Something in the Air
Coming Soon…
The first episode in a five-part series, these interviews were recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference, recently held at Northern Illinois University (NIU).
The university continues to serve as the primary institutional home for Burma Studies in North America, and a global hub for academic collaboration on the country’s history, language, art, and society. Hosted by the Center for Burma Studies, the gathering brought together scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners from around the world for research presentations, forums, roundtables, and cultural exhibitions that reflected both scholarly rigor and a shared concern for Burma’s uncertain future. Centered on the theme “Dealing with Legacies in Burma,” participants were invited to examine the intertwined memories, histories, and interactions that shape the region. Taking place amid ongoing political repression and humanitarian crisis, the conference carried particular weight, creating a space where anthropologists, historians, linguists, artists, political scientists, and religious scholars could share findings and consider how academic work might document, preserve, and deepen understanding of Burma’s social and cultural realities during this difficult time. It was also a space of connection and care — a rare opportunity for open dialogue at a moment when such spaces have become scarce inside the country itself. Over the course of the conference, Insight Myanmar recorded a number of interviews with a diverse group of attendees, each offering a distinct perspective on Burma’s past, present, and future; produced in collaboration with NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, these conversations aim to bring listeners into the atmosphere of the conference, meeting the people who continue to shape and sustain the field of Burma Studies today.
In this episode, we hear from Ko A, Chit Wit Yi Oo, and Lugyi No.
“People cannot survive without hope, right?” asks Ko A. A political scientist from Rakhine State studying for a PhD in the United States, he expresses a deep-seated belief in the possibility of Myanmar’s transformation. His journey mirrors the broader movements and upheavals experienced by many in Myanmar, and he examines how nationalism, institutional structures, and historical forces have shaped the political challenges the country faces today.
Growing up in Rakhine, Ko A moved to Yangon in 2001. As he was forced to migrate there just for basic educational opportunity, he experienced firsthand the country’s entrenched inequalities, bureaucratic stagnation, and persistent ethnic tensions. His almost daily brushes with these issues in some way or other often moved him to think often about the causes of his country’s many crises. For years, he believed their source lay primarily in political ideas: the wrong national mindset, the wrong civic attitudes, the wrong understanding of democracy and human rights. Ko A assumed that if people embraced more effective political thinking, Myanmar could gradually steer itself onto a healthier path. The transition years and their incremental progress towards addressing some of the country’s challenges reinforced those beliefs.
But when the 2021 coup abruptly reversed nearly a decade of progress, and authoritarianism re-established itself so quickly, it was made clear that the country’s problems were not simply conceptual. This shock pushed Ko A towards the study of political science, so that he could learn key concepts useful for his country’s development. His view now, however, is that the problems are structural, rooted in institutions, militarized power, and historical patterns that ideas alone cannot overcome.
Central to his analysis is the claim that Myanmar’s political trajectory was shaped by the rise of ethno-nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Anti-British sentiment got entangled with racialized identity, leading to hostility toward groups such as Indians, and shaping alliances during World War II. The Burmese military, trained by the Japanese, learned tactical skills as well as ideologies. Unlike Indonesia, which shed many wartime influences during state formation, Myanmar preserved them, embedding authoritarianism into its institutional DNA.
When considering whether federalism can counter this entrenched order, Ko A applies a framework of historical institutionalism: once a country settles onto a political path, he explains, institutions reinforce themselves, making alternative paths costly and difficult to achieve. Decades of conflict in Myanmar—which has stretched on since 1948 and has the ignominious label as being the longest in the world—have not shifted the country from its trajectory. Armed resistance continues but has not produced a fundamental structural rupture. Ko A also reflects on the fragility of democratic experiments. The 2010s, for example, did expand civic space, but did not change the core power structures. Democracy, he cautions, can amplify populism as easily as it advances human rights. Rakhine State exemplified this duality: democratic openness allowed nationalist movements to gain strength, sometimes in extreme forms.
Turning specifically to Rakhine, Ko A challenges the widespread assumption that Rakhine nationalism is ancient or inherent. He argues instead that it developed largely in response to Burman nationalism, particularly during the 1950s when leaders like U Kyaw Min sought to distinguish Rakhine identity from the majority Burman ethnolinguistic group. This relatively recent political project later fueled the rise of stronger nationalist movements, especially during Myanmar’s democratic decade.
