The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtap20

‘I am the Bridge’: Brokering Health, Development

and Peace in Myanmar’s Kayin State

Anne Décobert

To cite this article: Anne Décobert (2022) ‘I am the Bridge’: Brokering Health, Development and
Peace in Myanmar’s Kayin State, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 23:2, 147-165, DOI:
10.1080/14442213.2021.1993984

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2021.1993984

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group

Published online: 21 Dec 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1009

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rtap20
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2022
Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 147–165, https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2021.1993984

‘I am the Bridge’: Brokering Health,

Development and Peace in Myanmar’s
Kayin State
Anne Décobert *

Borderland brokers can play a key role in shaping processes of socio-political change
within contexts of ongoing ‘political unsettlement’. Myanmar’s contested ‘transition’
to democracy and peace, which began in 2011, created the space and need for
brokers to mediate state–non-state and centre–periphery relations. Ethnographic
research focusing on a polio immunisation campaign in Kayin State demonstrates
how brokers’ characteristics as network specialists and ‘translators’ allowed them to
create a temporary ‘brokerage fix’, facilitating collaboration between actors
historically divided by conflict, enabling an internationally funded development
intervention, and contributing to local-level peace formation. Yet the ability of
brokers to reshape state–non-state and centre–periphery relations in ways more
conducive to long-term positive peace and equitable development is constrained by
the uncertain and shifting fields of power within which they operate. The 2021
military coup and escalating violence in Myanmar ultimately highlight the more
general precariousness and temporality of brokerage networks.

Keywords: Myanmar; Broker; Development; Peace; Health

Introduction
It was November 2019. We were travelling from Mae Sot, on the Thai side of the
Thailand–Myanmar border, to Hpa An, the capital of Myanmar’s Kayin State. Dr
Aung1 and I had both been in Mae Sot to meet with leaders of the Back Pack
Health Worker Team (BPHWT), a Community-Based Health Organisation that deli-
vers healthcare in Myanmar’s historically contested borderlands.

* Anthropology and Development Studies, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Email:
anne.decobert@unimelb.edu.au

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeriva-
tives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in
any way.
148 A. Décobert
Dr Aung was driving. He became increasingly animated as he told me his story,
whilst adeptly swerving to avoid potholes, mounds of rubble, broken-down vehicles
and trucks careering towards us on the infamous Asian Highway. Although long
promised to bring ‘development’ to populations whose lives had been shaped by
decades-long violence and impoverishment, the Asian Highway in this area was
still not much more than a rough dirt track. In many ways, it resembled Myanmar’s
supposed ‘political transition’—abounding in hopes and promises but, in reality,
unreliable and chock-full of holes.
Nevertheless, many changes had taken place since I started working with BPHWT
in 2009. After decades of military rule and armed conflict between the central,
Bamar-dominated state and Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) struggling for
self-determination in border areas, U Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government came
to power in 2011, leading to broad political and economic reforms. In 2012, a pre-
liminary ceasefire agreement was signed between the government and the Karen
National Union / Karen National Liberation Army (KNU / KNLA), fostering
hopes for peace in Kayin State. In 2015, the National League for Democracy
(NLD) won Myanmar’s national elections by a landslide. Later that year, a Nation-
wide Ceasefire Agreement was signed between the government and eight EAOs.
Together, these changes inspired much optimism: perhaps Myanmar was finally tran-
sitioning from over half a century of oppressive military rule to democracy, from
decades of conflict to peace, and from a closed, impoverished nation to Asia’s
newest hope for inclusive and equitable development.
Optimism about Myanmar’s long hoped-for political transition was later crushed
when the military seized power again on 1 February 2021, after claiming that the
NLD’s 2020 landslide electoral victory was fraudulent. But even before the coup,
Myanmar’s top-down ‘transition’ had failed to reshape power relations in ways
that would ensure sustainable peace and equitable development. Ongoing systemic
and spatial inequalities, along with disputed territorialisation of power in border
areas, meant that Myanmar remained in what Christine Bell and Jan Pospisil
(2017) call a situation of ‘political unsettlement’.
Within this context, and over the decade-long period of uncertain liberalisation in
Myanmar, ‘borderland brokers’ emerged as key actors mediating state–non-state and
centre–periphery relations. They created a temporary ‘brokerage fix’, of the type
described by Jonathan Goodhand, Bart Klem, and Oliver Walton (2016), which
not only facilitated connections across conflict divides but also had the potential to
reshape state–non-state and centre–periphery relations in ways more conducive to
long-term positive peace2 and equitable development. Dr Aung was one of these
brokers. As I got to know him during my research on ‘health as a bridge to peace’
in Myanmar, he would often joke: ‘I am the bridge!’
As we bumped and swerved through the dust clouds of the Asian Highway on our
way to Hpa An, we drove through multiple checkpoints manned by Myanmar Army
and Border Guard Force soldiers. At the checkpoints, soldiers waved us through,
after only a short greeting from Dr Aung, whilst other drivers were pulled over to
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 149

