Monique Skidmore: Personal Statement on Sean Turnell

Dr Monique Skidmore is Professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, and Director of the Australia Myanmar Institute. The following is a personal statement provided directly to us.

Some Notes on an Incredible Human and a Pretty Damn Fine Applied Economist

It was 1998. I was having trouble speaking English - a problem which I have never had before or since. Rather, these days I have trouble speaking Burmese – but back then I was emerging from a long time in the field in Burma (Myanmar) and I’d headed from Rangoon to Sweden for a conference.

I was jetlagged, quite traumatized from my fieldwork, cold, and I didn’t have any suitable Nordic-coloured (or warm) clothes. This guy bounced up to me – and kept doing it. I wasn’t remotely interested in listening to him – I wanted to give my paper, meet James (Jim) Scott, and get back to Montreal.

But Sean was irresistible. His passion for Myanmar, his delight in meeting a fellow Australian and aspiring Myanmar academic, and his sweet nature won me over. We kept in touch over the following decades as I moved countries and went back and forth to the field.

After I returned to Australia, we collaborated as colleagues and friends. He gave lectures to my Burmese class at the ANU which had the students in stitches (and the guy’s an economist!) I remember a slide called “One Ring to Bind Them All,” and so you can understand the theme of his lecture that day.

One day we were having a drink at Macquarie University and he said he had to leave. I asked him where he was going and he said, “I have to pick my daughter up from her violin lesson.” I mentally added “extreme dark horse” to my list of Sean attributes.

Then we wrote an ARC Discovery grant on Myanmar which we won and had fun continuing to work together. I don’t want Sean to read this and get an inflated sense of self-worth, but I do believe Sean is the most passionate applied economist Myanmar will ever have. His interests in the banking system even extends to the production of stamps with Burmese banks on them!

His creative mind has been able to conjure up novel data sources for understanding the ‘real’ economy of Myanmar when the regime obscured how dire the situation in the countryside was. It’s hard to explain now how important it was for governments and INGOs to understand the likely economic situation of towns and village tracts.

Sean hankered to go to Myanmar for a good portion of his life. I was wary of him getting close to Suu Kyi but I realized that Sean wanted to do the most good possible and so being the national economic advisor was the perfect next stage for him.

I know that Sean’s soul must be shrivelling a little each day without access to books. My daughter cried when she learned of Sean’s arrest – she’s 23 now and Sean read her the Famous Five books beginning when she was 4 or 5.

The Famous Five perfectly encapsulates the good humor and child-like optimism of Sean’s personality but perhaps not the largeness of his generosity and intellect. Outside of the military junta, you’ll never find someone with a bad word to say about Sean and I look forward to him returning to Australia and to his family who have made him so very happy.

Professor Monique Skidmore

Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University