Collection of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with interviewees in Shan State, eastern Myanmar, carried out as part of the GCRF Drugs and (dis)order project. Interviews were carried out in the first year of the project and explore narratives around illicit drugs across and within communities, and focus on history, political economy, health and livelihoods, and ethnography with respect to local drug problems in Shan state. The upland areas of Shan are perfectly suited to the cultivation of opium poppy, which has provided livelihood security in impoverished rural areas but also became a financial pillar to sustain armed conflict. In recent decades, the relationship between drugs and conflict has become more complex. The issue has extended beyond opium cultivation to the manufacture and supply of other drugs, such as methamphetamines. Local communities are some of those must vulnerable to the harms related to changing patterns of drug use, including increasing levels of heroin-injecting and methamphetamine use.Drugs & (dis)order is a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project generating new evidence on how to transform illicit drug economies into peace economies in Afghanistan, Colombia and Myanmar. By 2030, more than 50% of the world’s poor will live in fragile and conflict-affected states. And many of today’s armed conflicts are fuelled by illicit drug economies in borderland regions. Trillions of dollars have been spent on the War on Drugs, but securitised approaches have failed. In fact, they often increase state fragility and adversely affect the health and livelihoods of communities and households. In light of these failures, there’s increasing recognition that drug policies need to be more pro-poor and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But the evidence base for this policy reform is patchy, politicised and contested. Drugs & (dis)order is helping to generate pro-poor policy solutions to transform illicit economies into peace economies. To do this we will: (1) Generate a robust evidence base on illicit drug economies and their effects on armed conflict, public health and livelihoods. (2) Identify new approaches and policy solutions to build more inclusive development and sustainable livelihoods in drugs affected contexts. (3) Build a global network of researchers and institutions in Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar and the UK to continue this work.
The field research has primarily focused on interviewing youth leaders, community leaders, civilians (including women, youth, elders), Shan Nationalities League for Democracy members, organisations working on drug issues and (ex) drug users and their family. Interviewees were mostly selected by snowballing, starting from connections Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) already had with local media networks and youth groups. In addition, they also reached out to people and organisations such as school teachers, government administrators and local harm reduction organisations. A set of questions in Shan to guide interviews was developed by SHAN in collaboration with Kachin Research Centre and SOAS researchers, starting from a concept note. The question list was used to guide the interviews, rather than as a strict interview structure. A total of 162 interviews were carried out by researchers of Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) in 2018, and were conducted in Shan or Burmese. Interviews were audio-recorded when interviewees allowed this; else notes were taken. Brief English summaries were written out for each interview. Based on these, 140 interviews were selected for transcription and further analysis, of which 68 were also translated to English. This data collection consists of those transcripts and translated transcripts.
