Making ‘Kinds of People’: Subject Formation through Nationalism and Activism
Ei Thin Zar
Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Nation-building projects produce and reproduce the kind of citizens that the nation desires in a double gesture of hope and fear: with the hope to hold the responsibility and obligation to make government possible and with the fear of difference and dangerous populations that would prevent its ability to govern. While nation-building projects of the state create certain “kinds of people” that the state requires, activism opens up spaces of resistance to create conditions for social change and make social action possible. Activism is a space of action, where social movements can be formed, in which judgments are made, types of objects are recognized and conclusions are drawn in the present as an effect of an anticipated future. Thus, it creates a curriculum in action along the path of forming new subjectivities.
Ei Thin Zar is a Ph.D. candidate (expected to graduate in May 2024) in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research investigates the consequences of exclusionary ethnic nationalism by examining historical and contemporary approaches to language in educational practices in Burma. She is also the founder of the People’s Radio Myanmar, which is an independent community radio station born out of the Revolution — “a unique initiative to promote non-violent multi-ethnic discourse using radio as a medium across conflict-stricken Myanmar.” Its vision is “to bring youth from different ethnic areas together to promote non-violent social change free from political influence.” She is also the founder and director of Yone-Htwat-Soh-Mon, a Community-Based Organization focusing on teacher education, mental health education, and providing humanitarian aid for teachers who join the Civil Disobedience Movement in the Mon and Karen states of Burma. She is a junior academic visitor at St. John’s College and the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a research fellow at the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development at Chiang Mai University. As a research fellow, she conducted research on refugee education, women and girls in conflict areas, ethnic education, and social cohesion. She is also a consultant in the Curriculum sector of the Karen Education and Culture Department, Karen State, Burma. Before she joined the Ph.D. program at UW-Madison, she was selected to teach Burmese there as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant for one year in 2016-2017. She graduated with her M.A. in English Language Teaching program at Assumption University in Thailand. After her M.A. degree, she worked as a curriculum consultant at International Organization for Migration and Thabyay Education Foundation to develop localized and contextualized English language textbooks and vocational training textbooks. As soon as she finished her B.A degree in English at Mawlamyine University and prior to continuing her M.A., she established a boarding school for 10 years in Mawlamyine, Myanmar/Burma.
This event is free and open to the public. A recording will be available on the CSEAS YouTube channel following the event.