show identity cards and pay endless road tolls. Chuckling at my confusion, Dr Aung
explained that, having previously worked for the Myanmar Ministry of Health and
Sports (MoHS) in Kayin State, he easily ‘passed for’ government staff. He also had
a strong relationship with the Director of the Department of Public Health
(DoPH)—the highest-level MoHS representative in Kayin State—whom he could
call upon if he had problems with the military because, he said, ‘[the Director]
knows that he cannot go to Mutraw and do the polio campaign there, and only I
can go to Mutraw’.
Dr Aung was referring to a polio immunisation campaign in an area of northern
Kayin State that is referred to as Hpapun District by the Myanmar state and as
Mutraw District by the KNU and BPHWT.3 Community health and development
systems in this area were shaped by decades-long conflict and competing governance
systems. Local Karen4 communities relied on services provided by medics from Com-
munity-Based Health Organisations (CBHOs) and Ethnic Health Organisations
(EHOs). These organisations constituted a para-state health system, which was estab-
lished under the governance of EAOs and historically operated autonomously from
the official Myanmar health system.
The Mutraw polio immunisation campaign was the first major development
intervention in the area involving cooperation between non-state and state
actors. This article examines brokers’ roles in facilitating the campaign and their
impacts on wider processes of socio-political change. Building on a long history
of anthropological scholarship on brokerage and recent studies of ‘borderland
brokers’, the article highlights the need to decentre analyses of socio-political
change in contexts of ‘political unsettlement’ and to focus on the role that
brokers play—and inevitable limitations they face—in facilitating development
interventions and peace formation.5
After outlining conceptual approaches to brokerage in anthropology and develop-
ment studies, the article details how a polio outbreak in Mutraw District in May 2019
created a new and complex ‘development encounter’6—an unequal field of power, as
defined by Pierre Bourdieu (1990), bringing together actors with diverging visions for
development and peace in Myanmar. Within the context of Myanmar’s ‘political
unsettlement’ and of a polio outbreak perceived as high stakes in public health and
political terms, borderland brokers became key to transforming a conflictual ‘devel-
opment encounter’ into a temporary ‘fix’ enabling a collaborative response to the out-
break. The capacity of these brokers to bring diverse actors together hinged on their
position as network specialists and ‘translators’—in the sense defined by David Mosse
and David Lewis (2006)—who forged shared realities and fields of intervention.
These brokers not only mediated between opposing ‘sides’ but also engendered
new positionalities and possibilities for action. The article then reveals limitations
that brokers face, demonstrating that while their roles can to an extent be institutio-
nalised, they remain contingent on shifting fields of power that perpetuate the pre-
cariousness and temporality of brokerage systems.
150 A. Décobert
Materials and Methods
Anthropologists have long highlighted the key role played by brokers in bringing
together diverse actors and shaping processes of socio-political change. The
concept of brokerage has a long history, originating in anthropological studies of cul-
tural ‘intermediaries’ in colonial and post-colonial contexts (e.g. Geertz 1960; Gluck-
man, Mitchell, & Barnes 1949), and gaining popularity in the 1960s–70s as
transactionalist studies focused on processes of communication and negotiation,
within which brokers were central agents (e.g. Boissevain 1974; Cohen & Comaroff
1976; Mair 1968).
From the early political anthropology of brokerage, key ideas emerged which
were later picked up by scholars of development. Brokers were found to operate
in the marginal spaces between social systems (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier
de Sardan 2002). They were ‘network specialists’, who could act as ‘entrepreneurs’
mobilising their networks of relationships and benefiting in various ways from
their roles (Boissevain 1974). Their ability to operate within different social
systems provided room for manoeuvre, enabling them to be gatekeepers as well
as intermediaries (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier de Sardan 2002; Mendras
1976). And central to these processes of mediation was ‘the transformation of
the sense of things and of actions, by giving them different meanings and some-
times contradictory functions, adapted to each universe’ (Bierschenk, Chauveau, &
Olivier de Sardan 2002, 15).
It was Thomas Bierschenk, Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Jean-Pierre Olivier de
Sardan’s work on development brokers in Africa that really brought the concept of
brokerage into development studies (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier de Sardan
2002). Within the post-war transition to ‘social and economic development’ policies
implemented by former colonial powers and international institutions, Bierschenk
et al. noted the emergence of brokers acting at the interface between project benefi-
ciaries and development institutions. ‘[F]ar from being passive operators of logic[s]
of dependence’, these brokers were ‘the key actors in the irresistible hunt for projects’,
who often benefited from their positions (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier de Sardan
2002, 4).
In Development Brokers and Translators, David Mosse and David Lewis (2006)
extended this vein of analysis, emphasising processes of ‘translation’ in contexts
shaped by juridical pluralism and competing institutional arrangements. Drawing
on actor network theory, they analysed state agency and Non-Government Organis-
ation (NGO) frontline workers as brokers producing and stabilising knowledge,
meanings and interpretations. Brokers were then much more than intermediaries.
As Bruno Latour (2005, 39) argued, the intermediary makes no difference to the
transaction, whilst ‘mediators transform, translate, distort, and modify the
meaning or the elements they are supposed to carry’. And it was this process of trans-
lation which for Mosse and Lewis (2006) was central to the broker’s ability to produce
unified and stabilised fields of intervention.
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 151

