Sacred amulets, soothing sutras, and kingly comportments: Technologies of power and well-being in Myanmar

Sacred amulets, soothing sutras, and kingly comportments: Technologies of power and well-being in Myanmar  

In this seminar, Dr Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson will analyse the technologies of power and well-being enacted by activists, civilians, and political prisoners during the nonviolent struggle for democracy that took place in Myanmar from 1988 to 2015. In the first part of the seminar, the speaker will examine the 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,’ focusing on one practice in particular: the ritual wearing of white shirts by the 88 Generation. 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. In the second part of the seminar, Dr. Thein-Lemelson will broaden out the discussion to include analyses of other mundane practices, daily scripts, rituals, and comportments that were integral to how activists, civilians, and political prisoners produced power and well-being during this historical period. The seminar will conclude by describing how the dangers and deprivations in the everyday life of civilians and political prisoners under the junta, between 1988 and 2015, provided fertile ground for the emergence of these very specific social, ritual, and self-technologies.

Speaker

Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson, PhD, is a psychological anthropologist and cultural psychologist, who has been conducting long-term ethnographic and psycho-cultural research in Burma (Myanmar) since 2008. She received her PhD in Developmental Psychology 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.’

Chair: David Hopkins, ANU, david.hopkins@anu.edu.au

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We look forward to seeing you there.

The ANU Myanmar Research Centre Dialogue Series is a conversation concerning current research on Myanmar aimed at providing scholars with an opportunity to present their work, try out an idea, advance an argument and critically engage with other researchers. International and Myanmar researchers from any discipline are invited to contribute. The Dialogue Series is particularly seeking to provide a space for early career researchers wishing to receive constructive feedback. Each dialogue is one hour long, including a 30-minute presentation followed by a 30-minute Q&A. As a hybrid series, the Dialogues are presented in both virtual and in-person format, hosted by the ANU Myanmar Research Centre.

Image: Former political prisoners, activists, and civilian supporters perform the traditional ‘aleipyu’ to honour fallen martyrs of the democracy movement at the NLD’s office in Thingangyun, Yangon.. Photo: Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson.