I am an associate professor in the Department of Political & Social Change at the Australian National University, where I direct the Myanmar Research Centre and co-convene the Interpretation, Method & Critique network
Workshop: Interpretive methods @ APSA (Apply by October 3)
roles
Associate professor, Department of Political & Social Change, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University; director, ANU Myanmar Research Centre (မြန်မာ့ရေးရာသုတေသနဌာန); co-convenor, Interpretation, Method, Critique network (ANU) & Interpretive Methods Research Group (Australian Political Studies Assoc.); EC member, Interpretive Methodologies & Methods (American Political Science Assoc.); editor, ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series (NUS Press); host, New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science & sometimes contributor, Southeast Asian Studies; working group member, ANU Governance Project
Are you a member of the Australian Political Studies Association? If so please join the IMRG by clicking the JOIN A SPECIALIST GROUP button here.
books
Myanmar: A Political Lexicon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2023 [Pre-publication Open Access manuscript available here]
Opposing the Rule of Law: How Myanmar's Courts Make Law and Order, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015 [Symposia in Asian Journal of Law and Society 5, 2 (2018) 485-498; with Terence Halliday, Lynette Chua and Sida Liu; and Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 9, 1 (2017) 29-44 with Martin Krygier, Sally Engle Merry, Frank Munger, and Jothie Rajah]
articles
‘Interpretation and Political Science in Australia.’ Australian Journal of Political Science 59, 4, (2025) 361-370; with April Biccum [Open access; Introduction to special issue: Doing Interpretive Political Science — in Australia]
‘What’s to Know about Politics? Positivism and Tradition in Australian Undergraduate Programme and Course Descriptions.’ Australian Journal of Political Science 59, 4 (2025) 424-436; with Will Howe [Open access]
‘Revolution and Solidarity in Myanmar.’ Journal of Contemporary Asia 54, 5 (2024) 741-758; with Justine Chambers [Open access; introduction to special issue of same title; summary here]
‘Torture in Thailand at the Limits of Law.’ Law & Social Inquiry 48, 1 (2023) 236-261
‘Law and Order.’ Annual Review of Law and Social Science 18 (2022) 263-281 [Open access]
‘On the Banality of Paperwork and the Brutality of Judicial Bureaucracy in Myanmar.’ History and Anthropology 33, 1 (2022) 165-182 [In special issue on Material Encounters; republished here]
‘Reading Paperwork Realistically.’ Politics, Groups, and Identities 9, 4 (2021) 835-840 [In special section on Misunderstanding Ethnography]
‘Routine Impunity as Practice (in Myanmar).’ Human Rights Quarterly 41, 4 (2019) 873-892
'Coming to Terms with Moral Authorities in Myanmar', Sojourn 34, 2 (2019) 231-257; with Justine Chambers
'Martin Krygier's Passion for the Rule of Law (and His Virtues)', Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 11, 2-3 (2019) 255-276; with Ronald Janse [Open access; introduction to special issue of the same title]
'Rule-of-Law Ethnography', Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (20188) 167-184
'How in Myanmar "National Races" Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya', Journal of Contemporary Asia 47, 3 (2017) 461-483 [Republished here; summary here]
'Interpreting Communal Violence in Myanmar', Journal of Contemporary Asia 47, 3 (2017) 335-352 [Open access; introduction to special issue of same title; republished here]
'Reading Hobbes's Sovereign into a Burmese Narrative of Police Torture', Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law 17, 2 (2016) 199-211 [In special section on torture after 9/11 coedited with Cynthia Banham]
'Rule-of-Law Lineages in Colonial and Early Post-colonial Burma', Modern Asian Studies 50, 2 (2016) 564-601
'Anticipating the Struggle against Everyday Impunity in Myanmar through Accounts from Bangladesh and Thailand', Asia & The Pacific Policy Studies, 3, 1 (2016) 48-61; with Bina D’Costa and Tyrell Haberkorn [Open access]
'That Signifier of Desire, the Rule of Law', Social Research, 82, 2 (2015) 267-290
'What Does the Rule of Law Have to Do with Democratization (in Myanmar)?' South East Asia Research, 22, 2 (2014) 213-232
