The Prison and the Revolution in Myanmar: Exploring Prison Protests During a Revolutionary Situation

Abstract

What role do prison protests play in revolutions? This article examines the prison protests that have occurred since the military coup, situating them as integral and instructive elements of an unfolding revolutionary situation. The analysis explores the character and significance of such protests at a moment of fierce and violent political contestation. It documents and contextualises them and develops an argument about their contemporary significance informed by the academic literature on prisons and revolution and prisons and protest. The article shows how the prison today is a revolutionary battlefront characterised by the activation and vulnerability of prisoners’ bodies, the interrelation between collective and individual actions and consequences, and the connection between events outside and inside the prison. Today’s protests resonate evocatively with those of the past. They are sometimes a deliberate intervention in bigger struggles and sometimes a response to the everyday and immediate provocation of inhumane conditions. Whatever the range of forms, patterns, drivers, and triggers of prison protests, the most common response from the authorities is violence, often with deadly effects.