ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore how young women activists from Myanmar have been able to carve out new spaces and forms of leadership while in exile in Thailand. Having fled from armed conflict and ethnic persecution, women exiles have founded a vibrant, multi-ethnic women’s movement in the border areas surrounding Myanmar. From its inception, this movement made leadership training – specifically targeting young women – a key feature of its activism. We examine the impact of these training programmes on the lives of women activists, and trace how graduates of these programmes have moved on to lead in ways that have created social and political change within exiled oppositional politics and diaspora communities in Thailand. We analyse how the recent return of exiled activists and oppositional groups to Myanmar reshapes the conditions for young women’s leadership, presenting formerly exiled activists with new challenges as well as new avenues for leadership. Our analysis illustrates the political potential of border-crossing in several senses. In a spatial sense, we demonstrate how the diasporic, transnational political space in Thailand enabled young women to challenge age and gender norms and hierarchies to a degree previously unimagined, making young women leaders a significant force in Burmese diasporic politics. In a conceptual sense, our analysis illuminates how young women activists have moved across boundaries between public and private leadership and formal and informal leadership.
