Introduction

People automatically look down on Hlaing Thayar. So, I never give my address to friends, because if I say I live in Hlaing Thayar, the look on people’s faces changes. They think that all people living here are thieves and criminal people. So, I just say to people that I live in Tha Mine. (Interview, 25-year-old woman, March 2017.)

5Drawing on Buzan et al. (1998) and Wæver (1995) I apply the concept of securitization to convey a politicized and discursive construction of certain objects and issues as security threats that must be acted upon. Securitization is a way of representing and transforming particular issues in such a way that it makes them exceptional and of great importance to survival—i.e. existential. This legitimizes the use of extraordinary measures, outside of the normal bounds of political procedure. Security here becomes a self-referential practice, and according to Buzan et al. (1998: 24) “it is in this practice that the issue becomes a security issue—not necessarily because a real existential threat exists but because the issue is presented as such a threat”. Similarly, in Yangon, I suggest, informal settlers—often referred to as “squatters”—are portrayed as per se security threats, without there being any real evidence that they constitute a threat to the city. Based on this securitization the informal settlers are evicted though harsh security measures, without any consideration of their rights and the poverty situation and livelihood challenges that they face. This securitization is informed by historical legacies that convey newcomers as undesirable and potentially threatening “strangers” as well as by new economic interests that favor high-end urban development. The poor and “informal people” (Bayat 1997) are seen as being in the way of such developments, and the securitization of them by city authorities (and other urban dwellers) makes them easily removable and disposable.

7After providing a brief background on the history of migration in Yangon and Hlaing Thayar, I explore how the city government authorities in Yangon, at different levels, perceive of and approach the situation of increased migration, especially regarding informal settlements. This is followed by an analysis of the challenges the informal migrants face in the everyday and how they deal with their insecure situation in various informal ways. In the conclusion, I reflect on the influence of Myanmar’s political and economic transition on the flight of Yangon’s poor migrants and informal settlers. I argue that economic liberalization informs current forms of securitization, which means that evictions and lack of inclusion of the urban poor, and the forms of informality these produce, are motivated by economic interests and capital, rather than by politics as during the military regime. Finally, I discuss the immediate and potentially long-term effects of securitization for the stability and evolving urban order of Yangon.

A Brief History of Migration in Yangon and Hlaing Thayar

9Overall, the history of migration and urbanization in Yangon is one of forced government removal, especially from the city center, as also evident in other Southeast Asian countries (Gibert & Segard 2015; Blot 2014 referenced in Matelski & Sabrié 2019, this volume). This has also led to continuous city expansion, with the opening of an increasing number of townships outside the city center. Both politics and population pressures informed these forced removals. The first major “squatter clearance” in the inner city took place in late 1950s to early 1960s. At that point, the number of informal settlers had reached 300,000, due to an influx of migrants because of the political instability and conflict in the rural areas after Independence. People were moved to townships that at the time were on the periphery of the city, but which today are part of the inner city. They were given land plots, but few adequate services. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, the military government made another round of evictions of an estimated 450,000-500,000 people from the inner city to six new townships that the government established on the fringes of the city. Hlaing Thayar was one of them. In the late 1980s, it was established as an industrial zone and in 1993, it became a residential area as a result of the inner-city relocations. This relocation was more directly politically motivated than the first one, as it came right after the 1988 political uprising and military crackdown on political dissent: many squatters lived around monasteries and other public sites that had been staging points for the protests. As Simone (2017: 11) argues, this eviction was also intended to “break webs of neighborhood relationships”, which could challenge the regime. Only about a fifth of the relocated persons were given land plots (Forbes 2016: 211-213), but these did not come with housing or any basic infrastructure and services, like electricity, drainage and sanitation (interview, YCDC, 31.01.17), so people had to themselves designate and organize their housing. Many of the plots were in low-lying areas with high risks of flooding.

11The cycles of squatting, evictions, and migration sustain livelihood uncertainty and create high levels of mobility inside townships like Hlaing Thayar. This situation is worsened by the lack of any coherent urban plan to address the migration challenges and by unclear land ownership and management, which in addition reflect the negative attitude of city authorities towards the informal settlers and newcomers. The next section explores government attitudes and (in)actions.

Contested Urban Plans and Securitization of Informal Settlers

12There is no doubt that the rapid population growth of Yangon is testing the coping capacity of the government to deal with service provision, infrastructure and housing. Although foreign investments are coming in, including a plethora of international agencies that want to influence urban planning, there is also a lack of public finances to cope with the challenges. Many interests and priorities are at stake, and in general, this has led to a lack of consideration for poor rural migrants and informal settlers in particular. Urban planning is a politically controversial matter and a continuous battlefield between different overlapping authorities. The same applies to land management.

14According to a higher-ranking YCDC official, the YCDC has little de facto decision-making power. Labor divisions are overlapping between the different tiers of government. At township level, the GAD is supposed to respond to the YCDC office, but the lines of command are unclear (UNDP 2015: 60). In practice, the GAD also de facto administers land at the ward level, even though the YCDC principally has this mandate. In addition, the YCDC has no law enforcement role, so dealings with informal settlements depend on decisions of the regional government, and on the help of the police (interview, YCDC, 31.01.17).

