Abstract
Digital platforms have changed how property is sold and valued in the Global North, yet little is known about digital tools in emerging land markets. Drawing on in situ and digital ethnography, we argue that Facebook plays a key role in making a new kind of market in Myanmar, one in which land is transformed into a speculative asset, exchanged across ever-expanding networks. While commodification is familiar within longer histories of capitalism, this case highlights the significance of digital platforms to the contemporary remaking of property relations. Unlike classic cases of market-making enabled by active state regulation, Myanmar’s digital land markets were forged in the context of state absence by brokers who harnessed the technological affordances of social media to increase the scale, scope and speed of transactions. This creative re-appropriation of the platform forged new, unregulated digital markets that ultimately accumulated corporate profits and intensified participant risk.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 643-665 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Antipode |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Funding
The research that forms the basis for this article received financial and logistical support from the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative at Harvard University and a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior versions of this article were greatly improved by feedback provided by Harvard’s Political Anthropology/Political Economy Working Group, members of the Digital Transformations in Property and Development Social Science Matrix at the University of California, Berkeley and participants in a 2021 European Association for Southeast Asian Studies Conference panel on Digital Media, Democracy and Exclusion in Myanmar. At various stages, suggestions from Elizabeth Rhoads, Myat The-Thitsar, Khine Zin and two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the final manuscript. The authors would like to thank additional collaborators in Myanmar, whose insightful responses to online materials were foundational to this project, even if they cannot be safely named given current conditions in the country. The research that forms the basis for this article received financial and logistical support from the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative at Harvard University and a Ciriacy‐Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior versions of this article were greatly improved by feedback provided by Harvard’s Political Anthropology/Political Economy Working Group, members of the Digital Transformations in Property and Development Social Science Matrix at the University of California, Berkeley and participants in a 2021 European Association for Southeast Asian Studies Conference panel on Digital Media, Democracy and Exclusion in Myanmar. At various stages, suggestions from Elizabeth Rhoads, Myat The‐Thitsar, Khine Zin and two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the final manuscript. The authors would like to thank additional collaborators in Myanmar, whose insightful responses to online materials were foundational to this project, even if they cannot be safely named given current conditions in the country.
| Funders |
|---|
| University of California at Berkeley |
Keywords
- Myanmar
- commodification
- digital
- platform capitalism
- property
- technology