'Not Just Defending; Advocating for Law in Myanmar', Wisconsin International Law Journal, 31, 3 (2014) 702-733; with Kyaw Min San
'Law and Order as Asymmetrical Opposite to the Rule of Law', Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 6, 1 (2014) 96-114
'How an Authoritarian Regime in Burma Used Special Courts to Defeat Judicial Independence', Law and Society Review, 45, 4 (2011) 801-830
'Thin Rule of Law or Un-Rule of Law in Myanmar?' Pacific Affairs, 82, 4 (2009) 597-613
'School, State and Sangha in Burma', Comparative Education 39, 1 (2003) 45-63
'Seeing Karen in the Union of Myanmar', Asian Ethnicity 3, 2 (2002) 199-220
chapters
‘How Intermediaries Broker the Rule of Law Transnationally’, in Sevel, M (ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Rule of Law, Routledge, London, 2024, pp. 179-194; with Kristina Simion
‘Land and Law between Reform and Revolution’, in Simpson, A & Farrelly, N (eds), Myanmar: Politics, Economy and Society, 2nd ed., Routledge, London, 2023, pp. 60-74; with Dorothy Mason
‘Political Lawyers and the Legal Occupation in Myanmar,’ in Whalen-Bridge, H (ed.) The Role of Lawyers in Access to Justice: Asian and Comparative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022, pp. 124-144; with Alice Dawkins
‘An Experiment with the Island Detention of Public Enemies in Postcolonial Burma’, in Cribb, R, Twomey, C & Wilson, S (eds), Detention Camps in Asia, Brill, Leiden, 2022, pp. 63-81
‘Unbound Comparison’, in Smith, N & Simmons, E (eds), Rethinking Comparison, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2021, pp. 64-83
‘Police Torture: A Case for Interdisciplinarity’, in Talesh, S, Mertz, E & Klug, H (eds), Research Handbook on Modern Legal Realism, Edward Elgar, 2021, pp.112-123
'Law, Lawyers and Legal Institutions', in Simpson, A & Farrelly, N (eds), Myanmar: Politics, Economy and Society, 1st ed., Routledge, London, 2020, pp. 44-58; with Mish Khan
'Why Asian Legal Institutions Fail to Protect the Rights of the Vulnerable', in De Varennes, F & Gardiner, C (eds), Routledge Handbook of Human Rights in Asia, Routledge, New York, 2019, pp. 16-29; with Basil Fernando
'Pragmatic Critique of Torture, in Sri Lanka', in Fassin, D & Harcourt, B (eds), A Time for Critique, Columbia University Press, New York, 2019, pp. 193-209
'Las cuatro décadas de lucha interna en Birmania' (Burma's four decades of struggle within), in Iacobelli, P, Cribb, R & Perrelló J (eds), Asia y el Pacífico durante la Guerra Fría (Asia and the Pacific during the Cold War), Fondo de Cultura Economica, Santiago, 2017, pp. 209-222
'Myanmar and the promise of the political', in Cheesman, N & Farrelly, F (eds), Conflict in Myanmar: War, Politics, Religion, ISEAS, Singapore, 2016, pp. 353-366
'The Right to Have Rights' / အခွင့်အရေး ရပိုင်ခွင့် in Cheesman N & Htoo Kyaw Win (eds), Communal Violence in Myanmar / မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ လူမျိုးရေးဘာသာရေးပဋိပက္ခ Myanmar Knowledge Society, Yangon (2015) 139-164
'Bodies on the Line in Burma's Law Reports, 1892-1922', in Crouch, M & Lindsey (eds), Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar, Hart, Oxford, 2014, pp. 77-94
'A Short Research Guide to Myanmar's Legal System', in Crouch, M & Lindsey, T (eds), Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar, Hart, Oxford, pp. 21-32; with Melissa Crouch
'Democratization, Violence, and Myanmar', in Cheesman, N, Farrelly, N & Wilson T (eds), Debating Democratization in Myanmar, ISEAS, Singapore, 2014, pp. 331-349
'Myanmar's Courts and the Sounds Money Makes', in Cheesman, N, Skidmore, M & Wilson, T (eds), Myanmar's Transition: Openings, Obstacles and Opportunities, ISEAS, Singapore, 2012, pp. 231-248
'The Incongruous Return of Habeas Corpus to Myanmar', in Cheesman, N, Skidmore, M & Wilson, T (eds), Ruling Myanmar: From Cyclone Nargis to National Elections, ISEAS, Singapore, 2010, pp. 90-111
reviews
‘Armenia, Gaza, and the Trouble of Political Trial’ (review essay of Ertür, Spectacles and Specters) in Law and Social Inquiry (2025), https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2025.23.
‘Cyborgs, Torturers, and the Making of Forensic Psychological Knowledge’ (review essay of Lokaneeta, The Truth Machines), in Law and Social Inquiry (2022) 47, 2, pp. 714-719.