15Complications particularly arise when townships like Hlaing Thayar expand, informally, into farmland areas. The YCDC area covers the whole city, but outer farmland areas are governed by the Regional Government and the GAD. This means that when the city informally expands into farmland areas, it moves beyond the YCDC’s territorial borders, and into the Yangon region government’s jurisdiction. In addition, the Ministry of Construction, which used to manage urban land in the past, has also not transferred all land to the YCDC, likely because it still wants to influence new construction projects and investments (YCDC interview, 31.01.17). In Hlaing Thayar, this lack of coherent land management is creating a rather chaotic situation where land is sold and leased in various informal and uncoordinated ways. The results are multiple land regimes and a shadow economy in which both public and private actors are participating. During the research several examples of this were found, both in the interior of Hlaing Thayar township and on the outskirts. Several powerful local actors were involved, who take advantage of the unclear land management situation and the informal settlers, as I return to below.

17There is no doubt that the question of informal settlers and settlements is politically difficult. Not only is there a lot of public resentment against informal settlers, many government officials believe that providing tenure security to informal settlers will result in a massive new influx of migrants to the city, once word gets out that the city is accommodating them. This reflects a low consideration of urban poverty, coupled with a clear prioritization of profit-making projects that focus on high-end housing and business developments. Poor migrants and informal settlers are not understood as poor residents in need of assistance or as potentially positive assets for the economic growth of the city. They have no legal rights and there are no policies specifying compensation when people are evicted, let alone when they lack legal documentation for residency (Forbes 2016: 203-204).

18Instead, informal settlers are criminalized, in the sense of being portrayed as people who do illegal business. A general perception of YCDC and regional government officials is that informal settlers cannot be tolerated and that many among them are “gangsters” or “professional squatters” who make a business from renting and selling illegally occupied land. There is a strong perception that if the government formalizes the informal settlements or allocates land to the informal settlers, they will simply sell the land and squat in other areas. An YCDC official at the township level in Hlaing Thayar said about the informal settlers in an interview:

No, these people are actually not homeless. They are very greedy people, who want to get other people’s land for free, and then they build a house and try to get the land. These people are clever people. They never work hard, and they are just waiting for opportunities. Some of them had their own land before [from previous relocations] but they sold it out. (Interview, male YCDC official, 4 April 2017.)

19These views seem to be shared by the new NLD government when we look at the harsh actions taken since it got into power. In May 2016, just after the new NLD chief minister of Yangon assumed office, he announced a squatter clearance plan and promised to take punitive action against those illegally residing on public and privately-owned land. Any future squatters would have no rights to benefit from relocation plans. Local authorities and police were ordered to make lists of the squatters in townships like Hlaing Thayar, and to arrest those who refused to be put on the lists. Based on these lists, the regional government would draw a distinction between the “legitimately landless” or those squatting in need of housing, who would be moved to tented camps outside the city limits and eventually given jobs, and the “professional squatters” or those squatting for commercial purposes (like renting out land to subtenants), who would be evicted for good. Part of the plan was also to clear out criminal elements in townships like Hlaing Thayar. This reflects the overall securitization of informal settlements, which were represented as havens for criminals and gangs, and as security threats to the rest of the city. A 100-day crackdown on crime was launched just after the clearance plan was announced, which reinforced police patrols in collaboration with local ward leaders (McPherson 2016). However, in the end, the clearance was not executed, because there was lack of financing and no viable plan for resettling the “legitimately landless.”

21In Hlaing Thayar smaller evictions also occur frequently. Ward leaders said that, after the chief minister’s announcement in 2016, the YCDC and the GAD had ordered them to remove any new squatters and destroy their houses, even though formally the ward leaders do not have this authority. If the squatters do not comply, the ward leaders must go to the township office for help. Reflecting this hardliner approach, the township level official of the YCDC said in an interview: “we have a motto: if you see a tent, destroy the tent” (interview, 4 April 2017).

22These negative images fail to acknowledge the poverty trap that most newcomers and informal settlers from previous forced relocations face in the everyday, which forces them to reside informally. According to my study into the histories behind informal settlements in Hlaing Thayar, which is confirmed by Forbes (2016), those making a business out of informal settlements are not the poor migrants, but some local leaders and other powerful persons in the wards and at township level, including some YCDC officials and political parties.

23For instance, one informal settlement in Hlaing Thayar was previous farmland, which YCDC staff had sold informally to businessmen and political party members at a low price. The latter then parceled out the land and sold it on to newcomer migrants, without any formal titling, just informal contracts or landslips. In another ward, land designated for a nursery school, which used to be farmland in the past before the YCDC took it over, was sold out to a plastic factory and to newcomer migrants by the original farmer, in collaboration with lower-ranking YCDC staff and political party members. The GAD at township level did not officially recognize this, but also did not take any action against it, leaving the new “owners” with no formal registration, although they had paid for the land plots. The same occurred in the neighboring ward where YCDC land designated for a playground and park area was never developed due to lack of funds. Squatting occurred frequently, and the YCDC destroyed several houses but gave up in the end. Finally, the original farmland owner sold out the land to four contractors, who divided the land into 56 plots and sold them illegally. The previous ward administrator supported this sale, informally. None of the new landowners have formal titles, only informal selling/buying contracts. There were also several examples where the one hundred household-leaders, who work as assistants of the ward administrators, divided and sold off parcels of public land in smaller plots, which then post-facto were informally recognized by the ward administrator for a share of the sale.

24These examples show how powerful local actors, including city government officials, are taking advantage of the unclear land management situation. However, at the same time, they are informally accommodating the high demand for housing by the newcomer migrants. This gives the migrants a place to stay but leaves them in a precarious situation without official titling. Next, I address the challenges faced by the migrants and informal settlers in the selected wards in Hlaing Thayar. I will also discuss in more depth how local “big people” benefit from informal assistance to migrants.

Everyday Insecurity: Living as Informal Settlers

25In Hlaing Thayar the number of people squatting on public lands is estimated by the YCDC at township level to be 20,000 or approximately 2.5 percent of the population, but this does not include those who are unregistered and informal settlers, for instance renting houses and rooms in hostels or occupying land re-sold by private actors. In addition, numbers are not updated regularly, and new migrants arrive daily. In one of the studied wards, the ward administrator keeps informal counts of newcomers. He said that there are 30,000 unregistered residents and 70,000 registered persons in his ward, which gives a much higher percentage of informal settlers—i.e. around 30 percent—than the YCDC estimates.

26The informal settlers that were interviewed clearly desired formal housing and land titling, but it was unreachable for most of them because real estate prices are rising, the land titling process is expensive and difficult, and because, as noted earlier, the government does not make tenure available. Thus, the vast majority are forced to settle informally or rent small rooms in one of the many hostels that have popped up in Hlaing Thayar. Informal settlers also highlighted economic insecurity and daily survival, including lack of access to electricity, scarcity of clean water and indebtedness as big challenges. The majority do not have formal factory jobs, because they lack the required skills and official documentation. This compels them to take low-paid, casual and informal jobs, with no stable incomes. Residing in informal settlements makes it even more difficult to get access to formal documents, like ID and household registration. They must obtain documents through informal channels, which costs additional fees, because they have to bribe or pay “tea-money” to local officials, for which they often must borrow more money.

27This situation positions informal settlers in serious poverty as well as debt traps. Most of the interviewees have high debts, because they have to take informal loans with high interest rates to pay for rent, hospital bills, official documents for schools and jobs, and sometimes even just for daily survival (see also Save the Children 2016). Interest rates are as high as 30 percent, and many times the borrowers have to take new loans from other people just to repay the interest. Without legal documents the informal settlers cannot apply for low interest loans, for instance from NGOs that do micro-credit programs (see also Denney et al. 2016: 1-2). Although there are loan sharks, the majority borrow from other informal settlers in the nearby neighborhood or from family members. The inability to repay loans creates conflicts, including violent clashes, which sometimes means that the borrowers move to other locations.

28In general, high mobility characterizes the life of the informal settlers. Mobility is not only due to the failure to pay rent or repay debts but is also caused by evictions and constant fear of evictions, as well as the continuous search for less insecure tenure and better housing. Newcomers especially, but also other residents, tend to constantly move between different hostels, rental houses or settlements on different informal plots. For instance, a 56-year-old man, Tin Oo, and his wife, who have ten children (three are now married), lived in five different places in Hlaing Thayar since they moved there from North Okkalar township, closer to the city. They are originally from Ayeyarwady region but moved to Yangon for better economic opportunities and education, after Tin Oo’s parents passed away a little over ten years ago. When I meet them, they are renting a small house with two rooms, right on a swampy area that floods in the rainy season. The land is officially owned by the YCDC and was planned as a public park and playground, but this plan never materialized, and now it is an informal settlement. When the family came to Hlaing Thayar, they first rented land in another ward and built a house there, but then they were thrown out, because the landowner wanted to sell the land, as land prices had gone up. Then they rented another house, but the rent was too high for them to afford, so they moved to another rental house, but they were told to find another place because the owner wanted to sell. At this time, Tin Oo heard about this piece of land (owned by the YCDC) where they live now, and that people were beginning to occupy it by themselves and build houses without government permission. He too went there and began to build a house, but before it was finished the ward administrator together with the police came at night to destroy all the houses. There were about 50 houses that were destroyed, and people were evicted. After this the old farmland owner (from before the YCDC owned the land) made a deal with the ward administrator and sold out the land in smaller plots. Some Hlaing Thayar residents bought these small plots of land, but without official papers, while other plots were sold, also informally, to people who do not live in Hlaing Thayar, but who built houses on the plots to rent out. Tin Oo now rents one of these houses which is owned by a person from Ayeyarwady region.

29However, they only have four-month rental contracts, because they know that the land is not legally owned, and they fear eviction. They don’t want to stay in this place, because it is complicated and not safe, Tin Oo says, and adds: “this land has no security. We can be evicted whenever” (interview, January 2017). The area is crowded, because the owners reduced the size of the plots. It is close to the sewage, and there is a lot of noise from people who are drinking. They do not have a household certificate for this place, because it is illegal, so they have to use their certificate from the first place that they lived in Hlaing Thayar. They want to move to a safer place, but they cannot afford to, so if they are evicted, they will have to move to a similar (unsafe) place. Their economic situation is very difficult. One of their daughters, who is single and lives with them, pays the rent and provides for her parents and younger siblings. She sells cosmetics. Tin Oo used to work at a rice mill across the bridge towards the inner city, but he is now too old to work. Sometimes the daughter cannot pay for the rent, so they have to borrow money. Tin Oo and his wife now hope that their younger children who are studying will get a good job, so they can find a more secure place to live. This story is not extraordinary. There was a widespread notion in Hlaing Thayar that mobility is part of everyday life. This also applied to the many newcomers who live in informal hostels.