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in brokerage systems, with
researchers focusing on brokers’ roles in conflict resolution. Goodhand, Klem,
Walton and Markus Mayer’s research in Sri Lanka and Nepal explores how ‘bor-
derland brokers’ mediate between central elites and constituencies in the border-
lands of countries characterised by ‘political unsettlement’ (Goodhand, Klem, &
Walton 2016; Goodhand, Mayer, & Walton 2019). Goodhand et al. reveal how
periods of war-to-peace transition provide an opening and need for brokers
who mediate across conflict divides. In borderlands neglected by the state and
where power is shaped more by informal networks than by formal institutions,
brokers ‘make things happen’; and where there is no genuine social contract
between the state and local populations, ‘brokers may play a significant and
even progressive role in helping borderland populations manage conflicts,
make claims on the state or gain access to resources’ (Goodhand, Mayer, &
Walton 2019, 8).
Yet brokers are also ambiguous figures. Anthropologists have commonly empha-
sised the vulnerability of the broker, whose position is not just one of power but also
precariousness (e.g. Chalhi, Koster, & Vermeulen 2018; Eichler 2018; James 2011,
2018). Similarly, Goodhand, Walton and Mayer (2019, 7) highlight the precarious-
ness of borderland brokers, who must forge a ‘brokerage fix’, finding ‘ways to facili-
tate connections and flows, while maintaining their role as a gatekeeper’. This ‘fix’,
Goodhand, Mayer and Walton argue, is always temporary and sometimes unsuccess-
ful. Recognising that their position is indeed precarious, the analysis below demon-
strates that borderland brokers can nevertheless work towards reshaping state–non-
state and centre–periphery relations in ways that promote positive peace and equi-
table development—which goes against analyses of brokers as often impeding the res-
olution of systemic problems, since such a resolution would make them redundant
(Goodhand, Mayer, & Walton 2019, 7). But the very contexts of uncertain transition
and instability that enable brokers to emerge ultimately reinforce the inevitable tem-
porality and precariousness of brokerage systems.
To explore the role and influence of borderland brokers, this article draws on
ethnographic observation and interviews conducted in November–December
2019, during field research in Kayin State (Myanmar) and Mae Sot (Thailand).
In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty members of: CBHOs and
EHOs; MoHS; civil society organisations, international NGOs (INGOs) and UN
agencies. These discussions focused on individuals’ experiences of and perspectives
on the Mutraw polio campaign, state–non-state partnerships for health, and
brokers’ roles in facilitating development interventions and political changes. Infor-
mation collected during this period has been complemented by long-term anthro-
pological research with CBHOs, EHOs and other agencies involved in health and
development programs in Myanmar’s border areas, spanning over a decade
between late 2009 and early 2021.
152 A. Décobert
Findings: Brokering the Mutraw Polio Campaign
Conflicting Visions for Health, Development and Peace
On 23 May 2019, BPHWT medics in Mutraw District came across a child with acute
flaccid paralysis, a condition commonly caused by the polio virus. By 23 June, a polio
diagnosis was confirmed. In July, three further cases were discovered in the region.7
In mid-July, BPHWT launched a mass polio immunisation campaign in Mutraw
District, providing oral polio vaccines to almost 20,000 children under the age of
15; a second round of immunisations was conducted in September–October, reach-
ing over 24,000 children. The polio campaign entailed close working relationships
between non-state, state and international actors, and was in many ways
groundbreaking.
As mentioned above, Karen communities in areas like Mutraw District, which
were historically controlled by the KNU/KNLA, relied on services provided by
local medics working within para-state health systems. In the past, the KNU had
set up its own administrative systems and services in border areas under its
control. The KNU ran departments for health, education and so on, which were
financed initially through taxation of local populations and control over trade
routes and then—from the 1990s onwards when the KNU/KNLA lost much territor-
ial control—through international funding. Over the years, the Karen Department of
Health and Welfare (‘Ethnic Health Organisation’ of the KNU) developed a strong
health system in Karen communities, working closely with a network of CBHOs,
including BPHWT.
BPHWT was created in 1998 by health workers from Kayin, Mon, Shan and Kayah
States to support services for displaced and other conflict-affected communities in
border areas. BPHWT trained local medics, who travelled on foot, carrying
medical supplies in rattan baskets or backpacks, to deliver services in their target
areas. BPHWT’s management team worked out of Mae Sot, on the Thai side of
the border, where they could tap into international funding and advocacy networks.
Funding and medical supplies were then channelled ‘cross-border’ to medics inside
Myanmar.
By 2019, the CBHOs and EHOs supported some 4,400 health workers, who pro-
vided services to around three-quarters of a million people in Myanmar’s contested
border areas. These organisations were not officially recognised in Myanmar, nor
were they legally registered to provide services in their communities—although the
Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement did allow for health and other services to be pro-
vided under EAO governance during the ‘interim ceasefire period’.8 Meanwhile,
like its government systems, official health systems in Myanmar were highly centra-
lised, with decision-making power concentrated at the Union level. The EHOs and
CBHOs therefore not only constituted parallel systems for health but also challenged
the centralised governance model of the Myanmar state.
Throughout the decade-long period of uncertain liberalisation in Myanmar, there
remained conflicting—centripetal and centrifugal—visions for health, development
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 153

and peace in the country. The Government of Myanmar’s National Health Plan and
National Development Plan put forth a vision where power remained centralised at
the Union level (MoHS 2016; MPF 2018); national-level peace discussions failed to
alter the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the central
Bamar elite (Brenner & Schulman 2019); and the shift by international donors to
‘normalising’ aid relations with and supporting the development plans of the
Myanmar state—instead of funding alternative ‘cross-border’ systems as some
donors had done in the past—was perceived by members of groups like BPHWT
as bolstering centralised state control over ethnic communities9 in border areas
(Décobert 2020).
In contrast, BPHWT’s leaders and partners were working towards an alternative
vision for health, development and peace in their areas—one where non-state
service delivery and governance systems would be recognised as legitimate agents
of development; and where peace would be ensured through devolution of power,
systemic change and recognition of ethnic governance systems. It was against the
backdrop of these conflicting visions that the polio outbreak in Mutraw District
created a new ‘development encounter’, within which brokers like Dr Aung and
local staff of an INGO called Community Partners International (CPI) emerged as
key actors.

From Conflictual ‘Development Encounter’ to ‘Brokerage Fix’

From a public health perspective, polio is a high-risk infectious disease. Even a single
case of confirmed polio virus in a specific area is deemed indicative of an epidemic
necessitating an emergency response. Moreover, political dynamics in Mutraw Dis-
trict contributed to making the polio campaign high stakes and contentious.
Whilst Hpapun Township—the official capital of government-defined Hpapun
District—was under Myanmar state control, the densely forested and mountainous
areas beyond the district capital were mostly controlled by KNLA Brigade 5, which
maintained ‘an extensive, remarkably well-functioning rebel state’ (Brenner 2019,
58). In many ways, Mutraw was the ‘last stronghold’ of the KNU/KNLA, an area
where Brigade 5 units remained deeply embedded in local villages and where the
KNU/KNLA had not been weakened by military and geopolitical forces, as it had else-
where in Kayin State (Brenner 2019, 57–58). KNLA Brigade 5 was renowned for being
what some described as ‘hard-line’ in its rejection of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agree-
ment and opposition to the (pre-2021 coup) more conciliatory practices of the KNU/
KNLA leadership—a stance perceived by many others (including many BPHWT
members) as true to the original aims of the KNU for Karen self-determination.
Even during Myanmar’s recent period of civilian rule, local political and military
authorities maintained strict policies about state ‘intrusion’ in Mutraw District.
According to KNLA Brigade 5 policy, no Myanmar state actors could enter the
area; and groups working there could not receive state support, even for ‘apolitical’
purposes like health programs. These restrictions were linked with concerns
154 A. Décobert
amongst local authorities about the state using health (or other development) pro-
grams as a ‘cover’ to extend bureaucratic and military control over the area.
However, as one BPHWT leader stated, ‘the situation changed with the polio out-
break’. When I met them in December 2019, MoHS authorities in Kayin State high-
lighted the extent to which, within the context of a national health emergency, they
were willing to develop a flexible approach adapted to the Mutraw situation:
For direct support from the government, [KNLA Brigade 5] will never accept. So
we say ‘Ok, what model do you want, and we will support’. … We have to do
with flexibility. At the time, it was a real public health concern, a national concern!
On 9 July 2019, the Mutraw Community Development Committee—comprising
local authorities, community organisations and service providers—authorised the
polio campaign, on condition that BPHWT follow KNLA Brigade 5 policy. Since
they could not travel to Mutraw District, staff of the Kayin State DoPH and
central-level MoHS agreed to train BPHWT vaccinators in Mae Sot (Thailand).
Yet there was still the problem of transferring funding, vaccines and other
resources to BPHWT. In Myanmar, MoHS immunisation programs—including
polio campaigns—had been supported since 2017 by the Global Alliance for Vaccines
and Immunisation (GAVI), which worked in partnership with UNICEF and WHO.
However, since MoHS actors could not enter Mutraw District, resources had to be
channelled to BPHWT, which had medics on the ground who could deliver vaccines.
According to KNLA Brigade 5 policy, BPHWT could not receive funding from
MoHS. And GAVI funding and resources could not go directly to a non-state
agency like BPHWT, since as Dr Aung put it, international immunisation support
had to be ‘G to G’ (from governments—or intergovernmental agencies—to
governments).
To get around these restrictions, CPI stepped in as an intermediary, channelling
GAVI funding and other resources from MoHS to BPHWT. Local CPI staff also
mediated discussions between non-state and state actors. Additionally, and as they
supported the rolling out of the polio campaign, local staff of WHO and UNICEF
negotiated between actors on both ‘sides’. And Dr Aung mediated not only
between state and non-state actors but also between these national-level players
and the various international agencies involved. Together these actors therefore
emerged as key brokers in a complex and highly politicised ‘development encounter’,
forging a ‘brokerage fix’ of the type described by Goodhand, Mayer, and Walton
(2019) and enabling the collaboration and flow of resources required to respond to
the outbreak.
Brokers in the Mutraw polio campaign were characteristic of the type of ‘develop-
ment brokers’ described by Bierschenk, Chauveau, and Olivier de Sardan (2002) and
Mosse and Lewis (2006), who operate across the synapses between international
development agencies and local populations. At the same time, they exemplified
the type of ‘borderland brokers’ described by Goodhand and colleagues, mediating
centre–periphery and state–non-state relations (Goodhand, Mayer, & Walton
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 155

2019, 7). They therefore operated simultaneously across local and international
‘levels’, and across Myanmar’s conflict divides, highlighting the fallacy of taking
for granted binary divisions between ‘local’ and ‘international’, ‘state’ and ‘non-state’.
Moreover, the emergence of these brokers was tied to Myanmar’s ‘political unset-
tlement’, uneven socio-political development and ongoing contestation over the ter-
ritorialisation of power in border areas—a situation that created both an opening
and a need for brokers, in a similar way to that described in Goodhand, Mayer,
and Walton’s (2019) study of borderland brokers in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Yet the
Mutraw example also demonstrates that the stakes and interests at play within a par-
ticular ‘development encounter’ can foster a situation where a temporary ‘fix’ bring-
ing together otherwise disparate actors is deemed necessary—in turn enhancing the
influence and ability of brokers to mediate relationships. Within this context,
brokers emerged as agents who could ‘make things happen’ more rapidly and effec-
tively than official mechanisms. The question then is: how did they make things
happen and to what extent could they shape wider processes of socio-political
change?

Network Specialists and Multi-Lingual Translators

Brokers are endowed with contextually relevant forms of social and cultural capital,
which enable them to operate within different social systems and which they can
mobilise in bringing together diverse actors (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier de
Sardan 2002; Lindquist 2015). The most influential brokers in the Mutraw polio cam-
paign, Dr Aung and local staff of CPI,10 were all Myanmar nationals. But unlike most
people in Myanmar, they had high levels of education (with tertiary degrees in medi-
cine or public health); they typically had experience studying and/or working over-
seas; and they spoke fluent English. As members of Myanmar’s educated and
multilingual elite, they could function easily within the ‘worlds’ of government or
international agencies. At the same time, they had developed strong connections
with EHO and CBHO leaders.
Local CPI staff were able to broker the Mutraw polio campaign precisely because of
the social capital forged through a long history of working with, first, CBHOs and
EHOs and, more recently, with the MoHS. Originally called Global Health Access
Program (GHAP), the organisation was created by health professionals and aca-
demics linked with Johns Hopkins University in the US, who had personal connec-
tions with EHO and CBHO leaders. Over the years, GHAP became one of BPHWT’s
most important ‘intermediary partners’ in the network of ‘local-global partnerships’
enabling medics to provide services in the borderlands (Mahn et al. 2008). With a
field office in Mae Sot, GHAP’s activities were originally implemented mainly by aca-
demics and graduate students from the US. GHAP provided BPHWT with training in
health and human rights frameworks, as well as technical support for data collection
and analysis. The organisation became key to ‘translating’ BPHWT’s work into a
health and human rights discourse, which resonated powerfully at the international
156 A. Décobert
level and became central to BPHWT’s successes in obtaining international funding
(Décobert 2016, 183–84).
Over the years, and as the political situation and aid economy in Myanmar shifted,
GHAP also evolved. In 2009, in the lead up to Myanmar’s 2010 elections and as
donors were looking towards increasing their engagement with and development
aid to Myanmar, GHAP set up an office in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital; it
later changed its name to Community Partners International, and CPI recruited
increasing numbers of Myanmar nationals. This included the present Director,
who had strong connections with top-level MoHS and other ministerial authorities.
The organisation began to play an increasing role in channelling international
funding from donors to local organisations in the border areas. At the same time,
it began to mediate between non-state and state health systems.
It was the strong relationships that CPI staff developed over time with actors in
non-state and state systems, and at national and international levels, that enabled
them to act as brokers in the Mutraw polio campaign. ‘They can bring people
together’, one CBHO leader reflected, ‘because they have been everywhere in the
ethnic states and they have the good relationships; and at the same time they have
relationships with the senior government’. Social capital was therefore key, brokers
in the Mutraw campaign being network specialists who could capitalise on relation-
ships with diverse actors (Boissevain 1974).
Similarly, Dr Aung had spent many years building relationships with actors on
both ‘sides’ of the conflict. During the 2000s, Dr Aung had worked as Township
Medical Officer for the MoHS. In this capacity, he was responsible for measles and
polio immunisation campaigns in (government-defined) Hpapun District. His role
enabled him to ‘prove himself to’ the Director of the Kayin State DoPH. At the
time, Dr Aung had never heard of BPHWT, which operated in the KNU-controlled
densely forested areas outside of the district capital. However, some of his staff knew
of BPHWT’s current Director, who was working in Day Bu Noh (KNLA headquar-
ters in Mutraw District). Operating unofficially through local contacts, Dr Aung
managed to send some vaccines to Day Bu Noh so that children there could also
be vaccinated. Years later—when he was sent by his patron, the Abbot of the
famous Taung Galay Monastery in Hpa An, to work with the groups in Mae Sot
and learn about the other ‘side’ of the conflict—Dr Aung met BPHWT’s Director
and explained that it was he who had sent the vaccines to Day Bu Noh. From Dr
Aung’s perspective, this history and his demonstrations of trustworthiness were
key to his ability to be a ‘bridge’.
In addition to being ‘network specialists’, brokers have the capacity to under-
stand and speak to the perspectives of different actors, which has sometimes led
to them being described as ‘Janus-faced’ (Bierschenk, Chauveau, & Olivier de
Sardan 2002). Brokers in the Mutraw polio campaign were acutely aware of the
different viewpoints of actors between whom they mediated. They were also
adept at ‘translating’ ideas or actions into terms that resonated with these actors.
One broker explained that he changed the terms he employed, for example
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 157

