Maxime BOUTRY

Deputy Director

Deputy Director since 2026

maxime.boutry irasec.com

Moken alive museum

Maxime BOUTRY is an anthropologist, currently the deputy director of the Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC) and a research associate at the Southeast Asia Center (CASE, UMR 8170 CNRS-EHESS-INALCO). His research focuses on the dynamics of social recomposition, mobility patterns, and the logic of resource appropriation in the peripheral regions of Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand). His work draws on two main field sites and comparative studies conducted in collaboration with research teams based in several countries in the region (Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia) . His first field site, where he has been conducting research for over twenty years in the Mergui Archipelago (southern Myanmar), focuses on the ethnography of Burmese fishing communities and their interactions with the Moken, the region’s nomadic seafarers. A second field project examines changes in land tenure systems and the restructuring of peasant societies in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta and the Burmese drylands, driven by agrarian reforms and labor migration. Mr. Boutry also co-coordinates the “Experiences of Violence” component of the ANR EVIMOB project. These activities align with his participation in the international research network (IRN-CNRS) “Pragma-Pred,” as well as in the ethnographic documentation project “Bo lobung,” supported by the British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Personal research books

• 2017 (with C. Allaverdian, M. Mellac, S. Huard, San Thein, Tin Myo Win et Khin Pyae Sone). Land tenure in rural lowland Myanmar : From historical perspectives to contemporary realities in the Dry zone and the Delta, GRET - Of lives and land-Myanmar research series (1) : Yangon, 302 p.

• 2015. Trajectoires littorales de l’hégémonie birmane (Irrawaddy, Tenasserim, Sud Thaïlande), Paris, Les Indes savantes-Irasec, 238 pages.

Book editing

• 2014 (ed.) (avec F. Bourdier et J. Ivanoff). From Paddy States to Commercial States : Reflections on Identity and the Social Construction of Space in the Borderlands of Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, Amsterdam : IIAS/ICAS, 157 p.

Editing of special issues of peer-reviewed journals

• 2024 (ed.) (with Cynthia Chou, Jacques Ivanoff et Clifford Sather). « Seeing Southeast Asia through a sea-nomadic lens », SOJOURN, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 39/1 : 28-37.

• 2011 (ed.) « The moving frontiers of Burma », Moussons, Recherche en Sciences Humaines sur l’Asie du Sud-Est, numéro thématique, n°17.

Articles in internationally refereed journals

• 2024 (with J. Ivanoff). « Crossing people and time : a long-term approach to the Moken nomadic identity », SOJOURN, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 39/1 : 154–180.

• 2022. « ‘Une terre irriguée est une terre à riz’ : impacts des politiques rizicoles sur la sécurité foncière des petits agriculteurs de Birmanie, de la colonisation à nos jours », Cah. Agric. 31 : 30. https://doi.org/10.1051/cagri/2022027

• 2017 (with J. Ivanoff et Supang Chantavanich). « Adaptations et résiliences des pratiques esclavagistes en Thaïlande et en Birmanie », Anthropologie et Sociétés, 41 (7), 29-49.

• 2014. « L’arakanisation d’Arakan : les racines d’un nouvel exode ? », L’Espace Politique [En ligne], 24 | 2014-3, DOI : 10.4000/espacepolitique.3290

• 2011. « The moving frontiers of Burma », Moussons, Recherche en Sciences Humaines sur l’Asie du Sud-Est, n°17, pp. 15-24.

Book chapters

• 2020. « Internal Migration in Myanmar », in (Bell M., Bernard A., Elin C.-E., Yu Zhu, Eds) Internal Migration in the Countries of Asia. A Cross-national Comparison, Cham (Suisse) : Springer, pp. 163 – 183.

• 2018. « The backdoors of resistance. Identities in the Malay Peninsula’s maritime borderlands », in (Horstmann A, Saxer M. and Rippa A., Eds), Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, New York : Routledge, pp. 266 – 276.

• 2016. “Burman territories and borders in the making of a Myanmar nation state », in (Su-Ann Oh, Ed.) Myanmar’s mountain and maritime borderscapes : local practices, boundary-making and figured worlds. Singapore : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute, pp. 99-120.

• 2015. « How far from national identity ? Dealing with the concealed diversity of Myanmar », in (Robinne F. et Egreteau R., dir), Metamorphosis : Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar. Singapore : National University of Singapore Press , pp. 103-126.

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