In our three-year project with people living in displacement in Myanmar, it became clear how they support themselves and each other through multiple networks and resources flows, often outside the formal aid system. What does such mutual aid tell us about how societies work even outside of crisis?
Contribution long abstract
The military coup of February 2021 in Myanmar intensified a long-standing situation of conflict-induced displacement, with a resulting dramatic increase of people seeking shelter away from their hometowns and villages. In this situation, existing networks of informal support become ever more important for people’s immediate survival, and mid-term livelihoods. Our research project on Protracted Displacement Economies investigated, how social networks become conduits for cross-border support; how existing modes of aid are being transformed, and how new ones come into being. These are not necessarily, or not at all, carried by international organisations, but rather a multitude of actors which are not always visible in the conventional humanitarian system of aid. They include networks sustained by kinship links, ethnic solidarities, faith-based groups, diasporic support, as well as the role of ethnic armed groups. Many of the people involved have past or current experience of displacement themselves. Our broader aim is therefore, to make visible patterns of mutual support and solidarity that extend among displacement-affected populations, through testimonies, images and objects.