30While hostels are a cheap option, living there also means overcrowded and dire conditions. Many hostel rooms resemble small prison cells, divided from each other by thin walls. The tenants told me and my co-researchers that there is a lot of noise, quarrels, and disputes. Neighbors complain about the hostels and look down upon those who live there. People tend to move in and out of hostels, because of the dire conditions or because they cannot pay their rent on time. For instance, one young couple from Ayeyarwady region, who are Karen, had stayed one month at a hostel, but the husband had only managed to get casual labor for two days. If he did not get more work, he would not be able to pay the rent and would have to move somewhere else.

31Another reason for mobility is that when problems arise over rent, debt or neighbor quarrels, the informal settlers have no secure place to go to settle the matters. Because they are not officially registered, many neighborhood leaders do not give them protection or help to settle their matters. Consequently, there was a general sense that if there was a problem, for instance with the hostel owners or the local authorities, people would simply move to another place, rather than try to resolve the problem.

32Securitization of informal settlers by the government is clearly one of the root causes of mobility, related to fear of evictions and lack of protection by local authorities. Simultaneously, this very mobility perpetuates insecurity in Hlaing Thayar, which ends up reinforcing the government’s view of the informal settlements as crime zones. For instance, both the residents and local authorities believe that mobility is breeding crime, because constant shifts in residency allow gangs and individual newcomers to roam freely and to easily escape prosecution if they cause problems or crimes. They also said that mobility causes social problems and tensions, including mistrust between neighbors. Ultimately, this situation causes not only fear of crime and social disputes among informal settlers, but also lack of social cohesion, in the sense of an absence of active efforts to self-organize as groups to secure protection and improve livelihoods. Next, I address these issues more in depth.

Lack of Protection and Social Cohesion

33Quarrels between neighbors and within families, related to alcohol, and disputes and fights related to moneylending cases are the most common problems in the informal settlements, according to the ward leaders. Police officers also said that there is a higher incidence in Hlaing Thayar of rape, murder, fights with knives and thefts than in other parts of Yangon. Among these authorities, there was a strong tendency to blame the newcomer migrants and informal settlers for Hlaing Thayar’s reputation as a crime zone. A ward police officer believed not only that lack of employment resulted in crime, but also that crowded and densely populated spaces breed criminal minds. The ward leaders believed that Hlaing Thayar had become a hiding place for criminals, because in the informal settlements, the authorities are unable to register and regulate residency and mobility. These perceptions co-existed with a general lack of protection of the informal settlements, which reinforces a criminalization of these spaces and their residents.

34Many migrants and informal settlers, especially single women and widows, themselves fear and are victims of crime. The women interviewed fear to walk outdoors at night, and they stay inside their houses or hostel rooms when they are not at work. This insecurity is reinforced by a notion that the informal settlers and newcomers cannot get help from any authorities, not even the ward leaders, when they face crimes and are involved in disputes. Although they know that they can report cases to the police, they fear to do so, because they know that they reside illegally, and often do not have the right documents. Women especially fear to report crimes because they feel unprotected and fear that the perpetrators will seek revenge (see also Than Pale 2018). When asked what they would do if they were robbed, the majority of the informal settlers said “nothing” and that they had nowhere to report. In general, they felt left to their own devices. Because the informal settlers are viewed as illegal by the city authorities, many ward leaders do not allow them to register locally and do not take responsibility for them. Most of the interviewed informal settlers said that they did not have one hundred household leaders and that they were not welcome to bring disputes and crimes to the ward office. One man, who owned a household plot on illegally sold YCDC land, said about this lack of recognition by the ward leaders:

We applied to be on the household list with the ward administrator, but he said to us: “even if there is a burglar or robber who comes to you it is not our concern. Your place is illegal.” […] My niece went to the ward administrator to get a recommendation letter to get a job, but he refused. So, we asked the ward administrator how we should live, and he said: “it is not our concern. Your kids can collect shit. If there is a robber, we will not resolve it.” (Interview, 53 years-old man, January 2017.)

35Although the police said that they will receive complaints from anyone, irrespective of whether they have legal documentation and residency or not (interview, ward police, February 2017), they do not play a proactive role in the informal settlements. While police patrols are done in formal settlements, those living just one or two streets down in the informal settlements said the patrols never reached their area. Some of the informal settlers believed that the police were too afraid to enter their areas, while others believed the police simply did not care. A one hundred household leader also said that he was too afraid to enter the squatter areas after 10pm, “because you never know who is a good and a bad person there” (interview, middle-aged man and one household leader, March 2017).

36Not all the ward leaders were equally hostile towards the informal settlers. Their attitudes ranged from signs of sympathy towards them, often combined with a pragmatic approach to keeping peace in their areas, to ignoring their existence. For instance, I met a one hundred household leader who said that he has informally taken responsibility for those informal settlers who are in his area and that he resolves disputes for them if they ask him to. He does this to try to keep peace in his section of the ward, where there is a large informal settlement. This is not, however, official at the ward administrative office. Other one hundred household leaders said that they do not allow migrants to squat, but they also do not evict them: “we just forget about them and sometimes close our eyes and ears, as long as they do not break any rules.” (Interview, group of one hundred household leaders at ward office, February 2017.) In another ward, the ward administrator had established temporary household leaders for the informal settlements, to keep informal registers and to inform the ward office about issues and problems in the areas. Here the ward administrator also accepts to resolve disputes if the informal migrants ask him to and if they can show some form of ID or documents from a previous legal residency. However, the informality of these arrangements means that the informal settlers can never be sure of protection, because such protection depends on the attitude of individual leaders.

