M.MAS 1/12/17 to describe a given incident. 15 We would add that these observations hold true in the case of failed riots, too. This is not a claim about the impossibility of truth, simply a caveat that the descriptions and understanding conveyed here are necessarily incomplete. The studies also do not present a conclusive position on the causal relationship between different actions and the events we summarize; attempts to demonstrate causality through counterfactual analysis often use similar cases to identify specific configurations of causal conditions. 16 Instead, we want to stress that we are not arguing conclusively that the actions described in each case study, and these actions alone, prevented riots from occurring. Such conclusive arguments would be interesting and valuable, but are not necessary for the kinds of conclusions with which we close the paper. In other words, we believe that even such partial case studies as these can generate useful insights into actions that can help to prevent riots, and thus we have limited our conclusions to those that we think the information we collected can bear. Case studies Case study 1 Background This is a case in which leaders, including members of different religious communities, cooperated to systematically respond to a rumour that a well-known person in the area was amassing weapons in preparation for an attack on Muslims. The rumour prompted members of both Buddhist and Muslim communities to increase their vigilance and prepare to defend themselves, increasing tension such that local people thought escalation into a riot was imminent. This case study was written based on interviews conducted at the end of 2015 with four individuals who are residents in the area and were connected in some way to the events related below: a female Muslim youth activist, a male Buddhist local CSO leader, a male Muslim local CSO leader and a male Buddhist local journalist. Copies of materials circulated to respond to the rumour are also on file with the authors. The events After the Thingyan water festival in April, the situation in the local area was tense. Interviewees remembered that this was particularly the case because people were watching and sharing videos of violence in other parts of Myanmar. Interviewees described many of the same arguments about Muslims as a “fearsome Other” that we have described elsewhere.17 Interviewees identified two Facebook groups created for sharing news and information about the local area. Posts to these Facebook groups were also being printed out and circulated by people that lived in the area, including trishaw drivers. Mobile phone, internet, and Facebook usage was less extensive then than it is now; at that time, people using Facebook mostly did so via internet shops and then shared the information offline through personal networks. 15 Michael Taussig, “Culture of Terror--Space of Death. Roger Casement’s Putumayo Report and the Explanation of Torture,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26, no. 3 (1984): 492, 494. 16 Charles C. Ragin, Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond (University of Chicago Press, 2008). 17 Matt Schissler, Matthew J Walton, and Phyu Phyu Thi, “Threat and Virtuous Defence: Listening to Narratives of Religious Conflict in Six Myanmar Cities,” M.MAS Working Paper 1:1 (St Antony’s College, Oxford University, July 2015). 5/24