SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article makes two main arguments. First, it argues that due to the imperial roots of Area Studies the views of many contemporary states and many scholars on the Rohingya, Rakhine, and Myanmar have been shaped by colonial perspectives. Second, it argues that the Rohingya were erased historically from Rakhine by the British colonial state and this erasure has been reinforced by the country focus of US Area Studies during the Cold War and after. It concludes that societies in the global south may also have to decolonize how they construct and organize knowledge, and what their governments do with it in terms of policy, so they can escape the continual problems caused originally by the colonial administrative convenience.