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@article{ Jaehn2023, title = {Coup, Conflict, and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Burmese Peoples Moving in Times of Isolation}, author = {Jaehn, Miriam}, journal = {Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research}, number = {1}, pages = {63-78}, volume = {16}, year = {2023}, issn = {2791-531X}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0090}, abstract = {This paper focuses on the political crises shaping Burmese' peoples' im-mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. As governments around the world urged people to stay at home to be protected from infection and transmission, throughout 2021 many Burmese people protested the military coup of 1 February and fled Myanmar for safety. I problematize these movements of the Burmese peoples through the complex interplay between the triple C of (ethnic) conflict, COVID-19, and coup. I contend that, in Myanmar, adhering to COVID-19 measures emphasizing (self-)isolation and immobility was impossible as they served the military to suppress peoples’ critique and protests regarding the government's coup and its mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, Burmese peoples' physical movements and political mobilisation were necessitated to fight against an ensuing political disempowerment of the people. In other words, the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic in correlation with long-standing 'ethnic' conflicts and a military coup required the Burmese peoples to carefully contest an internationally propagated so-called 'new norm' of self-isolation at home and other social distancing measures, which bore the risk of suppression and of renewing political isolation experienced since the country’s first military government.}, keywords = {Konflikt; conflict; Militär; military; Staatsstreich; coup d'etat; politische Bewegung; political movement; Myanmar; Myanmar; ethnischer Konflikt; ethnic conflict; Epidemie; epidemic; Unterdrückung; oppression; soziale Isolation; social isolation}}