Shows / Insight Myanmar
Insight Myanmar
Insight Myanmar is a beacon for those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics of Myanmar. With a commitment to uncovering truth and fostering understanding, the podcast brings together activists, artists, leaders, monastics, and authors to share their first-hand experiences and insights. Each episode delves deep into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of the Burmese people, offering listeners a comprehensive, on-the-ground perspective of the nation's quest for democracy and freedom. And…
Episodes
- Insight Myanmar
Behind the Firewall
Episode #573: “I brought you here to the United States not so you could forget our homeland,” Salih Hudayar remembers his father telling him, “but so you could…
- Insight Myanmar
Let Them Eat Cake
Episode #572: “The government will survive for as long as it can feed the people,” says Christopher Lamb, former Australian Ambassador to Myanmar, distilling…
- Insight Myanmar
Class Dismissed
Episode #571: “For students living through uncertainty, I think online learning and online education becomes a lifeline rather than simply an alternative.”…
- Insight Myanmar
Sacred Grounds Contested
Episode #570: The AAS Conference in Vancouver brought together thousands of scholars and practitioners from around the world, creating a dense, fast-moving…
- Insight Myanmar
No Safe Shelter
Episode #569: When Hla Hla Win was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison at age twenty-three, she did not focus on the number. “I decided that in politics…
- Insight Myanmar
Lesson Learned
Episode #568: “I think a world where people partner and support each other is the world I want my kids to grow up in,” says Greg Tyrosvoutis, co-founder and…
- Insight Myanmar
A State of Being
Episode #567: Stella Naw, a Kachin academic activist focused on indigenous and decolonial peacebuilding, is joined by Dustin Barter, a senior research fellow…
- Insight Myanmar
At the Dhamma Hinge
Episode #566: Daniel M. Stuart, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina and a visiting scholar in Hamburg, examines the…
- Insight Myanmar
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Episode #565: In Anyar, or the central Dry Zone, community protection is by necessity locally led and informed by facts on the ground. In a huge area…
- Insight Myanmar
Before the Union
Episode #564: “We want to make federalism not just as a slogan, but also as an action. We want to turn it into action!” Neineh Plo is secretary to the…
- Insight Myanmar
What Dreams May Come
Episode #563: As president of the CCDK (Chin Community in Denmark), a non-profit organization established in 2003 by refugees from Myanmar, Van Neih Thang…
- Insight Myanmar
The Valley of Samādhi
Episode #562: “I thought there was something, but I didn't know there was a way to get there.” That sense of longing has shaped Eion Meades’s spiritual life…
- Insight Myanmar
Limits of Leadership
Episode #561: The third episode in a three part series, this was recorded inside Malaysia’s Parliament during the final stretch of Malaysia’s ASEAN…
- Insight Myanmar
The Day the Music Died
Episode #560: “We have to get rid of this military dictatorship. Otherwise the whole country and the coming generations will be in a really troubled…
- Insight Myanmar
Comrades in Arms
Episode #559: “Comrade,” Renata says, when asked how she would like to be remembered. A member of the People’s Defense Force and a former political prisoner…
- Insight Myanmar
Life is Meditation
Episode #558: “I've always had a certain resistance to the over-institutionalization of anything,” says renowned meditation teacher Delson Armstrong, who…
- Insight Myanmar
The Revolution Will Be Televised
Episode #557: Born in Yangon, Aung Tun grew up listening to foreign news broadcasts, which provided an uncensored view of a world beyond Myanmar’s military…
- Insight Myanmar
The Back of the Cave
Episode #556: “I just find it so interesting that the Buddha actually talked about discussion as being a really important part of our Dhamma journey,” says…
- Insight Myanmar
The Body Politic
Episode #555: Note: this podcast episode includes frank anatomical language and extended discussion of women’s bodies, including terms for female genitalia, in…
- Insight Myanmar
Changing Course
Episode #554: Bruce Stewart, an early Western student and teacher in the S.N. Goenka Vipassana tradition, reflects on a lifelong search for spiritual meaning…
- Insight Myanmar
When the War Comes Home
Episode #553: Naw Moo Moo Paw grew up in a Karen village near Bago where conflict and landmines were part of everyday life. “I have seen a lot of people…
- Insight Myanmar
Burden of Rule
Episode #552: Mon Mon Myat, a journalist, filmmaker, and peace scholar, frames Myanmar’s political struggle as a long contest over power, moral discipline, and…
- Insight Myanmar
Built From Scrap
Episode #551: Fred Stockwell arrived in Mae Sot by accident more than twenty years ago while traveling through Thailand to photograph temples, a wrong bus…
- Insight Myanmar
Practice Outside the Lines
Episode #550: “There was something inside of me that was calling me,” says Jerry Roy, a long-time Vipassana meditator and early student in the Goenka…
- Insight Myanmar
The Architecture Of Exclusion
Episode #549: Mohammad Siraj, a Rohingya researcher, political analyst, educator, and aspiring legal scholar living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, studies…
- Insight Myanmar
An Officer and a Gentleman
Episode #548: Sunda Khin shares a remarkable family journey through contemporary Burmese history. She starts with her father, U Chan Htoon, who suggested that…
- Insight Myanmar
No Man’s Land
Episode #547: Scott Leckie, an international human rights lawyer, and Jose Arraiza, a specialist in housing, land, and property rights and citizenship in…
- Insight Myanmar
From the Other Shore
Episode #546: Recorded in Kuala Lumpur during Malaysia’s final stretch as ASEAN chair, this is the second episode in a three part series which looks less at…
- Insight Myanmar
The Long Fuse