using ‘Kayin’ (the state’s designation for the ethnic group) when speaking with
state actors and ‘Karen’ (the colonial-era term, which is still used by many
actors in border areas) when speaking with CBHOs and EHOs. ‘Sometimes I
have to say different things’, he told me. ‘I cannot transfer directly the words
because it will be more harmful’.
Brokers would therefore ‘transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning of
the elements they are supposed to carry’, with these acts of translation not erasing but
potentially reaffirming difference (Latour 2005, 39). However, at the same time—and
as described by Mosse and Lewis (2006)—brokers’ acts of translation were key to pro-
ducing a shared reality and field of intervention. Local CPI staff and Dr Aung were
fluent in the ‘apolitical’ lexicon of health; and they were experts in the standardised
practices of health programs. As detailed by Susan Cotts Watkins and Ann Swidler
(2012, 201), the shared lexicon and standardised practices of health programming
can bring conflicting actors together around themes and practices that ‘make every-
body happy’. Brokers in the Mutraw campaign thus commonly emphasised the
importance of remaining ‘technical’ in mediating between actors who, despite
having differing interests and perspectives, could nevertheless unite around a
shared goal of responding to a public health emergency and through practices like
trainings and immunisation.
These borderland brokers were therefore multilingual in more sense than one—
when necessary ‘translating’ issues in different ways for different audiences, while
simultaneously bringing actors together through the shared and ‘apolitical’ lexicon
and practices of health. Translation therefore, whilst not fully eradicating difference,
established connections against the ‘backdrop of competing interests or values that
[were] potentially irreconcilable’ (Chalhi, Koster, & Vermeulen 2018, 854; Mosse
& Lewis 2006). And again, the positionality of these brokers, their personal and pro-
fessional trajectories, and their acts of translation demonstrate the fallacy of taking
for granted binary divisions between international (or national) and local, formal
and informal, and state and non-state. As highlighted by Goodhand, Klem, and
Walton (2016, 818), ‘brokers tend to dissolve or transgress such boundaries and cat-
egories, exploiting the points of friction between them, so as to direct or filter the flow
of power and resources’.

Differences and Complementarity Between Brokers

Brokers in the Mutraw polio campaign therefore shared a number of attributes. Yet
there were also important differences between brokers. While CPI staff were part of
an INGO that had evolved into a sort of institutionalised development broker, Dr
Aung operated as an individual broker, whose role depended on traditional authority
structures and patron-client systems. The respective positions of these brokers within
the unequal field of power formed by the Mutraw ‘development encounter’ meant
that they had access to different forms of cultural, social and economic capital,
and that they played different and complementary roles.
158 A. Décobert
Dr Aung worked ‘under the umbrella’, as he put it, of the famous Abbot of the
Taung Galay Monastery in Hpa An, benefiting from the status and respect his
patron commanded. As noted by Magalie Bourblanc and Raphaëlle Ducrot (2018),
there can be many overlaps and inter-meshings between development brokerage
systems and traditional authority structures; and traditional forms of authority and
clientelism are often reproduced in new forms of brokerage. Religious networks
often form the basis for development brokerage, with the symbolic, cultural and
social capital that religious actors command enabling them to act as mediators
(Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan 1998).
In Myanmar, where Therevada Buddhism is the main religion and monks are
highly revered, senior members of the sangha (monastic order) have long been
involved in mediating between parties to the conflict. Sayadaw Ashan Pinnyar
Tharmi, Abbot of the Taung Galay Monastery, was widely known as the ‘Peace
Monk’. For many years, the Sayadaw had been involved in mediating between
parties to the world’s ‘longest civil war’; and in 2012, he helped to broker the prelimi-
nary ceasefire agreement between the Myanmar state and KNU/KNLA.11 As the
Sayadaw’s protégé, Dr Aung had gained access to higher education opportunities,
as well as networks spanning conflict divides; and the fact that he worked under
the Sayadaw’s patronage enabled him to mediate between non-state and state
actors. Dr Aung’s role as a broker was therefore a direct outcome of traditional auth-
ority structures and patron-client systems within which he was embedded.
Like Dr Aung, local CPI staff had contextually relevant forms of social and cultural
capital, but their role as brokers was also a function of their position within an INGO.
As INGO staff members, these brokers were conduits to international aid, which they
often described as a powerful form of economic and symbolic capital that enabled
them to bring together different actors. As one CPI staff member noted, ‘it’s syner-
gistic, it’s mutually beneficial, [being] the middleman, and having more financial
resources’.
The various types of social, cultural and economic capital that brokers in the
Mutraw polio campaign could mobilise meant that they operated at different
‘levels’, bringing actors together in different ways. Despite there being no strict
divides between formal and informal, in practice, CPI staff operated at a more
formal level and Dr Aung operated at a more informal level. And instead of battling
over attempts to control flows of resources and information, as is often noted of
brokers in development contexts (e.g. Auyero 2000; Bourblanc & Ducrot 2018;
Chalhi, Koster, & Vermeulen 2018), these brokers complemented each other as
part of what is better understood as a network or chain of brokerage, rather than
an assortment of isolated, competing brokers.

