Title: Sounding the “Kawthoolei” (in progress)
Year produced: 2026 (in production)
Estimated total length: 75 minutes
Language: English

This film is part of my ongoing practice-based PhD project on the music and sound of Karen refugees along the Thai-Burmese border, displaced by the Burmese civil war. The Karen are an ethnic minority group, with the majority originally residing in Burma. Many of them have been persecuted by the Burmese military junta for several decades and have settled in Thai border areas. I study the sonic world of the Karen through the theoretical lenses of displacement, ethnicity, and war, examining how Karen music and sound shape and express ethnic identity, construct and present their cultural memory, and engage with themes of war.

The research produces a multimodal and multisensory ethnography, including a thesis, an ethnographic film, soundscape compositions, and a participatory artwork co-created with my participants. For this conference, I would present an excerpt of the film, highlighting Karen youth rap. It centers on oral stories of Karen people’s homeland, “Kawthoolei,” and documents Karen rap music production, interweaving several individual narratives with related Karen music videos. The film explores the senses of the Karen people, such as hearing, vision, imagination, memory, fear, and hope. I have completed my fieldwork and am currently experimenting with different approaches to editing.

Preview excerpt (work-in-progress):

https://vimeo.com/1097677512?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci