Possessed Landscapes

When spirits guard forests, conservation becomes revolution—and liberation grows from the soil

In 2011 Myanmar emerged from what was by some counts the longest ongoing war in the world. Amid the flurry of ceasefires and constitutional reforms, Indigenous communities moved to reterritorialize land that was fiercely contested in the preceding decades of conflict. In southeast Myanmar, the Indigenous people of Karen State, activists, and revolutionaries transformed their war-torn land into the Salween Peace Park—a conservation area that is home not only to endangered species like tigers and gibbons but also to territorial spirits and ancestors.

Set in the highlands of the Myanmar-Thai border, Possessed Landscapes introduces a world where land is understood as both spiritually inhabited and politically claimed. Pwakanyaw cosmologies blur boundaries between human and more-than-human ownership, presence, and possession. Anthropologist Tomas Cole’s concept of more-than-human political ecology captures the nuanced, playful, and often deeply strategic ways in which local communities negotiate power, land, and identity amid civil war and state violence. Through vibrant ethnography and grounded political analysis, Cole illuminates how Indigenous Karen communities and their allies are defining conservation, autonomy, and peace building on their own terms.

A case study in reimagining sovereignty through ecological stewardship, Possessed Landscapes is essential reading for scholars and practitioners in anthropology, environmental humanities, and peace and conflict studies, as well as anyone seeking to understand how revolutionary politics and conservation can be inseparably entwined.

Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295754215

The open access edition was made possible by an award from the American Council of Learned Societies with support from Arcadia.