Chapter 1: Everyday Prison Governance in Myanmar

This chapter situates our study of the organisation and regulation of prison life in Myanmar. With broad brush strokes, we introduce the country context and describe the pre-colonial and colonial history of Myanmar prisons. We unpack and justify the book’s core analytic themes, describing how we will answer questions about how authority is distributed and enacted within prisons; how power is embodied and embedded in mundane social and institutional relations; and how historical relations of penal duress endure (even) under conditions of socio-political transformation. Further, we introduce how our interview-based account of the organisation, regulation and experience of prison life during the (now terminated) transition from overt military rule to disciplined democracy provides crucial insight into the current situation of thousands of people from all walks of life imprisoned since the military coup in February 2021.