Tea Circle in the Wake of Myanmar’s Coup: Supporting Public Scholarship and Building Intellectual Networks

Tea Circle is a Burma/Myanmar blog founded in 2015 and housed at the Asian Institute since 2018. Following the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, the Tea Circle editorial team—with funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada—expanded its activities to respond to the new circumstances of the coup, with increased security protocols, a new mentoring and networking initiative, and a new commitment to publishing in Burmese as well as English. Members of Tea Circle’s team from U of T and elsewhere will reflect on the challenges of working with authors amidst the heightened threat of the coup and the role of public scholarship initiatives like this in forming and nurturing robust intellectual communities across borders.