Short reviews of Schatz, Slow Anti-Americanism, in Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2023); Bertrand, Pelletier & Thawnghmung, Winning by Process, in South East Asia Research (2023); Celermajer, The Prevention of Torture, in Law and Society Review (2021); Camacho, Sacred Men, in Journal of Pacific History (2021); Chua, The Politics of Love in Myanmar, in Asian Journal of Law and Society (2020); David & Holliday, Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar, in Asian Journal of Law and Society (2020); Schonthal, Buddhism, Politics, and the Limits of Law, in Law and Society Review (2017); Horsey, Ending Forced Labour in Myanmar, in South East Asia Research (2013); Davis & Galligan, Human Rights in Asia, in Journal of Contemporary Asia, (2012); Harding & Nicholson, New Courts in Asia, in Asian Journal of Criminology (2011); and, Evans, Hutton & Kuah Khun Eng (eds), Where China Meets Southeast Asia, in Asian Ethnicity (2003).
essays
‘Has Meritocracy Gotten the Better of Our Universities?’ ABC Religion & Ethics, September 15, 2025
‘Becoming James C. Scott’, APSA Comparative Politics 37, 2 (2025) 43-46
‘Where the People Are’, Arena Quarterly 14 (2023) 68-75
‘What Constitutes Torture?’ ABC Religion & Ethics, September 6, 2021 [Discussed on ABC Radio National, The Minefield]
‘State Terror and Torture’, ABC Religion & Ethics, July 23, 2021
‘Myanmar’s Theatre of Violence’, ABC Religion & Ethics, June 14, 2021 [Discussed on The Minefield]
‘Revolution in Myanmar’, Arena Quarterly 8 (2021) 60-65
‘Post-legalism and the Fear of Politics’, ABC Religion & Ethics, February 9, 2021
‘George Floyd Was Not Just Killed — He Was Tortured’, ABC Religion & Ethics, June 24, 2020
papers
Myanmar, Law and Order, the Moon and Me, presented at London School of Economics, June 6, 2019
Theorizing about Torture, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science, Occasional Paper No. 59, 2017
dissertations
The Politics of Law and Order in Myanmar, Australian National University, 2012
Legitimising the Union of Myanmar through Primary School Textbooks, University of Western Australia, 2002
instruction (current)
Meaning in politics (undergraduate) & Interpretation, method, critique (graduate) (both with April Biccum); Human rights in Asia; & Colonialism & the rule of law (with Desmond Manderson)
Syllabi available here; other syllabi in interpretive methodologies and methods are here
supervision (current)
Primary supervisor (PhD): Samuel Hmung, Polina Polianskaja; committee member (PhD): Dinith Adikari, William Howe, Easwar Anand Thampi; MPolSci supervisor: Tenzin Mayne; Undergraduate honours supervisor: Audrey Lusk, Luke Manning
supervision (completed)
Primary supervisor (PhD): Heba Al Adawy; committee member (PhD): Ray Yen, Matthew Venker, Sirichinda Thongchinda, Eve Warburton, Ana Alonso, Wong Kai Shing, Gerard McCarthy, Kristina Simion, Chit Win, Jacqueline Menager, Tamas Wells; MPolSci/MSecStuds supervisor: Samuel Hmung (2020), “The power-sharing dilemma in Myanmar”; Tushira Wickramariyaratne (2016), “Does forced migration by the Rohingya from Myanmar pose a security threat to the Asia-Pacific region?”; Undergraduate honours supervisor: Emma Crocker (2024), “Out of harm’s way: How Australian music venues and DIY events make safe spaces”; Tanika Sibal (2021), “Marital rape in India: Why is it not wrong?”; Oliver Friedmann (2020), “Apprehending transfer: A study of the Australian–Sri Lankan response to Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals”; Catherine Yen (2018), “Redundant repression: Experiences of political surveillance under Thailand’s National Council for Peace and Order”, Alice Dawkins (2017), “Nevertheless, they persisted: Myanmar’s political lawyers”
visiting positions
Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2022-23; Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, & Ritsumeikan University, 2019-20; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton & American Bar Foundation, Chicago, 2016-17
recognition
Distinguished Book Award, Asian Law & Society Association, 2017; Discovery Early Career Research Award, Australian Research Council, 2015; President’s Prize, Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2013; JG Crawford Prize, the Australian National University, 2013; FG Bradshaw Prize, University of Western Australia, 2002