Mobilizing Bodies and Body Parts, from Myanmar to Manipur

Medical connections through borderlands in 'transition

Bibliographic Data

ID3625907
AuthorsD Mcduie-Ra (0000-0001-5999-3850, University of Newcastle Australia, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume56
Issue2
Pages691-714
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x2000027x
OpenAlexW3118235261
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited42

This article focuses on cross-border medical connections between Myanmar and Manipur, India. Non-state actors have been instrumental in creating the networks to bring bodies and body parts back and forth, first bypassing, then enmeshing, state actors. I focus on the movement of patients and medical samples across the border-from western Myanmar to Imphal city and back again-and the health infrastructure that enables it. Analysing these connections makes several contributions to the study of border governance. First, movement from Myanmar to Manipur is primarily for treatment or diagnosis, and these connections project particular ways of thinking about each place-western Myanmar as poor and remote, Manipur as advanced and networked. Second, both Manipur and western Myanmar can be considered in 'transition'-as territories being recalibrated by political dynamics emanating elsewhere yet becoming connected through shared needs. Third, patients and samples move through territories controlled by paramilitary forces, underground groups, and different tribal councils. Routes are sometimes blocked or passage treacherous, testing the limits of conventional notions of bilateral border governance. Finally, cross-border medical connections between Manipur and Myanmar draw attention to the risky cross-border medical mobility of the poor. Rather than seeking to minimize cost, patients utilize Manipur's health infrastructure out of necessity, providing insights into the contours of cross-border medical care in times of transition

Business · Corporate governance · Economic growth · Geography · Health care · Medical care · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Medicine · Nursing · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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