37One significant consequence of the lack of protection by the authorities is that the informal settlers rely on individualized forms of self-protection, which for the majority of interviewees involves sticking to oneself and keeping heads low. There was no evidence of collectively formed security or protection groups among the informal settlers. Instead, interviewees told us that the best way to avoid problems and crimes was to stay inside their homes and avoid mixing and speaking too much with others. The best way to live peacefully was to not complain and ask for help and not to be inquisitive about neighbors. Residents feared getting into quarrels if they did not follow these modes of conduct. One man who rents a bamboo house in an informal farmland place said:

We take care of our own place and I tell my son to go and come on time so that he will not meet the criminals. We are also afraid of the fights and the quarrels, because if there is a case there is nowhere to go with the complaint. If we hear about a quarrel, we just close the door and our ears. (Interview, man of about 40 years old, February 2017.)

38Statements like this one reflect not only a fear of crime, but also mistrust in neighbors.

39One female resident shared a similar position:

I carefully close my door at night, because it is difficult to guess how people are. If you think someone is honest, they might abuse you. So, I hardly ever visit my neighbors. People are not good. If someone is in a good economic situation, people are jealous and if someone is in a bad economic situation, people insult them. Sometimes, when I wear gold, the neighbor tells me that “Aww… you can’t wear gold. You do not need to pay for your living?” The neighbors are not good, and I don’t want to make close relations with them. Sometimes, they want to borrow money from me, but if I cannot do that, they become very angry. (Interview, 25-year-old woman, March 2017.)

42Irrespective of the differences between groups, however, is that securitization supports an informalization of everyday life where lack of documents and protection is perpetuating insecurity. Simultaneously, this is creating particularly informalized ways of coping and surviving among the informal migrants. I address this topic next, showing that despite different examples of mutual informal help, there is a tendency for coping strategies to be highly individualized as well as work to boost the informal powers of ward leaders.

Informal Coping and Survival Strategies

43As Forbes (2016: 233) notes, the informal settlements on the periphery are like a “city within the city” with their own informal economy. Much of the employment is generated by the informal settlement itself, including electricity, water distribution, moneylending, vending of small produce and informal real estate brokers and landlords. For instance, one interviewed woman who rented a bamboo house in an informal settlement made a living from having three newcomers rent a small spot inside her tiny house. Those who have some economic means get electricity from their own generators. Others buy electricity from other informal settlers who make part of their living from having a large generator with wires connected to surrounding households.

44When newcomers try to get jobs and a place to stay, they mainly rely on connections to relatives or fellow villagers who already reside in Hlaing Thayar. Some hostel owners also said that they help newcomer tenants to get jobs, although only informal jobs, by spreading the word in their networks of kin and people from hometown villages. Indeed, the survival and protection strategies of informal settlers involve the activation of networks of kin, friends and neighbors. However, in general, these strategies are individualized and do not take the form of any stable or enduring form of collective self-organization. Usually there is also some kind of financial income involved in helping others, whether through moneylending, selling of electricity or access to legal documentation. This informal economy also creates tensions and, sometimes, social disputes.

45As regarded security protection, very little evidence was found of collective organization around survival and of the establishment of informal leadership among informal settlers. There were two minor exceptions to this, both of which occurred in informal settlements where people had informally bought land. In one area, the new landowners were in the process of forming a social group, which had also tried to collect donations to build cement roads, but they were struggling because those in the hostels could not pay. In another similar area, there was a self-organized “elder” (ya mi ya pha in Burmese), a kind of neighborhood advisor. Neighbors came to him for advice and help. For example, when someone needed to go to the hospital, he helped to call a taxi. He had also taken the initiative to collect signatures in order to apply to the YCDC for access to electricity, which however failed. He also resolved marriage and neighborhood disputes at his house. The neighbors chose this individual for the job, because he does not drink and is calm. He was not elected formally, just by informal agreement. In fact, the elder had to be careful not to show to the ward leaders that he took on this role. His wife said:

He did not take official responsibility, because we are landless people and we do not know when we need to move from here. He only deals with issues right here [in the informal settlement], because he is afraid that if he deals with outsider people, there might be a complaint to the ward leaders and then he would get into trouble. (Interview, female resident, 63 years old, January 2017.)

46Thus, there are real risks involved in self-organization. Instead, the informal settlers in general try to get by and improve their tenure and livelihood situation by engaging various “native” ward leaders, landowners, religious leaders as well as political parties. These actors assist the newcomer migrants and settlers in informal ways to get access to registration papers and land, while they are also benefitting in terms of small incomes and power from the informal status and insecurities facing the informal settlers. Overall, this leads to the prevalence of different forms of informal governance. Despite the fact that the informal settlers are well aware that they cannot get formal access to public services because they reside on illegal land, there is nonetheless a small hope that one day the government may recognize their areas. The religious leaders, along with some ward leaders, play an important role in supporting this hope, as I address next.

