More-Than-Rebel Territory: War, Resistance, and Relations in the Salween Peace Park

Building on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to territory, this article conceptualizes more-than-rebel territories as a subset of nonstate territories. Whereas existing literature on nonstate territories foregrounds grassroots actors that resist militarization and violence, this article discusses how nonstate territories can be made in conjunction with actors—namely armed rebels and civilians that support them—who see armed struggle as a necessary component of resistance to postcolonial state building. Whereas rebel governance is often portrayed as occurring within an already-established territory seized by military means, this article shows how various civilian actors—in this case, community representatives and civil society—can contribute to making territory amidst armed conflict, too. This article is written from the vantage point of the protracted war in Karen State, between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar military. It focuses on the KNU-controlled Salween Peace Park, where in striving for inclusive democracy and the revitalization of Indigenous socioecological relations, civilian actors have sought to reimagine territory. The use of arms to wage a political struggle can coexist with, and even amplify, civilians’ efforts to produce nonstate territory in contexts where postcolonial state building subjects marginal peoples and places to systemic violence.