Winter 2023 Newsletter

The Inya Institute Quarterly Newsletter

Winter 2023 www.inyainstitute.org

The Inya team wishes you all the best for 2023! This Winter 2023 newsletter features reflections by the 2020 CAORC-INYA Short-term fellows who conducted field work in Thailand and the U.K. Despite the fact that none of the three fellows was able to conduct field work in Myanmar, their research on Myanmar/Burma conducted in a third country proved extremely fruitful as you will see on pp. 3–10.

One of the paradoxes of the on-going travel restrictions to Myanmar is that current and future CAORC-INYA fellows may find in our fellowship programs a unique opportunity to address crossnational developments that will help to better understand the complexity of Myanmar’s political crisis and its regional impact within ASEAN. The country’s current crisis is spilling over the entire region with unexpected and unprecedented socio-economic ramifications for neighboring countries. As such, fellowship programs offered for research conducted on Myanmar in a third country will lead to significant findings and insights about the country’s volatile situation and how Myanmar people whether based in the country or overseas respond to it.

Meanwhile, here in Myanmar, as you will see on pp. 11–12, the Inya team was able to conduct field

In this issue

from the Field

Recent Activities at Inya 11

Current Opportunities at Inya 13

Upcoming Events in the U.S. and beyond 15

New Books on Myanmar 16

activities and field research for the first time in nearly three years since March 2020. Wherever the team members were – in Rakhine State, Tanintharyi Region, Southern and Eastern Shan State – the presence of military checkpoints, patrolling of army and police forces, and increased number of restricted areas (even for Myanmar citizens) were constant reminders of the country’s extremely dire circumstances. And yet, these reminders could not entirely spoil the great pleasure and thrill of meeting new partners in the field, conducting in-person meetings, and running training sessions and field activities with these new colleagues. To everyone’s delight, the running of online Zoom meetings was, at least temporarily, off the table! The feedback we received from all our colleagues upon our return to Yangon confirmed for us they all felt the same! Provided that security risks are kept to a minimum, it also gave us further encouragement to pursue initiatives with communities and colleagues outside Yangon.

Institute Team in Yangon

May 2023 bring further opportunities for us all to interact in person!

The Inya

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Library: It currently holds a little more than 830 titles and offers free access to scholarly works on Myanmar Studies published overseas that are not readily available in the country. It also has original works published on neighboring Southeast Asian countries and textbooks on various fields of social sciences and humanities. Optic fiber wifi connection is also provided without any charge.

Library digital catalog: Access here.

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Digital archive: It features objects, manuscripts, books, paintings, and photographs identified, preserved, and digitized during research projects undertaken by the institute throughout Myanmar and its diverse states and regions. The collections featured here reflect the country’s religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity and the various time periods covered by the institute’s projects developed in collaboration with local partners.

Digital archive: Access here

The Inya Institute is a member center of the Council of American Research Centers (CAORC). It is funded by the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (2020-2024).

Academic Board

Maxime Boutry, Centre Asie du Sud-Est, Paris

Jane Ferguson, Australian National University

Lilian Handlin, Harvard University Bod Hudson, Sydney University

Mathias Jenny, University of Zurich Ni Ni Khet, University Paris 1-Sorbonne

Alexey Kirichenko, Moscow State University

Christian Lammerts, Rutgers University

Mandy Sadan, University of Warwick

San San Hnin Tun, INALCO, Paris

Juliane Schober, Arizona State University

Nicola Tannebaum, Lehigh University (retd)

Alicia Turner, York University, Toronto

U Thaw Kaung, Yangon Universities’ Central Library (retd)

Board of Directors

President: Catherine Raymond (Northern Illinois University)

Treasurer: Alicia Turner (York University, Toronto)

Secretary: François Tainturier

Jane Ferguson (Australian National University)

Lilian Handlin (Harvard University)

Nicola Tannenbaum (Lehigh University)(retd)

Thamora Fishel (Cornell University)

Reflections from the Field

Exposed Souls: Reflections from the Field in Chiang Mai, Thailand

1

Chu May Paing (she/they/no pronoun) is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at University of Colorado Boulder and she was one of the four 2020 Inya-CAORC fellows. Her multisited dissertation research follows the socio-digital circuits of anti-military coup activist circles across digital and in-person spaces of the Myanmar diaspora in Thailand and the US.

Six months into the military coup in Myanmar. I vividly recall having multiple conversations with a friend of mine who was debating whether he should join the then-beginning armed resistance movements in the borderlands; whether he should leave Yangon; and most importantly, whether he should leave the country altogether. Let alone the actual act of leaving, even the thought of it seemed to pain him so much.

Leaving a place that is in danger or leaving a dangerous situation is usually referred to in Burmese as ကိုယ်လွတ်ရုန်း‌ေြပး (struggling one’s body free out of something and running away, usually at the cost of leaving others behind). This phrase comes with a negative connotation about the selfishness of someone who chooses to leave without considering others who are still in danger or under threat. How can a person be so self-centered that they only care about themselves and not for their fellow country peoples?

