How do political opposition groups in Myanmar and Thailand use popular culture and art to generate legitimacy for their political causes and propagate their messages?
Marte Nilsen has received funding from the Research Council of Norway for the four year project Pop Culture, Art, and Indigenous Ideas of Legitimacy in Struggles over Democratization and Peace (POPAGANDA).
The project team seeks to discover how these political opposition groups and their supporters among artists reinvent narratives rooted in ancient belief systems and cosmologies to produce political legitimacy in contemporary struggles over democratization and peace. The project team aims to reveal how these groups use popular culture and art to contest the legitimacy of the state and how this practice of contestation affects political processes.
This research is essential for the understanding of how and why countries that are undergoing transitions from autocracy to a more democratic system fail to solve internal political and violent conflicts.
Congratulations to Marte and her team members, including Øystein H. Rolandsen (PRIO), Titipol Phakdeewanich (Ubon Ratchathani University, Thailand) and Moon Awng Dashi (Naushawng Development Institute, Myanmar).
More information and a project page will be posted soon.