Protection and Support from Religious Leaders

47Religious organizations and leaders, Buddhist as well as Christian, provide both direct and indirect help to some of the informal settlers. Whereas the Christian pastors provide mainly material support to obtain education, jobs and food donations, the Buddhist monks also provide crucial protection, not only spiritually but also against potential evictions. The role of the latter is particularly important in furthering the tenure security of the informal settlers and is supported by the high standing of monks in Myanmar in general.

48Because of Buddhist beliefs in merit, there was a widespread notion among even the poor migrants that it was shameful to receive food or other material support from the Buddhist monks. Instead, they regularly donated rice and money to the monks. Donations give merit, which Buddhists believe can improve present and future life conditions. In addition, the informal settlers as well as the land brokers believed that the presence of monks and Buddhist monasteries in an informal settlement could help protect the area, not only from crimes, but also from government evictions. A monastery gives an area some layer of recognition and is a way of civilizing the territory in a symbolic way.

49In one ward there were two new monasteries located right inside an informal settlement area. They were small, but it was clear that they were expanding with new cement buildings. This was in an undeveloped YCDC area that had been sold by the original farmer, in collaboration with a political party. A monk from Ayeyarwady region headed one of the monasteries. It was built with donations from the monk’s followers in Ayeyarwady and from the farmer who had sold the land. First, the farmer had called the monk and established the monastery. Then they called the Ayeyarwady people to buy the land, the monk said, and added: “before we built this monastery people did not dare to build a house, but after we built it people also built their houses.” (Interview, monk of about 40 years old, February 2017.) The monk claimed that the monastery land is now legally approved from the ward administration to the regional government level, even though it is on illegal land. This gives a sense of security to the informal landowners and tenants. The settlers there believed that the government authorities would be much more reluctant to evict them, because there is a monastery. Some even hoped that maybe one day this could mean that their area (and thus their informal land ownership) would lead to formal recognition. This is because government authorities, one settler said, have a lot of respect for the monks, and they may be afraid to get bad merit if they evict the people. Another Buddhist land plot owner, who lives next to the monastery, said:

If there is a monastery, it gives a good guarantee for living land. People trust more to buy land in that area. If there is no monastery the people will think it is an illegal place and will not buy. It is also another reason that it is more peaceful here, because people cannot easily quarrel in front of the monastery. And we can easily donate. It means we are less afraid of eviction, because we are on religious land and we are like religiously registered. This has reduced our fear. (Interview, male resident around 60 years old, February 2017).

50The monastery also provides food daily for the people over 80 years of age, and the monk has organized the construction of a cement road to improve conditions when the area floods in the monsoon season.

51The other monastery in this informal settlement is run by Rakhine monks, as the area has quite a large number of Rakhine residents. This monastery was initially built with donations from one of the land investors, the sister of the head monk, who is a wealthy engineer. She bought some of the land from the farmer, most likely to resell it, or to rent out houses to migrants. The head monk said that he chose this area to help the poorest. When newcomers come from Rakhine, the monastery provides them with shelter until they find a job. It can house 20-30 persons. The plan is now to build a computer and training center for the young people to prevent them from getting into criminal activities – an issue the monk sees as a major challenge in the area.

52The monks from both monasteries defined themselves as defenders of the informal migrants, and in interviews, they criticized the government for not recognizing that they had bought the land. The monks do not see the people who live near the monastery as squatters, but as citizens too. Simultaneous, the monasteries protect the informal investors and land brokers, who are more likely to sell (illegally) to the migrants if the monks are there to protect them. Thus, while the monasteries give the new ‘landowners’ protection and hope of formal tenure, they are also sustaining the informal economy within which more powerful actors benefit.

Hopes of Recognition: Illegal Land Ownership and Local Power Brokers

53Getting official tenure security is something the newcomer and poor settlers see as out of their reach. They know that government land is not for sale and even if it was, they cannot afford it. The large-scale eviction that happened in northeast Yangon in June 2017 also clearly testifies that it is risky for people to buy public land illegally. Irrespectively, the interviewed informal settlers in Hlaing Thayar still hoped that if they bought land illegally in large groups, they could one day get formal tenure. As one female tenant in a hostel on informally settled land said: “the affordable housing flats are for the rich people to make a business. They buy them and sell for a higher price. So many people here wait to buy illegal farmland, and then they hope that one day it will be legal, because they know that it is not legal (interview, female resident of about 30 years old, March 2017). In fact, those who had been able to afford to buy land illegally considered themselves among the lucky migrants. Even though they only had an informal contract, and thereby still risked eviction, this was the better option. Informal landownership contracts were seen to somewhat protect the owners from eviction, especially in areas where there were many informal land plots clustered together (and even better if there was a monastery). However, this sense of security and protection is simultaneously reliant on the activation and support of powerful actors.

