Pedagogies of resistance: How alternative higher education institutions in post-coup Myanmar are cultivating democratic citizenship

Abstract

This study argues that post-coup alternative higher education institutions in Myanmar function not as temporary educational substitutes but as intentional democratic projects that cultivate critical consciousness. Those institutions reclaim pedagogical sovereignty, and disseminate a new social imaginary of a federal, democratic Myanmar. The 2021 military coup precipitated a profound institutional rupture, with the junta systematically targeting higher education to suppress dissent and monopolize ideological reproduction. In response, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) has catalyzed the emergence of grassroots alternative educational institutions, prompting diverse forms of civic resistance through the creation of autonomous counter-institutions.

This paper applies Freire’s critical pedagogy, together with Berdahl’s concept of the social production of space and Taylor’s social imaginaries, to examine how these spaces function. Drawing on 50 in-depth interviews and institutional document analysis, the study examines Spring University Myanmar (SUM) as a decentralized digital learning network and Karenni National College (KnNC) as an emergent, community-embedded ethnic institution. The paper demonstrates how these institutions cultivate critical consciousness, reclaim pedagogical sovereignty in digital and territorial spaces, and disseminate a new social imaginary of a federal, democratic Myanmar. Despite severe constraints, they represent a fundamental contest between authoritarian coercion and democratic participation to serve as crucial incubators for the norms and citizens of a future legitimate state.