David Brenner is Lecturer in International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has published extensively on the politics of conflict, violence, and development in Myanmar and is author of Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar’s Borderlands (2019, Cornell University Press). Based on long-term research inside the Kachin and Karen rebellions, the monograph analyses the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of political and geopolitical transformations in Myanmar. Beyond academia, David engages in building local capacities amongst conflict-affected communities in Myanmar and advises on matters of political transition and conflict transformation.
Aheli Chowdhury is a development professional based in Delhi. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics and her work explores the intersectionality of media and social movements in India. She works with the urban poor to facilitate their rights to education and governance and has been involved with several rights‑based campaigns, including the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information. She also actively engages with, and studies policy gaps in, social accountability and service delivery.
Walter Flores is the director of the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS), a Guatemalan civil society organisation (CSO) specialising in applied research, capacity building, and advocacy around issues affecting indigenous population rights. He is also a steering committee member of the Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH), a global network of CSOs working towards improving health-care services for marginalised populations through human rights, accountability, and social mobilisation. He holds a PhD and an MCommH from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
Anuradha Joshi is a Senior Research Fellow in the Governance Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her interests lie in understanding state–society relations, on collective action, accountability, and service delivery. She currently co-directs the five-year research programme focused on social and political action for empowerment and accountability in fragile, conflict-, and violence-affected settings (Action for Empowerment and Accountability – A4EA).
Patricia Justino is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. Her research focuses on the relationship between political violence, institutional transformation, governance, and development outcomes. She has led major research programmes funded by the European Commission, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Department for International Development (DFID), and has held advisory positions with organisations including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). She is the lead author of A Micro-Level Perspective on the Dynamics of Conflict, Violence and Development (2013, Oxford University Press).
Maryam S. Khan is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) in Pakistan, and presently an SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) candidate, University of Wisconsin Law School. Maryam’s published and ongoing research focuses on post-colonial themes of South Asian legal studies, including federalism and ethnicity-based politics, the politics and sociology of the legal bar, comparative constitutionalism and constitution-making, and the judicialisation of politics. Her work has appeared in the Yale Journal of International Law, the Harvard Journal on Racial & Ethnic Justice, Temple International & Comparative Law Journal, and Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, amongst other academic journals.
Sarah Schulman is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden. She has conducted extensive field work in Myanmar and was based in Yangon between 2015 and 2017. Her research interests include social movements, civil–military relations in transition, and the influence of the media, social media, and hate speech in democratisation processes. She has published frequently on the political situation in Myanmar and is an Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.