54At least in some places the strategy of buying illegal land has led ward leaders to tacitly recognize or at least tolerate the residents. They do not remove the owners and they provide them with recommendation letters. Yet this always comes at a price, because when the new (illegal) landowners are tolerated, it is usually because a ward leader has been involved informally in a sale, providing stamps and papers for a fee. Simultaneously, it is never a complete guarantee against eviction, as the papers do not carry legal weight higher up in the system. There were also examples where political parties supported the informal settlers with informal tenure and land sales, with the tacit approval of the ward leaders. For instance, the former ruling party housed an informal settlement with 40 households, which was hidden behind the party’s main ward office. The party had given land to newcomer migrants to establish these households after the 2008 Cyclone Nargis. Another opposition party had also been involved in supporting (and benefitting) from a large land sale of YCDC land by the previous farmland owner. A third smaller political party, connected to the previous military regime, has 20–30 offices in Hlaing Thayar alone. It operates as a kind of “shadow power” by engaging a high number of “spies” or informers on the ground and is apparently also involved in house rentals. To what extent these parties are supporting the migrants as a strategy to obtain votes in the future is unclear, as many informal settlers do not make it on to the electoral lists due to lack of official residency. There were no examples where the current ruling party, the NLD, was involved, although this party won the vast majority of votes in 2015 in Hlaing Thayar. It is highly likely that the other parties engage with the informal migrants more to establish future powerbases than to immediately gain votes (see also Simone 2017: 12). Simultaneously, they get financial incomes from rental and informal land sales to migrants, akin to the ward leaders. This involvement of local power brokers provides a kind of backing to the informal migrants when it comes to informal land ownership, but it does not provide them with any stable security. In addition, the informal economy of this situation creates disparities between those migrants who can pay and those who cannot. The same applies to obtaining various documents.

Informal Economy around Documents

55There are many strategies and a widespread informal economy around obtaining legal documents to get jobs, attend schools and so forth. However, those with some financial means and connections do better than those who do not have these. Some borrow National Registration Cards (NRC—the main ID in Myanmar) from friends to get work at factories or use the household certificates of family members or friends who live in formal places in Hlaing Thayar. The friend or family member takes the informal settler to the ward administrator and tells him something like: “this is my niece and she now stays with me.” This way, friends provide guarantee for the informal settlers. Some one hundred household leaders and brokers also get fees to help with documents, and some factory managers have lending businesses that are organized around providing work documents.

56Hostel owners in informal settlements also help their tenants. Although they cannot get the tenants on any official list, they can negotiate with the ward administrator for a smaller fee to get recommendation letters, as long as the tenants have an NRC. One hostel owner said that when her tenants need recommendation letters, she takes them to the ward office, pays 1000 kyats (0.8 USD) and then she guarantees for them. In another hostel, where the tenants are Rakhine, the hostel owner’s sister (which we later found out was not a biological sister, but an acquaintance), who is also Rakhine and who lives in a legal place, just opposite the hostel, helps the tenants. She puts the tenants on her guest list and then they can get recommendation letters. They pay 2,500 kyats per person to the “sister” for this service.

57Although the ward leaders all denied taking any fees from informal settlers, they did openly say that they provided recommendation letters as long as they got some form of legal address. It is clear from this and from Forbes’ (2016) research that ward leaders are part of the informal economy around documentation, but at the same time, this means that they are also supporting the survival strategies of the informal settlers and newcomers. This is nonetheless producing differentials between those people who have more and those who have fewer financial means and connections.

Conclusion

58The many poor newcomer migrants who arrive to Yangon daily are facing major challenges, together with the already large population of informal settlers. Although the economic growth of Yangon, especially since 2012, acts as an important pull factor to the city, the migrants benefit minimally from urban developments. They live a life of informality, with little or no access to formal jobs and stable incomes, public services, tenure security, and legal documentation. Many are trapped in debt cycles, and although they do get help from kin, fellow villagers, and sometimes from religious leaders and local big men, such support is unstable, fraught with mistrust, and nurtures an informal economy that sometimes creates social disputes. This situation contributes to lack of social cohesion that, along with unstable incomes and the high mobility of informal settlers and newcomer migrants, is perceived to create the grounds for crime in wards with large informal settlements such as Hlaing Thayar.

59These urban developments, characterized by a wide spectrum of informal (unregistered, partly illegal) activities are very similar to other mega-urban areas of Southeast Asia, which also, as described by Kraas (2007: 18), are characterized by high influx of migrants, lack of urban planning implementation, rudimentary infrastructure in the urban fringes, and mass un- or underemployment. Displacement, evictions and relocations are also major challenges in other Southeast Asia cities (ibid.). However, as Simone (2017) argues, Yangon is a latecomer in joining the group of Southeast Asian cities, due to the many decades of military rule and a much more recent transition to an accelerated economic liberalization, including the influx of foreign investors. A core characteristic of Yangon when compared to other Southeast Asian cities is, as Matelski and Sabrié (2019, this volume) argue, exactly the accelerated speed of urban changes.

60The transition since 2010 to a large extent accounts not only for the increased migration from the rural areas, but also for the conditions under which current forms of informality and displacement arise. These are conditions which are driven by capital and market-led urban growth, leading to inflated land and rental prices, increased pressures by foreign investors, amplified demands for high-end services for tourists, businesses and a rising middle-class, territorial expansion of the metropolitan system, and the peripheralization of poor and working class residents (Simone 2017: 1-2; see also AlSayyad [2004: 15] on the link between urban informality and globally driven liberalization). While, as Simone (2017) notes, informality is not new in Yangon, as people during the military regime also had to rely extensively upon local, self-organized provisioning systems due to the poor urban services, infrastructure and labor markets, the forms of informality today are more provisional and insecure, as people are unsure what to expect of the changes. In addition, land speculation is increasing and there are many more urban residents and foreign investment interests in play.

