Drugs and extractivism: opium cultivation and drug use in the Myanmar-China borderlands

Meehan, Patrick; Dan, Seng Lawn

Abstract

This paper explores the intersections between two phenomena that have shaped eastern Kachin State in Myanmar’s northern borderlands with China since the late 1980s: the transformation of once-remote spaces into resource frontiers shaped by overlapping and cumulative forms of export-oriented resource extraction, and the upsurge of opium cultivation and drug use. Through the analytic of extractivism, we examine how the modalities surrounding logging and plantations in the Myanmar-China borderlands offer critical insights into how drugs have become entrenched in the region’s political economy and the everyday lives of people ‘living with’ the destruction, violence and insecurity wrought by extractive development.

Citation

Meehan, P., & Dan, S. L. (2024). Drugs and extractivism: opium cultivation and drug use in the Myanmar-China borderlands. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 51(4), 922-959. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2023.2271403

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 11, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Nov 7, 2023
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 20, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 20, 2023
• Print ISSN: 0306-6150
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-9361
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 922-959
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2023.2271403
• Keywords: Extractivism; Myanmar;drugs; opium; frontiers;borderlands; Kachin State
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2023.2271403