Claiming the Commons: Water Governance as Resistance in Myanmar

Abstract Across the world, hydropower dams that seek to tame and commodify water are sites of intense contestation, as global capital and development agendas often face staunch localised resistance. This is acutely evident in Myanmar, where water politics is a microcosm of competing visions for the country’s governance and development. Locally-led alliances pursuing self-determination and inclusive politics are pitted against the central state’s rapacious approach to development, backed by violence and foreign capital. These dynamics exist amidst an influx of international aid, providing an illuminating site for examining the intersection of aid politics, development ideology, and subaltern resistance. This paper contributes to these thematic areas by examining the contestation of hydropower hegemony in Myanmar and centring civil society actors’ agency. It utilises what the authors call ‘solidarity scholarship’ that rejects detached positivism to deploy an epistemological belief in embedding solidarity throughout the research process for making sense of resistance and power. The paper examines how domestic opposition has gone beyond anti-dam to being uniquely propositional; rivers have become symbols of unity and resistance against uneven development and military violence. Focused on Myitsone and the Salween River, the paper elucidates how the respective campaigns galvanised not only civil society solidarity, but also the potential for re-imagining governance and development in Myanmar. This has implications for understanding subaltern resistance across many contexts globally, particularly where exploitation disguised as development is prevalent.