This week’s New Pubs features Houtman and Chayan editing a volume by Myanmar writers on coup, covid, and climate change; Zun Wai Oo and Kawai on the impact of the pandemic and the coup on inclusive education in Burma; and Zahed on the consequences of the 2021 coup for the Rohingya.
As ever, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
12:00 Noon EDT New Haven Time
WHITE SHIRTS AS SACRED AMULETS: “WORLD-MAKING” AND “SELF-MAKING” DURING THE BURMESE POLITICAL FESTIVAL
Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson, PhD
Anthropology Department, University of California, Los Angeles
Drawing upon Stanley J. Tambiah’s idea of “world conquerors” and “world renouncers,” I examine the Burmese political festival (nainganyei pwe) as a ritual, affective, and material space where former political prisoners reinterpret violence and engage in forms of collective and personal “world-making.” The lecture focuses on one practice in particular: the ritual wearing of white shirts by the 88 Generation. It is argued that there are psychological benefits to donning this symbolic attire. Like sacred amulets described by Tambiah, the white shirt provides ontological security to former political prisoners. For leaders (gaungzaungs) in the movement, the white shirts are integral to how they create and embody power, becoming conduits of charismatic authority. Within the context of the nainganyei pwe and when combined with other “technologies of the self,” the white shirts create a feeling of inviolability and allow survivors of political violence to reassert personal and collective agency. In addition to extending the literature on the sedimentation of power and charisma in objects to contemporary politics in Myanmar, I also attempt to unpack the tensions between precarity versus inviolability and self-making versus selflessness in the “political sacred” space of the nainganyei pwe and the broader cultural system of the Burmese democracy movement.
Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson, PhD, has been conducting long-term ethnographic and psycho-cultural research in Burma (Myanmar) since 2008. She received her PhD in Developmental Psychology, with a specialty in Culture, Brain, and Development, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2013. From 2015 to 2016, she was a Templeton-funded postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Personality and Social Research (IPSR) at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2016 to 2019, she was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Thein-Lemelson has worked with former political prisoners and democracy activists in Burma since 2013 and is finishing a book-length ethnographic study on the Burmese Democracy Movement. Dr. Thein-Lemelson is also currently a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, where she teaches undergraduate classes on “The Anthropology of Burma/Myanmar,” “Political Imprisonment,” and “Social Movements and Controlling Processes.”
This week’s New Pubs features Black with a book on Japan-Myanmar relations; Lewis on intellectuals in Cold War Burma; and Neef et al on the relationship between conflict, climate change, and displacement for Rohingya in Bangladesh.
As ever, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.
This week’s New Pubs features Cheesman’s book on key political terms and concepts in Myanmar; Steinhübel-Rasheed and Minten on the effects of conflict on small-holder production; and Saw Kyaw Zin Khay et al on human security in Myanmar after the coup.
As ever, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.
Speakers: Khin Oo Thazin, Ko Maung, Shunn Lei
Chair: Stephen Campbell
Date: Thursday 7 September 2023
Time zone: 6pm MMT (UTC+6.30)
MRC Dialogue Series presents “The prison and the revolution in Myanmar: Exploring prison protests during a revolutionary situation”
Speaker: Tomas Max Martin & Andrew M Jefferson
Date: Tuesday 5 September 2023
Time zone: 5-6pm (AEST) (UTC+10), 1.30- 2.30pm MMT (UTC+6.30)
photo: Myanmar Now
This week’s New Pubs features Johnson’s book on empire, gender, and Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe in Burma; Myo Win and Arraiza on Burmese citizens’ citizenship challenges after the coup; and Cao on how India and Burma decided on recognizing the PRC in 1949.
As ever, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.
^ Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe
This week’s New Pubs features DPAG and TNI with a commentary on lessons from Burmese transgender and HIV movements; Fumagalli on Myanmar’s fragmented sovereignties; and Haque et al with an edited volume on Rohingya displacement.
As ever, see our Recent Publications page for all of the citations and for past weeks, and if anyone wants a PDF but is excluded by pay wall, please email us and we will help if we can.
image: Torbakhopper
Date: August 28, 2023 (Monday)
Duration: 1 hour
Time: 06:00 – 07:00 PM AEST Time (14:30-15:30 Myanmar/Yangon Time)
Join Zoom Meeting: please click here
Meeting ID: 5506154368
Passcode: 12345
The NLD Government from 2016 held a strong commitment to the rebuilding of the rule
of law in Myanmar, and the independence of the judiciary. It’s time to consider where things stand today in the wake of the evidently forced resignation of Chief Justice Htun Htun Oo (appointed in 2011 by President Thein Sein) and the development of training and other law programs by the NLD Government.
Dr Marcus Brand is the Head of Programme for IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) in Myanmar. He has extensive experience in Myanmar, also with UNDP earlier in his career and has more than 20 years experience in promoting democratic governance, human rights and the rule of law.
A commentary will be delivered by an anonymous academic speaker from inside Myanmar.
Burma Studies Group 