Karen Education and Boundary-Making at the Thai-Burmese Borderland

This article argues that schooling and education are boundary-making devices in the volatile borderland straddling Burma and Thailand. We show that the development of Karen education was one of the ways in which the Karen National Union (KNU) erected ideological, symbolic and cultural boundaries to keep this borderland separate from the Burmese and Thai states. We draw attention to the conflict in what is considered valued knowledge, the recognition of learning, and who is considered the legitimate authority to manage education at the local and school levels. In fact, examining Karen education at the Thai-Burmese borderland is more than just a description of schooling: it is an examination of the struggle over governance and identity, and ultimately of understandings of sovereignty and nationhood. Moreover, the changing political landscapes in Thailand and Burma have now drawn this borderland and its education into the orbit of the national sphere, provoking a redefinition of notions of governance and nationhood.