61Importantly, we need to understand the current situation of newcomer migrants and other informal settlers, as well as the kinds of informality they live in, as the result of a partial democratic transition. While political changes have decreased political oppression and surveillance by the government and led to a much higher freedom of movement and flow of information, goods and people, which also result in more people coming to the city, these developments are not matched by wealth distribution and popular inclusion in urban development planning. Instead, the new urban order is dominated by economic investment interests, reflected in the predominantly elite- and top-down driven urban planning processes, which are under pressure from foreign and national investors to make way for high-profit making projects (see also Matelski & Sabrié 2019, this volume). These interests have also led to new waves of evictions, which draw historical comparison with the military regime’s tactics against the urban poor, but which are now not politically motivated, as in the past, but driven by capital. Through a combination of the historical legacy of military tactics of population displacement and current market liberalization, the urban “informal people” (Bayat 1997) are now being securitized, not as politically dangerous, but as undesirable, “matter out of place” in areas intended for urban renewal and high-end investments (see also Becker & Müller [2013] for similar securitization in Mexico City).

62As I have shown in this article, the majority of newcomers and informal settlers in Yangon are not intent on living illegally but strive to get formal jobs and tenure. Rather, informality and illegality are reinforced by a process of government securitization, which does not recognize poor newcomer migrants and other informal settlers as legitimate and desirable residents of the city, but as “strangers”, potential criminals and obstacles to urban development and stability. This legitimizes evictions and threats of evictions.

63In the remainder of this conclusion I wish to reflect on the question of what the Yangon authorities’ securitizing approach to newcomer migrants and informal settlers may mean for the future stability and evolving urban order in Yangon. To address this question, it is necessary to look at both the immediate consequences and the potential longer-term effects of this securitization.

64One immediate consequence in townships like Hlaing Thayar, is that the securitizing approach is creating constant fear of eviction, high levels of mobility, and an informalization of livelihoods, which is in practice reinforcing the notion that informal settlements are crime zones. In this sense, rather than curbing crime and social disputes in Hlaing Thayar, securitization is contributing, even if unintentionally, to rising crime, insecurity and a widespread informalization of governance. While the informal practices of local big men, including ward and township level leaders, are somewhat supporting the survival and coping strategies of the informal settlers, these are also sustaining an informal economy of support networks, which are unstable and not equally accessible for all informal settlers. Tensions and social disputes also arise from this informal economy, for instance around moneylending and illegal land sales. While more well-established actors, like local leaders, farmland owners and political parties are, as Simone (2017) also notes, engaging in various activities like land speculations, similar to other places of Southeast Asia (McGee 1991 referenced in Simone 2017), the majority of Hlaing Thayar residents do not have “the means or the desire to participate in such incrementalism” (Simone 2017: 12). This is caused by a mixture of politics, poverty (including indebtedness), infrastructural deficits (ibid.) and, as I have argued by government securitization.

65Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that the securitizing approach will result in open political unrest and uprisings. In fact, as Matelski and Sabrié (2019, this volume) account for, protests by marginalized, evicted groups in the form of demonstrations have only occurred in a few places, at a much lower scale than in other Southeast Asian countries, and they do not have any broad-based participation, but involve a select group of people (Blot 2014 and Fauveaud 2012 referenced by Matelski & Sabrié 2019, this volume). The insecure situation, likely combined with the very recent history of military oppression of political dissent along with high levels of mobility, is rather reducing the likelihood of any kind of collective organization among (and thus threat from) the informal settlers. There are hardly any examples of even establishing social groups and self-organized assistance, which means that the informal settlers by no means constitute a strong political force or movement that could count as an actual “security threat”. In this sense, as Buzan et al. (1998) note, securitization is a politicized and discursive construction rather than a real threat. Having said this, securitization could have longer-term repercussions, especially if evictions become more frequent without any viable alternatives for the informal settlers. As already seen, the June 2017 evictions led to counterattacks on security forces and to a critique of the NLD government by those who were bulldozed. Among these people, there is a growing disillusionment with the new political leadership, who many hoped would improve their livelihood conditions. In the short-term the NLD will unlikely suffer consequences, because informal migrants cannot vote. However, if the current trend continues, and as the migrant population grows, evictions are likely to become more and more confrontational and violent. Those who can vote generally do not view informal settlers favorably, but these voters will take notice if evictions become increasingly frequent and violent. This could eventually lead to political pressure on the government to find more accommodating solutions.

66More problematically, the government’s securitization of a very large and steadily growing population of informal and poor migrants can also risk developing into what Beall, Goodfellow & Rodgers (2013) define as “civic conflicts”, which are found in other urban settings of the world. Civic conflict is specifically urban and involves more or less spontaneous and reactive violence that forms in response to feelings of powerlessness, socio-economic exclusion or spatial marginalization. It can take place among groups in society (in the form of gang warfare, ethnic or religious violence, crime), or between society and the state (e.g. riots, terrorism, state violence) or be a mixture of these. Systemic discrimination and neglect embedded in governance institutions is central to civic conflict. There is no evidence yet of a development towards civic conflict in Yangon, but some of the underlying conditions that create such conflict are evident in places like Hlaing Thayar. Currently, there is still much available room for improving the conditions of informal settlers and for framing the perceptions of migrants, not as strangers, but as viable assets to the city’s development. However, this would require that the conditions under which informality and securitization are being produced are changed, and that the urban order becomes more democratic, and less driven by capital.