Communal Geographies and Peasant Insurgency in Colonial Myanmar

This article makes two arguments, one theoretical and the other empirical. The first is that Ranajit Guha’s classic text Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India contains generative but overlooked spatial concepts for uncovering communal geographies. The second is that the Hsaya San peasant rebellion that rocked British authority in Myanmar from late 1930 until 1932 fostered a new communal geography. These two arguments come together through my elaboration and utilisation of Guha’s ideas to interpret rebel violence against Chin villages