The Rohingya issue, he argues, must be understood within this layered context. Citizenship laws from 1947 and 1948 recognized Rohingya as citizens, and identity cards signified bureaucratic scrutiny rather than exclusion. In fact, many ethnic Burmese once carried similar documents. The true rupture, he says, occurred with the 1982 citizenship law, which stripped Rohingya of legal status and transformed them into a stateless population—a political decision rather than a demographic truth. Historical animosities dating to 1942 further complicate relations between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. But despite the terrible anti-Rohingya violence, Ko A stresses that not all Rakhine people are extremists. Many are committed to human rights, scholarly rigor, and reconciliation.
To move forward, he says, Myanmar must separate myth from reality and ground its future in historical clarity and institutional understanding. Overall, he is optimistic, because the generation raised during the democratic opening is informed, connected, and politically aware in ways previous generations were not. They understand their rights, have seen the outside world, and possess the determination to fight for a different future. Their success will depend not on sweeping transformations but on sustained, strategic, incremental advances.
“I really love to learn about groundwater more, because it is invisible,” reflects researcher Chit Wit Yi Oo about the passion that guides her work. She is a research associate who analyzes water and air quality across Southeast Asian countries to understand how environmental change affects public health. She speaks about her scientific observations, and describes the conditions that shaped her research journey, including the decades in which Myanmar’s institutions restricted opportunities for ordinary citizens like her to pursue advanced study abroad.
Chit Wit Yi Oo explains that her work centers on groundwater because there was almost a complete lack of scholarship and research about Yangon’s groundwater quality, despite the city’s rapid urbanization and its dependence on wells. She reached out to universities within Myanmar but got no takers, and she ended up collaborating with a professor at Northern Illinois University who had previously studied water issues in Myanmar. Together they designed a multi-region research effort that began in Yangon, and extended north toward Mandalay and south toward the coast. Their results reveal a lurking groundwater crisis.
While wells in downtown Yangon descend roughly one hundred feet and groundwater quality appears stable and relatively safe, across the Yangon River in places like Dala Township, the situation is entirely different: wells reach only about fifty feet down, and saltwater intrusion has already contaminated freshwater aquifers. Residents know they cannot drink the salty groundwater, which, if consumed long term, would cause high blood pressure and kidney damage. She describes how families adapt during the rainy season by harvesting rainwater and storing it in large community ponds. As the water sits exposed to air, oxidation improves it slightly, and households then filter it through cloth or boil it before drinking. She explains that families reserve this strained supply only for drinking; they continue using the contaminated groundwater for bathing and cleaning because they have no alternative.
In Mandalay, textile-dye industries release untreated effluent directly into waterways. She recounts collecting samples from household wells near these factories and discovering heavy-metal contamination, confirming residents’ fears that the brightly colored powders imported for dyeing contain toxic substances that leach into groundwater. Many families continue using this water because they cannot afford purified alternatives. Although hospitals lack comprehensive statistics, medical professionals tell her that kidney diseases are widespread in these areas, mirroring her findings from the field.
The environmental dangers extend beyond just groundwater. Chit Wit Yi Oo has also extensively studied air pollution in Myanmar, and she describes how dramatic changes have unfolded in Yangon as the city expanded. She first started air-quality monitoring in 2016, when she installed equipment from street level to the top of a six-story building and discovered that PM2.5 concentrations exceeded World Health Organization standards even at that height. She explains that PM2.5 particles are far smaller than human hair and lodge deep inside the lungs, where they accumulate and increase risks of respiratory disease and lung cancer. Hospital data, she notes, show numerous asthma and respiratory cases, especially near crowded roads where exhaust fumes saturate the air.
Urbanization, she says, is the major driver of this deteriorating air quality. As Yangon’s population reaches nearly six million, green spaces have disappeared, replaced by dense construction and heavy traffic. Before Cyclone Nargis, the city looked tropical, filled with trees that softened the urban heat and filtered the air. But after the cyclone destroyed much of that vegetation—and after rapid, unplanned development accelerated during the transition years—the sky rarely returned to the deep blue she remembers from her youth.
She explains that air quality worsens in the dry season in Myanmar. Household wood burning and trash burning intensify. She describes walking past fields where farmers set fire to pesticide-treated crop residue, releasing hazardous chemicals into the air. She urges residents to switch to gas where possible, although soaring prices in recent years have made this difficult.
Public awareness campaigns have also become a major part of her work. She describes community events where volunteers wore masks and costumes to illustrate how polluted the air had become. Residents asked basic questions like, “What is air pollution?” Others spoke of parents with asthma who struggled to breathe when exposed to roadside exhaust. At the time, many people disliked wearing masks, but since COVID-19, public attitudes have changed. She points out that masks not only limit viral spread but also protect against airborne pollutants.
