Liberation Conservation:The Salween Peace Park and the Politics of Possessing the Earth in Southeast Myanmar

Sammanfattning

In the wake of seven decades of protracted revolution and armed conflict in
Southeast Myanmar, an ensemble of indigenous peoples and transnational
activists have begun formulating a radical alternative vision of how peace and
conservation might be achieved in practice. Through translating and rescaling
indigenous modes of possessing the earth, this ensemble is working to
transform 5,500 km2 of highly contested terrain in the highlands along the
Salween River into a conservation zone they call the Salween Peace Park. In
this study I explore what indigenous practices and cosmologies, and the ways
they are being translated and rescaled into the Salween Peace Park, might teach
us about ownership, sovereignty, and politics at large. Moreover, this study
contributes with deep, ethnographically founded insights into the importance
of increased economic and political support to grassroots, indigenously led,
initiatives to build sustainable peace and ecologies.