Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at how Yangon, Myanmar can be observed through the affective relationship between Yangon’s residents and milk. It argues that focusing on the everydayness of this relationship shows how city life functions, and contests broader narratives of the city.

Paper long abstract:

Prior to the 2021 military coup, and 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic, Yangon, Myanmar was a boom city. Sprawling construction projects, freely flowing foreign capital and the new opportunities that had been attached to the ‘hope’ of a transitioning democratic government made the city buzz. And yet, underneath these grandiose statements of the city’s future, the city had been divided based on ethnicity, religion and race (Furnivall 1948, Pearn 1971). How did one belong in the city when one’s place in the city had already been determined through the above divisions?

To answer such a question we can look at an ubiquitous, everyday ritual that nearly all Yangon’s city residents participate in: drinking milk tea. A cup of milk tea has many different symbolic meanings, but it is its everydayness that allows us to observe Yangon through it. Milk tea roots neighbourhoods together, provides routine for residents, and embodies lived histories. This paper argues that the affective nature of milk tea, its regimes of tastes and multiple purposes facilitates belonging for Yangon’s residents which subverts broader political narratives of what the city should be. Based off fieldwork conducted in Yangon in 2019 and 2020, this paper seeks to address how affect and its everyday connotations can reveal new insights on how cities function.