In the weeks and months following the February 2021 military coup, public shaming campaigns broke out on Facebook, shaming those who not only support the military, but also those who are complicit to the pro-military sentiments and those who are associated with the families, friends, and the businesses of the military generals and soldiers. Parallel to these public outrage against the military supporters, public discourses began to shame the morality of those who chose to leave the country–to both neighboring countries like Thailand or faraway lands like the countries in the US and Europe.

A Burmese phrase such as လိပ်ြပာလုံပါ‌ေစ (may your butterfly be not exposed) sprang up on social media posts, provoking a sort of guilt and shame in those who see them or hear them.

လိပ်ြပာ or butterfly in direct translation in Burmese is a metaphoric expression of one’s inner soul. Every person is considered to have လိပ်ြပာ although for certain people, especially women and children, and in certain situations, when someone is in the period of bad luck or during childbirth, (one’s butterfly could be smaller) လိပ်ြပာငယ် than others’ or compared to a normal time. When a person’s butterfly is small, it exposes him or her to potential harm and danger. For example, it is believed that a mother who recently gave birth and in a post-natal confinement period of seven days could be easily possessed by a bad spirit because her butterfly is smaller than usual. Other expressions build on this concept of လိပ်ြပာ .

လိပ်ြပာလွင့်

(butterfly flies away from one’s own body) expresses that the person is unconscious or that the body and the soul are separated. A general Burmese or bama cultural understanding is that one must protect

their butterfly or soul in a deep inner psyche. A person with a well-kept inner soul is considered to be a person with a good emotional wellbeing. As a child growing up in mainstream bama culture in the city like Yangon, I also learned to not have my butterfly exposed, i.e., to do the morally right things, especially if I wanted to be perceived as a good and confident or တည်တည်တံ့တံ့ person in Burmese.

Moral shaming discourses on Facebook both about supporting the military and about leaving Myanmar widely use the phrase လိပ်ြပာလုံပါ‌ေစ to evoke a set of sensations (primarily guilt, shame, and embarrassment) out of those who see the posts on their newsfeed. The phrase also denotes a sense of personal responsibility for one’s own choice. If a person chooses to do an action that exposes their souls, they must live with that decision–however it may make them feel bad or how long they may carry that guilt.

1 This essay describes initial reflections from my preliminary fieldwork in Chiang Mai, Thailand. My broader doctoral dissertation looks at non-traditional form of anti-coup activism and the activists’ emotional management and (re)production in the diaspora, including but not limited to Chiang Mai.

Figure 1: A red graphic poster with a large finger pointing at the viewer with the Burmese text below saying “လိပ်ြပာလုံပါ‌ေစ” or May your soul be not exposed began circulating on Facebook a few months after the coup in February 2021.

In my preliminary fieldwork with politically exiled migrants from Myanmar in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I was interested in how those who chose to leave Myanmar in the midst of a political crisis, encounter the discourses like လိပ်ြပာလုံပါ‌ေစ and manage a set of sensations such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, and insecurity. Of course, not everyone who left Myanmar may feel these feelings. Feeling of guilt is not something instilled, rather it is something provoked. However, just like Javanese concept of isin and Balinese concept of lek (Keeler 1983), shame or အရှက် is a socially coded emotion in the bama society instilling a sense of social intimacy, kinship ties, and overall moral responsibility to others. It is a commonly accepted notion that a person who doesn’t have shame is also a person who doesn’t know how to behave in a society.

If having shame is in a way having morality, what does it mean for those, for various reasons, especially due to personal threats, who leave Myanmar? Don’t they have shame anymore? Or what are the other ways in which they still maintain a sense of morality?

I had a conversation about these questions with an artist who left Myanmar in the aftermath of the coup and is now living in Chiang Mai. As she chewed bits and pieces of double-fried beans from a small bowl of လက်ဖက်သုပ် in front of us, she shared with me that she knew she would leave Myanmar when the coup happened. It was only a matter of time. As an artist, she felt she couldn’t join the armed resistance just like many other young people did. She was not someone who could take up guns. As the art scene in the country is and has been drastically disappearing due to a return of the censorship and potential arrest if the art were to contain a slight hint of politics, she felt as though she could only support the revolution if she and her family were to be safe first.

Although now she has chosen to resettle in Chiang Mai, she remains in close touch with the revolutionaries who cross the border back and forth. While exclaiming that she did not feel guilty for leaving Myanmar, she praised those revolutionaries for their abilities to deeply commit to the revolution unlike herself, an artist who was deeply emotional about parting with a mirror she used to own in her Yangon apartment. She asked me, “How could I be a revolutionary fighter who joins the shade of the jungle or ေတာခို when I couldn’t even leave my material things behind?”

