SS (Sai Sam) Kham

Biography

Sai Sam Kham is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, The Hague), Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a member of the "Commodity & Land Rushes and Regimes: Reshaping Five Spheres of Global Social Life (RRUSHES-5)" project led by Professor Jun Borras. RRUSHES-5 is a a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant awarded project. As part of this project, his research explores how rural agrarian land politics shape the character and trajectory of national political regime transition in Myanmar, and vice versa.

He obtained his BSc. in Mathematics degree in 2003 from Yadanarbon University, Myanmar, BSc. in Computer Science in 2004 from University of Computer Science Mandalay, Myanmar, Msc. in Holistic Science in 2010 from Schumacher College, Plymouth University, UK. His MA research focuses on ethnobotany, indigenous healing knowledge of the Kachin people in a remote village in northern Shan state, Myanmar, the situation of knowledge transfer to the new generation and the situation of the medicinal plants commercially collected from the natural forest to sell to China.

Before joining the PhD program, he has been working with civil society organisations and movements in Myanmar since 2000. His area of works include agroecological farming, farmer’s field schools, participatory action research, community forest and mangrove forest conservation, seed sovereignty, food sovereignty, humanitarian assistance for natural disaster affected population and internally displaced people affected by conflict, rights of ethnic and religious minorities, genocide awareness, human rights, land rights and customary rights of peasant communities, harm reduction for drug users and right of opium farmers, Buddhism and activism.