New Technologies, Established Practices: Developing Narratives of Muslim Threat in Myanmar

This chapter was prompted by concern for Buddhist-Muslim violence in Myanmar. Drawing methodological inspiration from a study into the significance of mobile phones in India (Jeffrey and Doron 2013; 2012), the chapter asks: What are established communication practices in Myanmar that might be disrupted – or align particularly powerfully – with the growing use of new technologies and media that will arrive along with telecommunications networks? The chapter seeks to answer this question using an approach of ‘observant participation’ (Vargas, in Hale & Calhoun 2008), drawing from experiences living in western Yangon and participating in activist networks seeking to disrupt anti-Muslim violence.