Power and Precariousness of Brokerage Networks

This brokerage network was very effective in bringing together actors historically
divided by conflict. Moreover, during the period of Myanmar’s fragile liberalisation,
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 159

brokerage networks played a key role in facilitating wider processes of socio-political

change, which had the potential to contribute to long-term positive peace and equi-
table development. Yet these networks were—like Myanmar’s supposed ‘transition’
itself—precarious and ultimately disrupted by major changes in the wider political
situation.
On an immediate, practical level, the ‘brokerage fix’ in Mutraw District enabled
non-state, state and international actors to collaborate in containing the polio out-
break and extending polio immunisation to local populations. Due to the conflict
and political dynamics, as well as specific constraints attached to immunisation pro-
gramming, local communities had been left out of Myanmar’s national-level immu-
nisation program. The ‘brokerage fix’ created out of the polio outbreak was therefore
a small but significant step towards achieving more equitable health and develop-
ment outcomes for local Karen communities—with health and development inequi-
ties being a product of the country’s history of structural violence and protracted
conflict.
The Mutraw polio campaign also built understanding and trust between actors
who previously viewed each other as enemies. Many people with whom I spoke in
2019 saw the development of trust as even more important than the more practical
outcomes of the campaign. As one local representative of an international agency
explained:
Both sides have strict mindset but over time they can come together based on the
shared goal. They can help the children, they have this common goal. And gradu-
ally, we build the trust. The most important thing is building the trust.
Borderland brokers then not only enabled connections to be forged against a back-
drop of diverging interests; over time, the ‘fix’ they created also led to the emergence
of new positionalities and possibilities for change. When I met with them in late 2019,
senior MoHS representatives in Kayin State who had worked with BPHWT leaders as
part of the Mutraw campaign expressed support for non-state actors to be officially
recognised and allowed to manage health systems in their areas. One senior MoHS
representative told me: ‘If [we] just stay with the hard position, we cannot meet.
We need to negotiate and compromise’.
More generally, by late 2019, brokerage systems had become central to gaining rec-
ognition for ethnic health and governance systems. In 2015, because of their leader-
ship’s strong contacts with the MoHS, CPI was consulted in the development of
Myanmar’s new National Health Plan (NHP). CPI leaders pushed for inclusion
and recognition of non-state actors. The NHP’s development was ‘a uniquely inclus-
ive process in the context of Myanmar, as the committee for developing the NHP
included government officials as well as representatives from civil society and
EHOs’ (Si Thura & Schroeder 2018, 99). In the NHP, EHOs were acknowledged as
‘service providers’ in Myanmar’s ‘ethnic’ areas (MoHS 2016, 8). The fact that these
actors were mentioned at all highlights the NLD government’s recognition that uni-
versal health coverage, which the plan promised to achieve by 2030, was impossible
160 A. Décobert
without state actors collaborating with EHOs. And whilst decision-making power
remained concentrated at the Union level, the inclusion of EHOs in the NHP
could still be read as a small step in a longer-term process of recognition and systemic
change.
The Mutraw polio campaign could then be interpreted as another step in this wider
process of systemic change. Although still not officially recognised as qualified
medical personnel, BPHWT medics were trained by MoHS staff to provide polio
immunisation themselves in their areas. This was significant since, in Myanmar,
only officially accredited doctors, nurses and midwives were allowed to deliver
immunisation. Many BPHWT medics felt that this symbolic recognition was an
important step towards formal recognition of non-state systems and service provi-
ders. Dr Aung himself speculated that, because of the polio campaign, ‘BPHWT
will be recognised more than before, because the team who can implement the out-
break response will be more recognised’. As such, the Mutraw ‘brokerage fix’ also
made small steps towards redressing some of the systemic factors contributing to
poor health outcomes in Myanmar’s remote ethnic communities—the lack of official
recognition for ethnic health workers contributing to poor health outcomes and
being linked with underlying inequities and injustices that had shaped a decades-
long conflict.
Yet whilst having the potential to contribute to wider processes of systemic change,
the brokerage chain formed out of the Mutraw ‘development encounter’ was dynamic
and unstable. Brokers making up the chain were ambiguous figures, their positions
characterised by precariousness, in the sense that these positions and the connections
they facilitated were always uncertain and unstable, contingent on shifting fields of
power. Dr Aung’s status as the protégé of the Taung Galay Sayadaw afforded him
the social and cultural capital required to be a ‘bridge’, but his position still depended
on interpersonal relationships that could be undermined by wider political changes. In
contrast, CPI’s history demonstrated the way in which brokerage roles could to an
extent be institutionalised—and thereby afforded a certain degree of stability. But
even CPI’s role as a broker remained dependent upon what one staff member described
as ‘windows of opportunity in making those [brokerage] relationships go on’.
The ‘development encounter’ in Mutraw District—and the stakes and interests at
play—provided a ‘window of opportunity’ for CPI and Dr Aung to emerge as key
brokers. More generally, systemic divisions between non-state and state systems,
and Myanmar’s period of political liberalisation over 2011–2021, provided the
space within which CPI could evolve into an INGO specialised in mediating across
systems and within which Dr Aung could act as an informal ‘bridge’ between differ-
ent ‘sides’ of the conflict. However, various factors could radically alter the playing
field.
In CPI’s case, the organisation’s position was linked to its role in channelling inter-
national funding to local groups. Shifts in donor funding could then alter or disas-
semble established systems of brokerage.12 Moreover, and whilst to some extent
institutionalised—and therefore to some degree more stable than Dr Aung’s
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 161

position—CPI’s position as a broker remained dependent on inter-personal relation-

