly expressed despair that ‘they do not know where their food would come from once the current supplies are depleted’.Footnote 37
According to the Kachin humanitarian workers, the KIO government provides shelter and humanitarian assistance within the space and resource constraints it faces. Although international humanitarian agencies are able to access the camps in Myanmar government-controlled areas more easily, those camps also face a shortage of space and supplies for the growing numbers of displaced persons. In the absence of international humanitarian assistance to camps, particularly in the KIO-controlled areas, Kachin community organizations mobilize their own networks and resources to meet the needs of displaced persons who have fled from their homes in haste and with few personal belongings.
The humanitarian workers from organizations in KIO- or Myanmar government-controlled areas encounter different types of constraints in carrying out their work.Footnote 38 These groups can be broadly described as faith-based or secular organizations that are already involved in peacebuilding or development work. Organizations in KIO-controlled areas are not recognized by the Myanmar government and cannot operate freely in Myanmar government-controlled areas. They are ineligible for funding from international humanitarian agencies that work only with the institutions of sovereign states that are recognized under the inter-state system. However, the organizations from KIO-controlled areas can more easily reach the displaced persons in those parts of the China-Myanmar border who are in most urgent need of assistance.
Given these conditions, the Kachin organizations developed a division of labour as a strategy to circumvent the geographical restrictions and border controls that they encounter while delivering humanitarian aid. Secular organizations that are registered with the Myanmar government, such as Metta and Shalom (both of which have Kachin founders), liaise with the Myanmar government and international humanitarian agencies, which includes receiving funding from the latter. Faith-based organizations, such as the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) and Karuna (KMSS), are able to move freely between the KIO-controlled and Myanmar government-controlled areas. Another challenge lies with the procurement and delivery of humanitarian supplies for some IDP camps: such relief has to be transported via China due to their remote locations or because of poor road conditions in Myanmar. To do so, Kachin humanitarian workers call on the assistance and personal networks of cross-border co-ethnics in China (such Kachin are known as ‘Jingpo’) who can speak Mandarin fluently and translate for them. For example, one Jingpo church leader who assists in humanitarian work shared that when the trucks carrying food for the IDP camps are stopped by the Chinese police at checkpoints, the drivers would say that the supplies are meant for Chinese churches on the other side of the checkpoint. The Jingpo in China thus participate in negotiating the formal controls over how borders are governed, enacting expressions of care for displaced persons that are in turn valued by the Kachin humanitarian workers.
Even during the time when telecommunications were poor, the geographical contiguity between Laiza and Myitkyina, the capital of the government-controlled parts of Kachin state, means that the habitual mobility of community leaders and humanitarian workers carries news from one place to another, influencing decisions and brokering aid. As Pain argues, violence operates ‘through emotional and psychological registers that are as central to their effectiveness as incidents of direct physical harm’.Footnote 39 Reports of human rights violations, particularly the random arrests of IDP men suspected of association with the KIA and rape of Kachin women, are regular topics of conversation among the Kachin community leaders I encountered during the course of fieldwork. Even though they and their immediate family and friends have not experienced harm directly, news of the ‘suffering’ bodies of other Kachin men and, in particular, womenFootnote 40 stoke ethno-nationalism and heighten demands for separatism.
The KIO government gains greater legitimacy among the Kachin people by participating in humanitarian relief and supporting the work of the organizations mentioned above. Constraints to humanitarian work also prompt the Kachin organizations and community leaders to work closely with the KIO government. The Kachin organizations carry out roles to do with needs assessment, camp profiling, delivery of humanitarian supplies, advocacy, training, and capacity building. In such ways, these organizations and individuals perform care work. Although the Kachin organizations are not involved in governing directly, they do so indirectly as important civil society actors who extend the reach of the KIO government's aspirant state power through the care work (that is, humanitarian action) they carry out. Nonetheless, aspirant state building is not concentrated in the hands of the KIO government alone.
