Agency during Armed Conflict
Everyday Life under Competing Authorities in Myanmar’s Rakhine State
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13020301 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Florian Weigand (0000-0003-2629-0934, American Rock Mechanics Association, corresponding author), Riyad Anwar (Knowledge Foundation), Tony Neil (0000-0002-9316-499X, American Rock Mechanics Association), Abellia Anggi Wardani (0000-0001-7158-0805, University of Indonesia) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Global Security Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2057-3189 • E-ISSN: 2057-3189 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jogss/ogaf009 |
| OpenAlex | W6959880726 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 23 |
The paper looks at the relationship between ordinary people and competing authorities during armed conflict. In particular, the paper investigates the sources of agency that enable civilians to engage with armed actors, for instance, to ensure their own protection. The analysis rests on extensive fieldwork conducted in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the Arakan Army (AA), the armed wing of the United League of Arakan (ULA), was in active conflict with the military government, the State Administrative Council (SAC), at the time of research in 2023. Drawing on Bourdieu, the paper shows that people’s agency is shaped by their ability to access and mobilize different types of capital. What type of capital matters is influenced by structural dynamics, especially how armed actors exercise control within their often-overlapping spheres, but can include economic resources, social networks, and other types of capital. In the context of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, economic capital in the form of bribes, social capital in the form of personal connections to the armed actors, and ethnic capital in the form of belonging to a specific group are particularly crucial. Different types of capital enable civilians and communities to employ different practices for their engagement vis-à-vis different armed actors. However, many people in Rakhine State lack any relevant capital and therefore try to be as friendly or inconspicuous as possible, avoiding any interaction—especially with the SAC—as much as they can
Agency (philosophy · Capital (architecture · Context (archaeology · Social capital · State (computer science · Genetic diversity and population structure · Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies · Plant Diversity and Evolution
Conflict and Transnational Crime
Peace Studies in Myanmar
Everyday Peace
Resilient Communities
Resisting War
Rebelocracy
Relocation, Climate Change and Finding a Place of Belonging for Rohingya Refugees
Keeping Armed Actors Out
Beyond Greed
This is how we survived’
Forgotten Conflicts
We Did Not Realize about the Gender Issues. So, We Thought It Was a Good Idea
The Rohingya Crisis and the Practices of Erasure
Civilian Protection Payment and the Escalation of Violence against Civilians in Northwestern Nigeria
Authority in rebel groups
Peri-conflict peace
Ideology in civil war
Ceasefire capitalism
Ethnic capital, migration, and citizenship
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |