Margin to mainstream, periphery to center: Geopolitics and the anthropology of Burma and the Silk Roads

Once one of the most remote and forgotten regions in the world, the rugged upland of Myanmar, between China and India, is moving from periphery to center. Both resource rich and strategically critical, this mountainous area bordering five countries plays a role of heightened geopolitical significance with the opening up of Myanmar, the rise of China, and India’s attempt to ‘Act East.’ As a way to explore the Silk Road Ethos, by decolonizing the global order and understanding local contexts (Ling and Perrigoue, 2018), this article focuses on the upland region of Myanmar where the southern land routes of the old Silk Roads pass. The relatively unknown routes are now being revived, as the China-led ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) strategy gains momentum. Building on classic descriptions of the anthropological context for the region’s resistance against and accommodation with the economic and political claims of the continental states whose ‘roads’ traverse it, the article will explore new ways to think about the upland as it undergoes a transformation that places it at the heart of the rise of a new Asia