The KBC represents the foci of spiritual authority that functions separately but, one might say, also in tandem with the KIO and KIA. As Kiik points out, the humanitarian emergency in Kachin state is intertwined with notions of ‘divine predestination’ (the cosmological) as much as it is informed by ethnonationalist sentiments.Footnote 41 The majority of Kachin are Christians from the Baptist denomination. The Catholic church is influential in Kachin state as well, but it has a lower profile, explained by a Catholic church leader as an approach that separates politics from religion.Footnote 42 Support for separatism has grown among the church pastors and the KBC leadership. The KBC has been a key facilitator in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the IDP camps and its staff carry out risky humanitarian work, for example, by visiting and delivering supplies to camps that international organizations purportedly would not take on.Footnote 43 For example, it was reported that a Swiss humanitarian organization had considered aid delivery to Sumprabum, a conflict area of Kachin state that is accessible only by boat. But after taking the turbulent boat ride once in a rickety raft (more specifically, bamboo poles that have been assembled by hand to which a simple motor engine is attached), the Swiss delegation decided not to continue its work, leaving the KBC staff to the mission.Footnote 44 The KBC staff regularly move between China and Myanmar to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to remote IDP camps.
The KBC also leverages the church network to raise donations and deploy staff to provide aid to the IDP camps. Church sermons regularly convey messages encouraging the congregation to remain resilient and to remember the biblical promises of deliverance and hopes for the Promised Land. The church pastors and staff function as brokers of care through the pastoral work they carry out, in the process influencing the political opinions of the congregation. In this way they contribute indirectly towards the exercise of power that constitutes border governance. The political opinions expressed by the church leadership are not wholly uncontested; one prominent community leader of a secular community organization—herself a devout Christian—quietly expressed concern to me over the bravado displayed by the mostly male Kachin church leaders and the implications this could have for continued fighting and prolonged displacement. Nonetheless, through direct aid delivery and pastoral leadership, the KBC is valued by the Kachin people for the care work it does within and outside of church compounds. The participating role of the KBC in aspirant state building has also been recognized by Chinese officials, which invited its leadership to a meeting in Beijing in 2017 to discuss the political situation and balance of power in Kachin state.
At the interface of humanitarian action exists webs of connectionsFootnote 45 populated by plural institutional and individual actors who engage in care practices to alleviate human suffering. At such interfaces, diverse ideological frameworks can be mobilized to ‘problematise the political im/possibilities of humanitarian engagements’.Footnote 46 In so doing, plural social actors—such as the Kachin faith-based and secular organizations—also indirectly engage in border governance and build support for aspirant state building. Their efforts are bolstered at a transnational level through connections with diaspora populations who leverage their respective social locations and the circulation of care resources to advance aspirant state-building projects, which I examine next.
Transnational care circulations and aspirant state building
Practices of care circulationsFootnote 47 draw the focus from humanitarian aid at local borders and spaces to the transnational context where the webs of connections interface with those of another set of actors, namely, members of the Kachin diaspora found in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and United States. Diasporas constitute a ‘distinct third level between interstate and domestic peacemaking’.Footnote 48 They can mobilize resources beyond the national territory, perform bridging functions, or play peacebuilding roles in the service of the sovereign state. Diasporas mobilize those same resources to realize political visions in opposition to the internationally recognized sovereign state, such as by influencing developments within the national territory, lobbying powerful non-state or international state actors, and invoking both physical and imagined territory to advance their claims.Footnote 49
The Kachin National Organisation (KNO) was established in Thailand during the ceasefire period to raise international awareness of the sustained abuse of power committed by the military government in Myanmar at that time. According to an old-timer KNO member whom I interviewed in London,Footnote 50 the diplomacy of the ceasefire agreement (1994–2011) meant the KIO could not openly criticize the military government. Therefore, the KNO was set up with the KIO's acknowledgement that it would fulfil an advocacy role for the Kachin people as a non-governmental diaspora organization.Footnote 51 The Kachin diaspora participates in care that manifests as actions geared towards aspirant state building, functioning as one of the social actors that have an impact on border governance, even if it is from a distance.
