Insight Myanmar

Episode #435: “There is a person behind every piece of policy,” says Nandar, a senior digital security expert at DigiSec Lab, reflecting on Myanmar’s transformation into a digital prison since the 2021 military coup. Along with researcher and trainer Vox, journalist and consultant Myat, and political researcher Candle, they discuss how the junta’s technologi...

Episode #434: “I don't see how there could be a new social contract for a post-war, post-conflict Myanmar.” With this stark observation, Henning Glaser sets the tone for his analysis of the country’s turmoil.  Glaser is a German legal scholar based at Thammasat University in Bangkok, where he co-founded the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance. His...

Episode #433: Raul Saldana's journey began in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he grew up in a Catholic household. As a teenager, he questioned the rigidity of Catholicism and turned to nature, finding inspiration in the vastness of the outdoors. Music also became a powerful part of his life, leading him into diverse spiritual practices. In his twenties, Raul joined an ecological community and was intro...

Episode #432: Myanmar researcher Lin Jin Fu investigates the rise of scam compounds that blend human trafficking, digital fraud, and organized crime. His study,  Scam haven: Responding to surging cyber crime and human trafficking in Myanmar,  traces their expansion from Chinese “scam houses” into a transnational industry stretching across Myanmar, Cambo...

Episode #431: “I’m a sniper,” says Maui, deputy commander of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF). He and four top commanders describe being pushed from peaceful protest into armed resistance after the 2021 coup. They say nonviolent methods failed when the military answered with bullets, mass arrests and village burnings, leaving youth to choose between submission or...

Episode #430: Ngu Wah is a Research Fellow at Knowledge Circle Foundation and a PhD candidate at Chiang Mai University focusing on migration and political economy. In this episode, she speaks about the struggles of Burmese migrant workers and the crucial role of remittances in Myanmar’s economy, shaping the vision she has for her country’s future.  She explains that Myanmar remains ...

Episode #429: Emmanuel Flores' journey into meditation began at the age of nine in Rio de Janeiro, seated before a candle. His formative years were marked by a quest for positivity, but without a solid practice. This changed at 20, when a friend's recommendation led him to a vipassana meditation course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka.  This course was transformative, ...

Episode #428: This panel gathers five voices from Myanmar’s unraveling present—specialists in food, economy, energy, education, and digital life—who together trace the anatomy of a country still fighting to exist. Their stories intertwine across fields once filled with promise, now marked by loss, adaptation, and the quiet persistence of rebuilding.  Thin Lei Win , a journalist and food syste...

Episode #427: Daniel M. Stuart describes his newest work,  Insight in Perspective,  as the product of decades of scholarship and meditative practice, aimed at practitioners and academics alike. The book, a follow-up to his earlier  Emissary of Insight , examines the historical and cultural formation of the S. N. Goenka Vipassana lineage. He says it began as a short academic cri...

Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict. As people return to their homes, landmines placed by the military pose a multi-layered threat, causing injuries and deaths, creating a climate of fear for people on their own land, and making normal...

Episode #425: Dr. Lalita Hanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I’m morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, summing up a lifetime of scholarship and advocacy that spans from the archives of colonial Burma to the war-torn Thai-Myanmar border. “I just want to talk to everybody.”  Trained a...

Episode #424: This episode opens the first of a three-part Insight Myanmar Podcast series recorded at the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University. The gathering brought together scholars, activists, and cultural workers exploring how colonial legacies continue to shape scholarship, storytelling, and identity in the region. In this opening episode, we hear from Jule...

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a sh...

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing, and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity, and gender identity. But on the other side of the coin, there can also be imprisonment there.” So says Bhante Sumano, an African-American monk at Empty Cloud Monastery. This is the 6th ep...

Episode #421: Saijai Liangpunsakul, whose first name means “the link between two hearts,” speaks of her journey through the turbulent conflict of Myanmar, and how the kindness and resilience of the Myanmar people continue to inspire her. Now a recognized expert on digital trauma and rights, she has come a long way from her small southern Thailand village. She travelled to Costa Rica on her own at...

Episode #420: “This is this shit is real. This is not a dream. This is real.”   Burmese actor and public figure Khar Ra recounts a path that runs from Mogok to Yangon, into entertainment, and then—after the 2021 coup—into public dissent, displacement, and ongoing advocacy.  He grew up on Mogok’s west side. Money was tight; his father died from alco...

Episode #419: “I’m just doing what is right, what is wrong, what’s the matter? What should I do as a human being?” After medical school, instead of choosing comfort, Dr. Myay Latt went to the Naga Self-Administered Zone — a place with no roads or electricity, where he was often the first doctor anyone had seen. He built bamboo clinics, trained villagers, and surv...

Episode #418: Lorraine Pan is a 21-year-old queer, autistic, immigrant from China who now studies Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (note that Pan’s preferred pronouns are they/their/them). Growing up in a small town, Pan felt alienated in a conservative school system that stigmatized neurodivergence. Their politicization began in high school during the Hong Kong protests of 20...

This bonus episode features the recording of a special online meditation fundraiser hosted by Better Burma in partnership with Vipassana Hawaii. The event combined meditation, reflection, and stories from the ground in Myanmar, highlighting how monasteries and nunneries have become lifelines—providing shelter, food, and education for displaced families amid crisis. Mora, who leads our monastic sup...

Episode #417: “There has been a massive lay critique of leading Buddhist monks that have been seen as pro-military… but to conclude that monks are either silent or pro-military is too hasty! What we actually see is polarization and division within the Saṅgha,” says Iselin Frydenlund, a professor of religion in Norway who has spent decades studying Buddhism and politics in Sri L...

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in Bangkok sparked Nic Dunlop’s enduring interest in the country. His initial ignorance of the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar’s military regime, focus...

Episode #415: U Jāgara's spiritual journey is a fascinating exploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him on a path that would span traditions and continents. His spiritual journey was initially shaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued...

Episode #414: “They just didn't believe me at first. So I had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao Yar Yar captures his struggle for recognition— a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar’s revolution.  When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao Yar Yar knew the generals we...

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok’s protests has made her one of the country’s most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle.  Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand’s Isaan region, a place long t...

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.” Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have...