ships between the organisation’s leadership and the EHOs/CBHOs, on the one hand,
and ministerial actors of the NLD government, on the other. Reflecting on CPI’s
status, one senior medic I met in 2019 explained that CPI’s role could be impacted
by Myanmar’s national elections in 2020. ‘For the time being they are very strong’,
he stated. ‘But if the government changes in 2020 … we don’t know how this will
change for CPI’.
Looking back, the medic’s words now seem sadly prophetic. In 2019, there was much
optimism that relationships brokered by Dr Aung and CPI staff would lead to further
collaboration between state and non-state actors, as well as wider processes of progress-
ive socio-political change. But in February 2020, the Myanmar Army went ahead with
controversial plans to build a new road passing through Mutraw District. This was per-
ceived by local authorities as an attempt to weaken KNU/KNLA control over the
region,13 and the polio campaign ground to a halt. Throughout 2020, Dr Aung, CPI
staff, and state and non-state actors involved in the campaign remained optimistic
that their collaboration would resume and lead to more comprehensive joint health
programs in the area. But these hopes have now been dashed, for the time being at
least, by the 2021 military coup and subsequent escalations in violence, including air
strikes by the Myanmar Army in Mutraw District. And while I remain confident
that actors on the ground will continue to respond in creative ways to an evolving
and uncertain playing field, recent events force even the most optimistic observer to
recognise that the ‘brokerage fix’ facilitated by Dr Aung and CPI staff was contingent
on shifting fields of power that ultimately remained beyond their control.

Discussion
The Mutraw polio campaign provides important insights into how borderland
brokers emerge, how they operate, and their potential and limitations in shaping
broader processes of socio-political change within contexts of ‘political unsettlement’.
Myanmar’s top-down and contested ‘political transition’ created both an opening
and a need for brokers to mediate local–international and centre–periphery relations.
In addition, the Mutraw case demonstrates that the stakes and interests at play within
a particular ‘development encounter’ can generate a situation where a temporary ‘fix’
bringing together otherwise disparate actors is deemed necessary—in turn enhancing
brokers’ abilities to mediate across socio-political divides.
Contemporary phenomena of brokerage must be understood within their socio-
political and historical context and, in situations of ‘political unsettlement’ like
Myanmar at the time, set against the background of structural inequalities, contested
processes of state formation and competing governance systems. By 2019, political
changes in Myanmar and an evolving aid economy had contributed to a shift in
the territorialisation of border spaces, reinforcing centripetal dynamics (Décobert
2020). However, state hegemony remained fraught in border areas. Competing cen-
trifugal forces and the multiplication of international development players reinforced
162 A. Décobert
the need for brokers to mediate between actors with different visions for health,
development and peace in Myanmar.
Brokers are endowed with contextually relevant forms of social, cultural, economic
and symbolic capital, which they can mobilise in bringing actors together. In Myan-
mar’s contested borderlands, brokers were key to forging a temporary ‘fix’, which
enabled collaboration between actors historically divided by conflict. Although the
‘development encounter’ in Mutraw District was shaped by power struggles
between actors with diverging views, brokers were able to bring these actors together
by drawing upon different forms of capital, and by mobilising the shared, ‘apolitical’
lexicon and standardised practices of health. Through their acts of ‘translation’, they
crystallised a network of actors that enabled a collaborative development intervention
(Mosse & Lewis 2006). Translation, whilst not eradicating difference, established
connections against a backdrop of potentially irreconcilable interests.
At the same time, the Mutraw example demonstrates that brokers do not merely
mediate between fixed positionalities or translate between irreconcilable points of
view. Brokers can also bring into being new socio-political realities and fields of inter-
vention—in so doing, contributing to the creation of new positionalities and possi-
bilities for action (James 2011). Through brokerage systems and the relationships
they engender, small but significant steps can be made that can potentially contribute
to reshaping state–non-state and centre–periphery relations in ways more conducive
to long-term positive peace and equitable development.
Nevertheless, and while borderland brokers are influential actors who can ‘make
things happen’, their positions remain precarious. This precariousness is related to the
unstable nature of ‘development encounters’, which are inevitably shaped by wider pol-
itical and power shifts. So although the role of borderland brokers can to an extent be
institutionalised, it remains contingent on wider and shifting fields of power that may
at times lead to the emergence of these brokers as powerful players but that simul-
taneously perpetuate the temporality and precariousness of brokerage systems.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank leaders and members of the Back Pack Health Worker Team and
Community Partners International, as well as Dr Aung (pseudonym), for making this research
possible and for their generosity in sharing their experiences, insights and perspectives with her.
Thanks also to all others who took part in interviews for this research, and to the University of Mel-
bourne for funding fieldwork in 2019 through an Early Career Researcher Grant. Finally, many
thanks to colleagues in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Melbourne
for feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure Statement
The author worked as a volunteer for the Back Pack Health Worker Team from 2009 to 2012 while
also conducting research as part of her PhD on ‘cross-border aid’ to Myanmar.
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 163

Funding
This work was supported by the University of Melbourne under an Early Career Researcher Grant.

Notes
[1] Pseudonym.
[2] Positive peace is ‘where both structural violence (meaning inequality in terms of rights, needs
and access to laws and institutions) and overt violence are overcome and emancipation
becomes possible’ (Richmond 2014, 3).
[3] In this article, I use Mutraw District to refer to the target area for the BPHWT polio cam-
paign, reflecting the organisation’s terminology.
[4] I use ‘Karen’ to refer to the ethnic group, out of respect for the terminology used by
CBHO members. While the Myanmar state uses the term ‘Kayin’, many members of
ethnic groups in border areas use ‘Karen’, highlighting their rejection of the Myanmar
state’s legitimacy.
[5] Richmond’s (2014) concept of peace formation refers to bottom-up processes and relation-
ships mediated by local (often civil society) actors and contributing to peace. These are dis-
tinguished from the top-down, state-centric and elite-focused liberal peace framework.
[6] Rossi (2006) defines the development encounter as an unequal field of power, bringing
together donors, NGOs, community members, and so on. Within this field of power, differ-
ent actors advance their agendas by drawing upon symbolic and other forms of capital made
available to them by international development programs.
[7] By late 2019, a total of seven cases were identified.
[8] https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/MM_151510_NCAAgreement.pdf
(accessed September 16, 2021).
[9] BPHWT members commonly refer to their communities as ‘ethnic communities’, in contrast
to the label of ‘ethnic minority communities’, which is used by many international actors.
This terminology is interlinked with a rejection of the portrayal of their communities as
‘minorities’ within a predominantly Bamar nation state.
[10] National UNICEF and WHO staff also brokered relationships between local and inter-
national ‘levels’. However, they were less involved than Dr Aung and CPI staff in mediating
between non-state and state systems, and readily admitted that they were dependent on Dr
Aung and CPI, particularly in dealing with non-state actors.
[11] http://karennews.org/2012/11/abbot-taungalay-sayadaw-calls-for-knu-leaders-to-share-
power-be-united-and-to-listen-to-the-people/ (accessed September 16, 2021).
[12] This had happened in the past: another INGO previously brokered between international
and national organisations, and between BPHWT and MoHS; when the INGO lost the
bid for the next round of funding from a major international back-donor, it lost its
broker status.
[13] https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/karen-ceasefire-frays-under-tatmadaw-road-building-
push/ (accessed September 16, 2021).