The social and political context of the countries in which Kachin diaspora populations are based determine the type of resources and advocacy they can carry out from afar for those in the homeland. The flows of care resources from abroad to the homeland can be considered transnational care circulationsFootnote 52 directed at building the collective welfare of the society the Kachin diaspora has left behind. For example, long-distance advocacy is directed at improving the welfare of those who remain behind in the homeland, while remittances and donations are meant to meet material gaps in basic survival needs and for education and societal improvement. There also exist skills and knowledge transfers to improve the educational and livelihood prospects of those in the homeland. These various activities of the Kachin diaspora are carried out in a spirit of care, and constitute care work, for both immediate family members and the community, as well as a desire to seek redress for social justice in the homeland. The type of care work made possible depends on the social and political contexts of the different countries in which the Kachin diaspora populations are based.
As an example, advocacy efforts are restricted in Singapore because the domestic political context curtails activism by both domestic and foreign civil society groups. There are limited channels for fundraising for humanitarian work (apart from through the local Kachin church). Further, the Singapore government encourages skilled migration and accepts low-skilled temporary labour migrants, but it does not recognize refugee or family reunification applications. The demographics of the Kachin diaspora in Singapore is changing, with a growing population of women who migrate as foreign domestic workers and are employed in the low-paid, low-skilled sector. However, given the country's proximity to Myanmar, the Kachin diaspora in Singapore is particularly active in raising and sending material donations (for example, books and other educational resources) and facilitating knowledge transfer through those in the diaspora who are skilled migrants.
A Kachin community leader based in Singapore explained that substance abuse has been a serious social problem in Kachin state because of easy access to drugs and low morale among the people in the conflict-ridden zone. The Kachin church in Singapore contributed towards building a vocational school that would help drug users undergoing rehabilitation to receive training in livelihood skills that they could use in the future. He said, ‘We get them to learn welding, electrical wiring, air conditioning or construction’, and added that there are plans to extend vocational training opportunities to displaced persons so that they can earn a living and become self-reliant.Footnote 53 The Kachin in Singapore also organize medical missions to visit remote villages in Kachin state where access to medical advice and facilities are sparse.
Comparatively, the diaspora populations in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States capitalize upon the liberal political contexts in those countries to petition their respective foreign governments on issues of human rights violations and to raise funds through government agencies or NGOs that are interested in development or humanitarian causes. Members of the Kachin diaspora in Japan are likely to be on asylum or refugee visas that allow them a pathway to permanent residency, but rarely citizenship because of the restrictive naturalization criteria in that country.Footnote 54 Those in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom fall under the category of third-country resettlement, with many having lived in Malaysia previously as asylum seekers or refugees. What this means is the diaspora populations in these countries tend to work in lower-paying occupations and for longer hours, which also limits their ability to contribute financially and to dedicate time to advocacy. Moreover, the Kachin diaspora in Japan and the United Kingdom are geographically concentrated in Tokyo and London respectively, whereas those in the United States are geographically dispersed (with pockets concentrated in Florida, Texas, San Francisco, and the East Coast), which impacts on the intensity of advocacy and fundraising that can be carried out.
