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Arms Politics
Becoming and Being a Weapon in the Borderlands of Myanmar
Francesco Buscemi (Author)
9781501781735
Hardback, published 15 August 2025
312 pages, 17 b&w halftones, 3 maps - 17 Halftones, black and white - 3 Maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.907 kg
In Arms Politics, Francesco Buscemi tells the story of the ceasefire, disarmament, and rearmament of the Ta'ang movement in Myanmar's Shan State through an analysis of the formation of the Palaung State Liberation Front/Ta'ang National Liberation Army (PSLF/TNLA). With a focus on the circulation of weapons through the post-1991 ceasefire, disarmament, and rearmament years, Buscemi explores how "becoming and being" an armed force leads to the "becoming and being" of a rebel polity. Buscemi argues that the governance of arms and weaponry by rebel movements such as the PSLF/TNLA shapes historically and spatially complex relationships among leadership, rank-and-file, civilians, and civil society groups. Furthermore, he demonstrates that it is through the acquisition of weapons and the governing of armed collectives that rebel movements reproduce and shape the collective identity of their polity and its political geography. Against the backdrop of the world's longest ongoing armed conflict, Arms Politics shows how the processes and practices of governing weapons shape social and spatial relations of rule at the edges of state authority.
Introduction
Part 1: BLUNT REBEL RULE IN FRONTIER ASSEMBLAGES
1. Frontiers of Violence: Conceptual Bearings
2. Frontier Histories of Weapon Flows
3. Disarming and Rearming Ta'ang Land
4. Territories in Ta'ang Land
Part 2: WEAPONSCAPES
5. Networks (Weapon Biographies)
6. Scales
7. Places
Epilogue