Frontier and Territorialization: Reconfiguring Land Relations at the Dynamic Edge of Power in Southeast Myanmar
Publisher: Journal of Political Ecology
Author(s): Saw Yan Naing
Date: 2026
Topics: Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Governance, Land
Countries: Myanmar
This article examines how land relations are reconfigured in Klerlweehtu District (KNU-administered territory) in Bago Region, Myanmar, where Karen communities face episodic ruptures amid armed conflicts between the State Administration Council (SAC) and Karen National Union (KNU) or People's Defense Force (PDF). The authors extend Rasmussen and Lund's (2018) framework on the co-constitutive relationship between frontiers and territorialization to examine the long-standing territorial contestations driven by competing claims to political sovereignty. During the counter-insurgency campaigns of the 1990s and 2000s, the Myanmar military forcibly relocated Karen villages, creating "frontier moments" that suspended existing land relations, access to resources, and customary practices. Based on fieldwork in Htee Hee village (March-April 2023), we demonstrate how competing armed territorializations create "cyclical frontier dynamics" as governance systems are repeatedly suspended and reimposed as authority changes. Using a political ecology lens highlights how decades of territorial contestation have fundamentally transformed community-environment relations, disrupting agricultural practices and eroding ecosystems that sustained Karen livelihoods. In response, Karen communities actively navigate these recurring dynamics by crafting new forms of territorial control and reestablishing their land rights, access, and socio-ecological relationships amid state-insurgent contestation.