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A Review Of 'Spaces Of Solidarity: Karen Identity In The Thai-Burma Borderlands' By Rachel Sharples, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

In 1949, civil war broke out in the newly independent country then known as Burma, and now known as Myanmar. The war, which continues to this day, pits the central government (made up mostly of Burmans) against dozens of ethnic minority insurgent groups. One of the largest and most militarily successful of these ethnic insurgent groups is the Karen National Liberation Army, which contests the state army in southeastern Burma/Myanmar in areas of Karen State abutting the border with Thailand. The conflict has created tremendous hardship for civilians in the area, who speak mutually unintelligible Karennic languages and who variously …