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DESCRIPTION:Gatty Lecture Series\n\nJoin us for a talk by Courtney Wittekin
 d\, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University. \n\nThis Gatt
 y Lecture will take place at The Kahin Center\, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will
  be served. For questions\, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.\n\nAbstract\nWhy
  has speculation become a dominant way of engaging with the future in momen
 ts of profound political uncertainty? This talk takes up this question thro
 ugh Myanmar’s proposed 20\,000-acre “New Yangon City\,” launched during the
  country’s democratic transition of 2011-2021. Drawing on ethnographic rese
 arch in peri-urban Yangon\, I show how farmers living in the shadow of this
  urban project turned to speculation when democratic and developmental prom
 ises repeatedly faltered. I argue that this vernacular speculation was less
  about profit than about acting on uncertainty amid compounding crises. Ove
 r time\, speculative practices reshaped political participation and shifted
  collective demands toward individualized wagers structured by unequal acce
 ss to land\, capital\, and time. Extending my analysis into Myanmar’s post-
 coup moment\, I conclude by highlighting speculation as a defining feature 
 of political life across Southeast Asia today.\n\nAbout the Speaker \nCourt
 ney Wittekind is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue Universit
 y\, where she researches uneven urban development\, speculative investment\
 , and digital technologies. She received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology\,
  with a secondary field in Critical Media Practice\, from Harvard Universit
 y in 2022. From 2022 to 2024\, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale Uni
 versity with the Program in Agrarian Studies and the Council on Southeast A
 sia Studies. Her publications include articles in leading journals such as 
 Cultural Anthropology and Antipode\, as well as her forthcoming book\, City
  of Speculation: Unsettled Futures in UrbanMyanmar (Stanford University Pre
 ss).
DTEND:20260326T173000Z
DTSTAMP:20260510T174900Z
DTSTART:20260326T161500Z
GEO:42.44799;-76.491318
LOCATION:Kahin Center
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Unsettled Futures: Speculation\, Urban Life\, and Political Uncerta
 inty in Contemporary Myanmar
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_51824649015746
URL:https://events.cornell.edu/event/unsettled-futures-speculation-urban-li
 fe-and-political-uncertainty-in-contemporary-myanmar
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