ORCID
Anne Décobert http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5153-2790
164 A. Décobert
References
Auyero, J. 2000. “The Logic of Clientelism in Argentina: An Ethnographic Account.” Latin
American Research Review 35 (3): 55–81.
Bell, C., and J. Pospisil. 2017. “Navigating Inclusion in Transitions from Conflict: The Formalized
Political Unsettlement.” Journal of International Development 29 (5): 576–593.
Bierschenk, T., J. P. Chauveau, and J. P. Olivier de Sardan. 2002. Local Development Brokers in
Africa: The Rise of a New Social Category. Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität.
Bierschenk, T., and J. P. Olivier de Sardan. 1998. Les pouvoirs au village. Le Bénin rural entre
démocratisation et décentralisation. Paris: Karthala.
Boissevain, J. 1974. Friends of Friends. Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions. New York: St
Martins Press.
Bourblanc, M., and R. Ducrot. 2018. “Courtiers en développement et contrôleurs d’accès: deux
figures incontournables des politiques de lutte contre la pauvreté rurale en Afrique du
Sud.” Cahiers Agricultures 27 (5): 55006.
Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Brenner, D. 2019. Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar’s Borderlands.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Brenner, D., and S. Schulman. 2019. “Myanmar’s Top-Down Transition: Challenges for Civil
Society.” IDS Bulletin 50 (3): 17–36.
Chalhi, S., M. Koster, and J. Vermeulen. 2018. “Assembling the Irreconcilable: Youth Workers,
Development Policies and ‘High Risk’ Boys in the Netherlands.” Ethnos 83 (5): 850–867.
Cohen, A. P., and J. L. Comaroff. 1976. “The Management of Meaning: On the Phenomenology of
Political Transactions.” In Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of
Exchange and Symbolic Behavior, edited by B. Kapferer, 87–107. Philadelphia: Institute for
the Study of Human Issues.
Décobert, A. 2016. The Politics of Aid to Burma: A Humanitarian Struggle on the Thai-Burmese
Border. Oxon: Routledge.
Décobert, A. 2020. “‘The Struggle isn’t Over’: Shifting Aid Paradigms and Redefining
‘Development’ in Eastern Myanmar.” World Development 127: 104768.
Eichler, J. 2018. “Indigenous Intermediaries in Prior Consultation Processes: Bridge Builders or
Silenced Voices?” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 23 (3): 560–
578.
Geertz, C. 1960. “The Javanese Kijaji: The Changing Role of a Cultural Broker.” Comparative
Studies in Society and History 2 (2): 228–249.
Gluckman, M., C. Mitchell, and J. A. Barnes. 1949. “The Village Headman in British Central
Africa.” Africa 19: 89–106.
Goodhand, J., B. Klem, and O. Walton. 2016. “Mediating the Margins: The Role of Brokers and the
Eastern Provincial Council in Sri Lanka’s Post-War Transition.” Third World Thematics 1
(6): 817–836.
Goodhand, J., M. Mayer, and O. Walton. 2019. Building Peace from the Margins: Borderlands,
Brokers and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka and Nepal. https://www.international-alert.org/
sites/default/files/BuildingPeaceFromTheMargins_EN_2019.pdf.
James, D. 2011. “The Return of the Broker: Consensus, Hierarchy and Choice in South African
Land Reform.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (2): 318–338.
James, D. 2018. “Mediating Indebtedness in South Africa.” Ethnos 83 (5): 814–831.
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lindquist, J. 2015. “Brokers and Brokerage.” In International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral
Science, edited by J. D. Wright, 870–874. London: Elsevier.
 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 165

Mahn, M., C. Maung, E. K. Oo, L. Smith, C. I. Lee, E. Whichard, C. Neumann, A. K. Richards, L. C.

Mullany, H. Kuiper, and T. J. Lee. 2008. “Multi-level Partnerships to Promote Health Services
Among Internally Displaced in Eastern Burma.” Glob Public Health 3 (2): 165–186.
Mair, L. 1968. Anthropology and Social Change. Oxon: Routledge.
Mendras, H. 1976. Sociétés paysannes. Eléments pour une théorie de la paysannerie. Paris: Armand
Colin.
MoHS. 2016. Myanmar National Health Plan, 2017–2021. Naypyidaw: The Government of the
Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
Mosse, D., and D. Lewis. 2006. “Theoretical Approaches to Brokerage and Translation in
Development.” In Development Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of Aid and
Agencies, edited by D. Lewis, and D. Mosse, 1–26. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
MPF. 2018. Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (2018–2030). Naypyidaw: The Government of
the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
Richmond, O. P. 2014. Failed Statebuilding: Intervention, the State, and the Dynamics of Peace
Formation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Rossi, B. 2006. “Aid Policies and Recipient Strategies in Niger.” In Brokers and Translators: The
Ethnography of Aid and Development, edited by D. Lewis and D. Mosse, 27–50.
Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
Thura, Si, and T. Schroeder. 2018. “Health Service Delivery and Peacebuilding in Southeast
Myanmar.” In Myanmar Transformed? People, Places and Politics, edited by J. Chambers,
G. McCarthy, N. Farrelly, and C. Win, 85–106. Singapore: ISEAS.
Watkins, S. C., and A. Swidler. 2012. “Working Misunderstandings: Donors, Brokers, and Villagers
in Africa’s AIDS Industry.” Population and Development Review 38: 197–218.