Apartheid City: Mass segregation and citizenship in Sittwe, Myanmar

My research in the city of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State in Myanmar.
Prior to 2012, the population of Sittwe was approximately 150,000 people, about half of whom were Rohingya. Following episodes of mass violence, primarily in 2012 and 2017, approximately 4,000 Rohingya remain in the city with the rest confined either in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps or forcibly displaced to neighboring countries. While the Rohingya in Myanmar have faced a long history of discriminatory policies including the stripping away of formal citizenship rights, in 2012, the government instituted a formal policy of segregation of Rohingya from the majority Rakhine Buddhist community under the pretext of deescalating inter-communal tension and violence. While elements of this policy including the denial of legal status to the Rohingya, restrictions on their freedom of movement, and limited access to socio-economic rights including healthcare and education have understandably been highlighted, the spatial and political-economy dimensions underpinning the segregation policy have not been fully understood.
To elucidate a critical facet, the policy of segregation in Sittwe was reinforced in the backdrop of two key inter-linked developments. First, since the liberalization of the Myanmar economy and sweeping changes in land laws in 2010, the Government of Myanmar has projected Sittwe as an international investment destination. For example, the city has attracted significant investments from the Government of India in the development of the port of Sittwe and a waterfront revitalization project funded by South Korean private capital. Second, prior to the episodes of mass violence, the increase in land and property values as a result of speculative foreign investment in the city exacerbated historical contestations over land and property between the Rakhine Buddhist and Rohingya communities. Post the spatial confinement of Rohingya communities in IDP camps, a speculative market emerged in the secondary occupation and sale of their homes and property, often encouraged by the government and the military. I argue that the creation of such exclusionary regimes of land and property rights must be necessarily viewed in the backdrop of the global financialization of land, housing, and property markets.
My research will aim to uncover the racialized role of land and property markets in the segregation and loss of urban citizenship of Rohingya communities in Sittwe. Specifically, I will aim to explain how changing regimes of property and land rights in Myanmar mediated and often, ossified the policy of segregation of the Rohingya community. Furthermore, my research will explore how the creation of exclusionary regimes of property enables the state to further erode the substantive citizenship rights of the Rohingya. Finally, I hope to understand how the community is contesting, negotiating, and navigating the loss of both property and citizenship.