Infrastructure, power, and people’s labour: everyday waste politics in Mandalay, Myanmar

Waste Management in Myanmar, like in many developing countries, is deprived of sufficient and proper physical infrastructure. Myanmar, also known as Asia’s last frontier, is a country which has been experiencing rapid urbanization brought by the political and economic transformations that occurred since 2011. In this process, the major Myanmar cities, Yangon and Mandalay, are regarded as economic growth engines and their transformation is largely shaped as per the interests of a small group of people: political authorities and global elites (investors, development banks). Meanwhile, the everyday struggles of urbanites are often not understood and incorporated into contemporary urban development. Through the study of everyday waste management practices, this paper aims to unravel the everyday experiences of people in dealing with the present urban situation in Mandalay. Thanks to a situated ethnography of people’s experiences, and the use of narrative methods, the paper aims to bring insight on how waste infrastructure deficiencies challenge people’s daily lives and create unjust politics. Urban Political Ecology (UPE) will be used as an analytical and theoretical lens. UPE provides insights into how the urban cities are made through socio-ecological, and political processes, and in making so, how the inequality and unevenness are created. Two main contributions are to be made with this paper: first, to discuss the UPE of waste and infrastructure in a post-authoritarian context, and second to bridge the urban gap existing in Myanmar Studies literature. 

Afin d’assister à l’évènement et recevoir les informations de connexion, veuillez envoyer un email à Ariane.Cosiaux@unil.ch

Le «Bouillon d'idées» est un séminaire proposé par le groupe de recherche «Développement, Sociétés, Environnements», dans lequel les chercheuses et les chercheurs sont invité·e·s à présenter une recherche en cours.