The Body Politic
Coming Soon…
This is the fourth episode in a five-part series featuring conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference, recently hosted by Northern Illinois University (NIU). Long considered the institutional heart of Burma Studies in North America—and a global hub for research on the country’s history, language, art, and society—NIU once again drew scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners from across the world. This year’s gathering offered a rich blend of presentations, forums, roundtables, and cultural exhibitions that paired academic rigor with a collective concern for Myanmar’s uncertain future. Organized under the theme Dealing with Legacies in Burma, participants explored the memories, histories, and relationships that continue to shape the region. Against the ongoing backdrop of political repression and humanitarian crisis, these discussions carried a deeper gravity and urgency. Anthropologists, historians, linguists, artists, political scientists, and religious scholars converged to share research and reflect on how academic work can document, preserve, and illuminate Burma’s social and cultural realities in this difficult moment. The conference also created a rare space of connection and care—an open, communal forum at a time when such spaces inside the country have become painfully scarce. Throughout the event, Insight Myanmar recorded conversations with a wide range of attendees, each offering their own perspective on the country’s past, present, and possible futures. Produced in collaboration with NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, this episode brings listeners into the atmosphere of the conference and introduces some of the people who continue to shape and sustain the field of Burma Studies today.
This episode features the voices of H and Tani Sebro.
First up is H, a Burmese civilian who studied in the United States before returning to Myanmar in 2019. At the time, he felt that his country was moving in a promising direction, and he wanted to contribute to its development. Instead, COVID-19 soon shut down most opportunities, and then the 2021 coup upended everything.
H describes the morning of the coup as surreal and shocking. His mother woke him with urgent news, but he initially thought she was joking. Only when he saw the phone networks down and communication cut did he understand that something serious had occurred. In the first days, people were confused, unsure what was happening or how to respond. Soon, however, news circulated of the earliest acts of public dissent, which quickly catalyzed a nationwide reaction. H had been eager to “do something,” and once people began gathering publicly, he and his friends joined the first major Yangon protests.
He recalls those early days as spontaneous, organic, and energized. There was no established leadership; ordinary citizens simply showed up. As crowds grew, different professional groups—engineers, doctors, nurses, and others—began coordinating more intentionally. Protesters organized through unmonitored Telegram channels, chose common meeting points, adopted shared colors or slogans on specific days, and gathered at symbolic sites such as embassies. They also began preparing rudimentary protective gear, like hard hats, masks, and goggles, understanding that state violence was inevitable.
H and others expected a violent response based on Myanmar’s history, but even so, he says they were unprepared for the scale and intensity of the brutality that followed. He describes witnessing police and soldiers beating demonstrators, firing rubber bullets and live ammunition, and using water cannons. In Sanchaung, he remembers protesters writing their blood types on their protective gear in anticipation of injury. In another instance he saw police storm a barricade, beat fleeing civilians, and force a man to crawl an entire block while repeatedly stomping his head—an image he describes as among the most horrific he witnessed.
Despite escalating violence, H continued protesting. He discussed the risks with his parents, who feared for his safety, but he told them he felt a responsibility to act on behalf of those who could not. For him and many others, the injustice they were facing created a moral imperative stronger than fear.
One day, however, H’s luck ran out. Large-scale protests had become too dangerous, and people were shifting to short, rapid, “guerrilla-style” actions. For a couple of days during that transition, he and a friend, like many other protestors, had not gone into the streets because of the dangers; that day, they decided they hadn’t been doing enough, and chose to act… and were arrested. He spent three days in an interrogation camp where detainees faced torture, deprivation, and psychological stress. Blindfolded much of the time, he concentrated on mental endurance and survival. In brief intervals between interrogations, detainees whispered encouragement to each other; H recalls moments of dark humor and mutual support that helped them all endure.
After his interrogations were over, he was sent to Insein Prison. Compared to the interrogation cells, the prison conditions were less immediately brutal but still deeply dehumanizing. He describes feeling like “cattle” and emphasizes how prisoners supported one another and shared discussions across a broad spectrum of political prisoners—students, professors, activists, and public figures. He calls these interactions invaluable, shaping his understanding of people and dismantling assumptions about class, education, and integrity.
