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Road Plans and Planned Roads: Entangled Geographies, Spatiotemporal Frames, and Territorial Claims-making in Myanmar’s Southern Shan State

Abstract:In this article, I investigate conflicting claims to land made in the peri-urban areas of Taunggyi, in Myanmar’s Shan state, where decades of ethnic insurgency, the negotiation of ceasefire agreements, and resultant military-state development strategies have figured land as a primary site and object of struggle. Yet, as I argue in this paper, it is not only land that is at stake in ongoing conflicts, but also the incongruous conceptions of space and time that motivate such claims. By exploring case studies linked to proposed road construction in Pa-O majority regions, I develop an approach to “land grabs”- and the counter claims-making they impel- that foregrounds the spatiotemporal, showing how distinct senses of time are activated, embodied, and re-animated through encounters with particular spaces. In this, I specifically argue that the linear, historical timeline embraced by state authorities-a timeline tied to sequential notions of advancement, modernization, and democratization - cannot be taken as fact; instead, it must be considered alongside alternate conceptualizations, through which the notion of a single narrative of “progress” might be opened up to contain alternative notions of past and present, and with them, new political possibilities.