Negotiating the State: Communities and Social Order in Conflict

The aim of my research is to investigate how governance transpires in spaces of institutional and political multiplicity, and the agency civilians use to influence it through answering the question: how do communities create and adapt social orders in conflict? The objectives are to map everyday interactions and negotiations between civilians and figures of authority in areas of contested authority, and to identify how different forms of capital are employed to change practices of governance.

I focus on institutional and political multiplicity in nonstate spaces, defined as areas in which multiple claims to governance exist and where actors other than the state—including nonstate armed groups, criminal actors, and other figures of authority (e.g. clergy, elders)—engage in the provision of basic services. I have chosen a comparative case study to explore this topic. Based on a most-different design, I selected Myanmar and Afghanistan, two countries where the culture, language, demographics, and dynamics of conflict and governance are dramatically different. Both countries contain large territories where the authority of the state is contested by a diversity of nonstate actors. My fieldwork takes place in eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan, and in north and eastern Myanmar along the borders of China and Laos.