After he spent three months there, the junta began to face intense international pressure and staged several mass releases for public-relations purposes. H was fortunate to be among that group. After he was out, he lived in Yangon, though under constant fear of re-arrest; he periodically hid in friends’ homes as the military conducted searches. Ultimately, he chose to leave the country. This was a difficult decision for him, shaped by concern for his family’s safety and his own limited options.
H struggles with survivor’s guilt but remains active through advocacy and financial support for resistance efforts from his location abroad. He believes the fight must continue, and that only the total removal of the military from power can create a better future for Myanmar.
Political scientist Tani Sebro is chair of the Politics Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, discusses fifteen years of research along the Thai–Myanmar border, studying the intersection of dance, nationalism, migration, and community formation among the Tai people. She explains that the group commonly known as the “Shan” is in fact an exonym (a name others use for them), and that they call themselves “Tai.” Numerous subgroups extend from Assam through northern Myanmar, Yunnan, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and northern Thailand. She emphasizes the importance of respecting what groups call themselves, because naming, itself, is embedded in longstanding political hierarchies and relationships.
Sebro describes how she initially approached her fieldwork through standard, political-science methods, intending to research migrant returns. Once in temples and community gathering spaces in Chiang Mai, however, she witnessed constant cultural activity: monthly temple festivals, children practicing dance and music, elders organizing performances, and migrant workers sustaining intricate artistic traditions. Because she, herself, had a background in ballet, jazz, and Middle Eastern dance, she was quickly drawn in. A pivotal moment came when monks invited her to dance instead of simply observing. Realizing that genuine participation required stepping outside the typical Western-researcher stance, she began learning the Tai dance forms alongside children. This transformed her research relationships, shifting interactions from interviews about suffering and conflict toward shared experiences of joy, creativity, and communal effort. Over years of fieldwork, these bonds formed the basis for friendships that have lasted more than a decade.
Sebro reflects on how dance can operate on three different levels: the physical, emotional, and political. She notes that scientific research shows dance to be a powerful antidote to depression, partly because it induces a deeply focused flow state. Communal synchronization—moving together in time—contributes to social cohesion and shared emotional experience. For the Tai, these qualities carry significant political meaning. Many Tai migrants and refugees cannot openly organize politically due to surveillance and danger along the borderlands; however, they can dance, especially within temple contexts, where the art is intertwined with Theravada Buddhist festivals. Also, because the Burmese state historically restricted the teaching of the Tai language, dance became one of the few permissible avenues for cultural continuity. As a result, performing arts operate as a form of what she calls “extratextual resistance,” enabling the Tai community to nurture a sense of nationhood, even without territorial sovereignty or political institutions. through nonviolent, cultural practices rather than state machinery.
Sebro describes technical and aesthetic features of an interesting Tai tradition, in which dancers and martial artists perform together. The foundation of their movements comes in the form of a long drum that provides a rhythmic heartbeat to which they both move; a bell-and-cymbal ensemble supplements that rhythm, creating an almost gamelan-like sound. Dancers and martial artists communicate closely with the drummers, forming a responsive and symbiotic exchange. Most performers in this tradition learn each of the roles—dancing, drumming, singing, and martial arts—cultivating multi-dimensional artistry.
She explains how the northern Thai cultural landscape shapes these dynamics. In the Lanna region, ethnic-minority performing arts flourish due to local interest, municipal support, and the tourism industry. Thai audiences increasingly embrace Tai dance as part of a broader regional heritage, while Tai teachers become cultural ambassadors, complicating stereotypes of migrants and refugees.
Sebro concludes by paraphrasing her dance teacher, who describes Tai dance and music as a path to peace. In contrast to nationalist projects rooted in territory, borders, and violence, the Tai demonstrate that nationhood can be sustained through shared artistic practice — a nonviolent, creative alternative to state-based nationalism.