Malaysia and Thailand also function as important nodes for carrying out advocacy and/or fundraising. The Kachin in Malaysia and Thailand can access the UNHCR, which has representatives in those countries, allowing them to petition for refugee resettlement and to highlight human rights violations in Kachin state. The Kachin in Malaysia recently leveraged on the attention given to the Rohingya to submit a report to the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) based in Bologna, Italy, with the hearing carried out at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. The PPT is an internationally recognized and civil society-based tribunal that operates independently of state authorities. It follows a courtroom format and examines cases of human rights violations as requested by individuals or civil society organizations. The outcome of the hearing reported that:
The State of Myanmar is fully responsible for genocide against the Rohingya people … it is also further responsible not only for genocidal intent against the Kachin and the Muslim minority, but also and more specifically for crimes of war against the Kachins and crimes against humanity against the Kachins and the Muslim groups.Footnote 55
In Thailand, as well as the KNO, there are several Kachin diaspora organizations such as the Kachin Women's Association Thailand (KWAT) and the All Kachin Student and Youth Union (AKSYU) Thailand. A dense network of Kachin organizations in Chiang Mai, accessibility to the UNHCR and other international humanitarian and development agencies based in Bangkok, and proximity to Myanmar used to position the Kachin diaspora in Thailand advantageously for advocacy and fundraising activities. However, after the political transition to a civilian government took place in Myanmar, the Kachin diaspora organizations report that donors prefer to channel funding directly to Myanmar rather than via diaspora organizations based in Thailand. They add that this outcome is unfortunate as the political climate in Myanmar is still restrictive and it is challenging for organizations from ethnic minority groups to register in the country and gain legal recognition.Footnote 56
The above discussion sets out the transnational care circulations that link the diaspora to the homeland, which are premised on, as well as bolster, a sense of shared solidarity with those suffering in the homeland. These transnational care circulations are part of the webs of connections that converge at the interface where plural society actors come together to carry out care work for the suffering bodies back in the homeland.Footnote 57 Yet at the same time, such care transfers across international borders can also manifest as and accentuate long-distance nationalism and affect the dynamics of border governance.
Kallio et al. have argued that ‘refugee’ identity should be considered a form of political subjectivity.Footnote 58 In their reading, individuals claiming a refugee identity inhabit a social space that is at once both regulated by the institutional structures they come up against (for example, migration management) as well as an experience through which they become aware of their subjugation and shared grievances, leading to individual and collective mobilization. The case of Kachin internal displacement not only extends Kallio et al.'s observations on how displacement can heighten political subjectivity, but also illustrates how overlapping regimes of care take shape and impact on border governance. The care work done by the KBC and the KIA/KIO gives greater legitimacy to demands for separatism in order to remove suffering bodies from an uncaring state (that is, the Myanmar military and government). The actions of plural social actors, whether by withholding or enacting care, constitute the dynamics of border governance.
Conclusion
This article has considered the plurality of actors that are involved in care practices and care circulations, and the way those acts of care (or the lack thereof) contribute directly and indirectly to the dynamics of border governance. It drew attention to the parallel, competing sovereignties expressed by Myanmar, China, and the KIO government as an aspirant state, as well as the role of international humanitarian agencies, community organizations (faith-based and secular), and the Kachin diaspora located in different parts of the world in constituting border governance. I analysed the fluid and negotiated aspects of border governance through the conceptual lens of care relations and governance, linking these to the flows of care across national borders (that is, transnational care circulations). I argued that—and demonstrated how—different, overlapping registers of care (exhibited through humanitarian work) interface in border zones, contributing to the dialectics of governance and counter-governance. These dialectics of border governance extend to diaspora populations whose actions abroad reverberate back to the homeland, augmenting processes of care and control in border zones.
The article's focus on care, or the lack of care, dovetails with wider debates on the social contract between the state and the people it governs. Despite the initial optimism associated with the political transition to an elected government, Kachin voters have gradually lost faith in the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who they feel has been not been forthcoming in condemning and curtailing the human rights violations committed by the Myanmar military. This article's opening vignette about the controversy raised by Aung San Suu Kyi's ostentatious jade necklace reflects how a perceived failure to care can erode the legitimacy of a government to govern.
Alternative modalities of care compete in border zones for the legitimacy to govern the territory and population. Manifold institutional actors and stakeholders are involved in such processes, ranging from the separatist KIO government and its military arm, to faith-based organizations like the KBC, secular organizations, diaspora populations, and more. Although attempts have been made to find political solutions to the conflict, fundamentally the erosion of trust caused by decades of power abuse stands in the way. Other than the cessation of conflict, this article argues that restoring this relationship requires returning to an ethics of care, starting from the NLD government and rolling out grassroots initiatives to repair centre–periphery relations. Just as violence is experienced intimately and through the emotions, care ethics also work through emotional and psychological registers. Care practices and care circulations are neither benign nor malign, but they are central to nurturing a sustainable relationship between state and society during times of political transition. Under conditions of transitional governance and ongoing peace process negotiations in Myanmar, ethics of care that promote trust and responsibility are even more necessary than before.