Chit Wit Yi Oo bemoans the health of Myanmar’s rivers. For generations, people drank freely from the Ayeyarwady, but extensive mining in Kachin State now releases toxic substances into both surface water and groundwater. Some rural communities boil river water because they have no other option for drinking water. She warns that that many in the older generation still do not recognize how the times have changed regarding the country’s waterways, and continue to act as if the water is clean like it was years ago.
Her scientific work once benefitted from collaboration with government agencies, particularly before the 2021 coup, but she says such cooperation ended afterward. Researchers now need government permission to conduct monitoring, and authorities rarely grant it. As a result, she cannot track current air-quality levels, though she is certain conditions are worse than what she measured in 2019.
Her own story reveals systemic barriers that limit opportunities for ordinary Burmese citizens, who ae not from elite or military families. Prestigious programs in Japan, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom went almost exclusively to relatives of military elites. She recalls the day she found a scholarship notice delivered just hours before its deadline, a tactic she believes was meant to discourage applicants. She applied anyway, completing the paperwork within four hours and later receiving acceptance from the Japanese government. But even then, authorities imposed restrictions: she had to return after three years, serve for a decade, and accept stalled promotion prospects. Meanwhile, elite families studied abroad without constraint. She emphasizes that she bears no personal resentment but she insists that education should be a right for everyone, and that ordinary families deserve equal access.
As Myanmar’s diaspora grows, largely due to the forced exile of many who have had to flee conflict, she sees hope in the increasing number of scholars, researchers, and professionals committed to applying their knowledge to the country’s future. She concludes with a simple plea: “We need your support. And then please help our people, and then please listen our voices and our people.”
“It is what it is. They have no choice… the only thing you have to do is learn how you're going to survive out of those adverse situations.” With this reflection, Lugyi No, a PhD student in Educational Research and Evaluation at the University of Massachusetts Global and a native of southern Shan State, describes a landscape where violence, displacement, and educational collapse define the lives of millions. He explains that by 2024, more than 6.6 million people had been displaced, and children’s learning had been shattered across the country.
His own route into this work began unexpectedly. He had been living in Yangon and returned home during the Water Festival holiday in April 2021, where he helped raise funds for teachers and civil servants participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. When the military obtained the group’s information, some members were arrested, and he was forced to flee from village to village before reaching an ethnic-controlled area. As he lived among displaced communities, he began collaborating with teachers who had abandoned the state system, and together they advocated across villages to create makeshift schools. In collaboration with some NGOs, the first year ended with forty-six learning groups offering primary and middle-school classes, later expanding to high school at the request of parents and the students themselves.
The work carried constant danger, however. Schools required bomb shelters, and the threat of helicopters or airstrikes shaped even routine decisions. “We have to request that armed groups not come to our school with their uniforms on, because airstrike attacks are not a joke,” he explains. Even groups that protected local villages complied by arriving only in plain clothes, so as to not incite their country’s military to strike the village. Internet blackouts forced teacher-training teams to climb hills for connectivity and then travel to multiple villages to deliver what they learned.
Trauma marked daily life for children and teachers alike. Many students are now startled by everyday noises, and some even faint at particularly loud sounds. Lugyi No stresses the limits of available mental-health support and the likelihood that many children suffer unseen effects after witnessing death, dismemberment, raids, and airstrikes. Yet resilience also emerged, shaped by community unity and shared survival. Still, he refuses to generalize, insisting that his access covers only a small portion of the population.
These experiences reshaped his long-term direction. Realizing that post-conflict Myanmar would need systematic educational planning and evaluation, he chose to pursue a PhD in the US. Yet studying abroad carries emotional burdens for him. He speaks of survivor guilt, recalling messages from teachers reporting fresh airstrikes or personal losses, including one colleague who lost his wife and children. “Sometimes your life is so gloomy,” he says, describing how he tries to stay busy to keep from sinking under the emotional weight, particularly during cold New England winters.
In the United States, he observes classrooms, absorbs teaching methods, and shares trauma-informed practices with Myanmar teachers whenever connectivity allows. He studies teacher resilience and student engagement, and has introduced drawing-based interventions in camps to help children process emotions. Participants report improved coping after these sessions, and he continues experimenting with mobile guitar lessons and other creative approaches.
To an international audience, he stresses that Myanmar’s crisis continues even as global attention wanes. Without recognized credentials or bridge programs, displaced learners lose the motivation to pursue schooling. His final emphasis is on the necessity of community involvement. “Without our community support… it is hard to sustain education,” he says, urging organizations to look beyond teachers and students and recognize that education in conflict zones survives only when entire communities are included in the effort.