Routine Impunity as Practice (inMyanmar)

Abstract

Whereas impunity is typically known by the absence of accountability, this article attends to impunity’s presence. It does so via two instances of impunity drawn from research in contemporary Myanmar. In these, police and soldiers contained and managed demands for accountability for torture and killing, even as political and social conditions seemed to change in favor of human rights. Through them, the article invites a rethinking of impunity beyond the parameters of projects for accountability in the case of past, massive human rights violations, so as to take the recurrent, routine practice of impunity seriously.