Episode #545: The promise of justice for war crimes in Myanmar is far from perfect, says Dr. Stuart Casey-Maslen, a leading legal expert on disarmament and…
- Insight Myanmar
Acts of Translation
Episode #544: May Shine, a recent graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs, approaches policy work from the position of someone shaped by…
- Insight Myanmar
Through the Interregnum
Episode #543: “We believe in dialogs among people of different backgrounds,” says Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, a Thai professor at Chiang Mai University and director…
- Insight Myanmar
The Path Awakens
Episode #542: Max Ante, a former deeply committed practitioner of the Goenka Vipassana tradition, describes a spiritual journey shaped by a relentless desire…
- Insight Myanmar
When the Goats Chase the Lions
Episode #541: “There is no such thing as ‘traditional Buddhism.’” For Marte Nilsen, this idea defines her career-long exploration of how faith and power…
- Insight Myanmar
Creative Resistance
Episode #540: This episode marks a different kind of experiment for Insight Myanmar. Instead of following a single guest, we step back and listen across…
- Insight Myanmar
Plowing Ahead
Episode #539: In his analysis of Myanmar's democratic transition, Elliot Prasse-Freeman highlights the failures of a system that was inherently flawed from its…
- Insight Myanmar
Ribbons, Spirits, and Strings
Episode #538: The fifth episode in our five-part series features conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois…
- Insight Myanmar
A Right to Clock In
Episode #537: “Refugees are incredibly remarkable. They're working day-in and day-out to provide for their communities, but they're working under a set of…
- Insight Myanmar
The Fire Next Door
Episode #536: “I never feel that war is this close to me,” Bencharat Chua, a Thai human rights professor and activist, reflects as she explains how decades of…
- Insight Myanmar
Relaxing Into Awakening
Episode #535: “Meditation kind of lost its traditional sense of going really deep to finding Nibbana,” says David Johnson, a longtime practitioner and senior…
- Insight Myanmar
From A Distance
Episode #534: Tracy Bawi Hlei Iang, a Chin activist and co-founder of Myanmar Action Group Denmark, reflects on a life shaped by early family separation…
- Insight Myanmar
Between Two Histories
Episode #533: “Before COVID-19 and before the Myanmar coup, I thought that ‘memory of war’ meant only World War Two inside Myanmar. But after 2021, I realized…
- Insight Myanmar
The Social Contract
Episode #532: “Constitutions need power,” says Henning Glaser, a Bangkok-based lawyer working on constitutional politics in Asia. In his second appearance on…
- Insight Myanmar
Unorthodox Inquiries
Episode #531: “The laws that govern the monks’ organization were written before 1988, during a one-party dictatorship! In the Sangha organization, you cannot…
- Insight Myanmar
Quick on the Draw
Episode #530: “I don't want to live under fear, obeying [the military]. I could survive, but would be in fear, like every movement I would feel I don't have…
- Insight Myanmar
Staying the Course
Episode #529: Daniel Dodd is one of the two center teachers at Dhamma Patapa, a Vipassana meditation center in Georgia in the tradition of S.N. Goenka…
- Insight Myanmar
When The Window Closed
Episode #528: Ola Elvestuen has devoted his political career—and much of his life beyond politics—to tackling the most urgent environmental and societal…
- Insight Myanmar
Forced to Vote
Episode #527: Nay Chi, a senior researcher with the Myanography project, describes Myanmar’s post-coup election as an exercise in coercion rather than public…
- Insight Myanmar
A Rose by Any Other Name
Episode #526: “I actually was anti-Muslim when I was in high school!” recalls Thet Swe Win, describing how he was influenced by nationalist propaganda in his…
- Insight Myanmar
Knocking on Malaysia’s Door
Episode #525: Heidy Quah, founder of Refuge for the Refugees in Kuala Lumpur, describes her work supporting migrants and refugees in Malaysia, particularly…
- Insight Myanmar
The Path in Question
Episode #524: Max Ante’s story begins not with a gradual curiosity, but with a sudden rupture. At twenty, after a series of chance encounters, he found himself…
- Insight Myanmar
A Life In Motion
Episode #523: The fourth episode in our five-part series brings you conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern…
- Insight Myanmar
The Transparency Paradox
Episode #522: “We became interested in understanding how distrust toward official institutions influences the way humanitarian aid actually moves on the…
- Insight Myanmar
Victims of Success
Episode #521: “The weapon itself just cannot tell the difference between a soldier stepping on it, or a kid on the way to school, or your grandma on her way to…
- Insight Myanmar
The Akha Way
Episode #520: “Ancestors are not dead. They’re not the living dead. Rather, they should be best thought of as ‘the always living.’” Dr Micah Morton, a cultural…
- Insight Myanmar
Aniccā with Feeling
Episode #519: Friedgard Lottermoser, a German student of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, describes the unique character of meditation at the International Meditation Center…
- Insight Myanmar
The Leftovers
Episode #518: The story of the KMT irregulars in Burma is a historical anomaly tied to the Chinese Civil War, the Cold War, and Burma’s early independence…
- Insight Myanmar
Enter the Dragon
Episode #517: “They are using each other for their own benefit.” With this line, Wai Yan Phyo Naing frames a sober account of SinoMyanmar relations. A…
- Insight Myanmar
No State, No Service
Episode #516: “I want to be able to center women in their full right and to shine a spotlight on how I think they are very much the heroes of the revolution,”…
- Insight Myanmar
From a Mirrorless Cell
Episode #515: Toru Kubota is a Japanese documentary filmmaker who believes storytelling can foster empathy beyond abstract argument. A political science…
- Insight Myanmar
Tremors
Episode #514: Richmond Heath, an Australian physiotherapist, longtime vipassana meditator and senior trainer in tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)…