As a feminist, I wonder if choosing the survival of self (and in extension, one’s sentimental material belongings) and the survival of one’s family is really shameless. To whom do we owe the responsibility of caring if not to our families?

Many revolutionaries inside Myanmar would probably answer, caring for not only oneself but also one’s family is also shameful in the time of a crisis like the one in Myanmar. After all, Waythandra Theater ( ေဝသႏၲရာဇာတ္ေတာ ) in the Ten Great Plays ( ဇာတ္ေတာ္ႀကီးဆယ္ဘြဲ႕ ) glorifies King Waythandra who could give away not only his wife but also his two children to a greedy brahmin, knowing all so well that the brahmin intends to enslave them; a charitable temperament like Waythandra ’s is something to be desired and to at least attempt to achieve in mainstream bama culture (Minbuu Sayadaw U Awbatha 2008). It is one of the morally right things one can and should do to not have their souls exposed.

Seemingly unrelated to the Buddhist spirit of giving things up including one’s own family, young Burmese revolutionaries began recirculating a 2020 Burmese-language essay by Aung Phone Maw, titled “The Price of Freedom is Death” on Facebook. Aung Phone Maw is a former Yangon University Student Union leader and was arrested and sentenced to three years of imprisonment for protesting against the coup by the military in March 2021. 2 Borrowing a famous statement from Malcolm X given during a 1964 interview, Aung Phone Maw juxtaposes his philosophical argument for the death as the price of freedom in Myanmar against the Black struggles in the US.

(Aung Phone Maw 2020)

“From here on, I will call ‘free action’ as when one human or an animal radically refuses ‘their own existence for death’ in a context, instead takes a radical action or does a radical act to pursue something real such as ‘freedom’ in that context.”

(Translation by Chu May Paing)

Aung Phone Maw elaborates that a true freedom is worth fighting for even if one must sacrifice their own life. And in order to have that true freedom, one must also take radical action. He continues:

(Aung Phone Maw 2020)

“A real sad death is not the death of those who die without wanting to die (people die everyday naturally). A real sad death is those of whom have willingly chosen death for a dream or have decided to pay death as a price for that dream.”

(Translation

May

by Chu

Paing)

was just released on January 4 2023, as part of the 7000 prisoners who were released under the state pardon in celebration of the Myanmar National Independence Day.

Figure 2: An image of Malcolm X accompanying Aung Phone Maw’s essay titled “လွတ်လပ်ြခင်းရဲ့

published on April 20, 2022 on We Resist - Burma Facebook Page

Alongside resharing his 2020 essay, the appraisal and admiration for those who joined the armed resistance forces in the borderlands and commit to a difficult life of bodily suffering shows those who left the country in a different light–as people who are still oppressed, who are scared; and ultimately as immoral people.

During my preliminary fieldwork in Chiang Mai, I was able to resituate Aung Phone Maw’s and other revolutionaries’ argument to sacrifice one’s livelihood for freedom within a Black feminist framework of collective care (Nash 2019). That is, to reconsider the importance of community and coalition building in revolutionary practices and ask what happens when one is not yet ready to choose death as a price of freedom?

Many of my knowledge co-producers3 in Chiang Mai didn’t choose to leave Myanmar selfishly to pursue a better life–although I do not think choosing to pursue a better life is necessarily selfish. Instead, they find themselves in an emotional baggage of guilt and ambivalence between having left Myanmar and moving on with their lives as another activist who fled Myanmar shared with me.

“People who are my age, or younger, they are no longer there. Some are in prison. Some are gone. So I feel guilty about going to school. I feel guilty about doing the things I want to do. That’s why I am doing all these things [sell things, do fundraisings].” (Interview with P; italics were originally said in English)

Her eyes welled up with tears as she answered my question about whether she felt guilty for leaving. As a young self-proclaimed feminist and activist, she felt as though she had run away from her activist responsibilities by leaving Myanmar. Although friends in her social circles encouraged her to continue studying for a Masters in Thailand, she refused. She wondered how she could even study when her fellow activists who remained in the country were being arrested and even being killed–a sentiment I myself could relate with.

One way or the other, those I met with in Chiang Mai remain dedicated to the cause of the revolution in three specific ways: 1) through acting as ေထာက်ပို (support and send); 2) fundraising; and 3) clicking. Both ေထာက်ပို (support and send) and fundraising are labor-intensive work. Organizing an art exhibit like one of my

knowledge co-producers in Chiang Mai did, or sorting goods and selling them involves an array of feminized labor that includes detailed attention, organizational skill, and emotional labor dealing with the customers. By feminized, I mean the invisibl(ized) nature of those fundraising and non-traditional activist organizing activities. Although highlighted as

supplies, and other things needed in the camp set up in Karenni state close to Mae Sot. During my two-month stay in Chiang Mai, I met at least two people whom she had not only supported when they were in the border camps in Karenni State in Myanmar bordering Thailand, but also in their decision and process of fleeing to Chiang Mai.

important counterpart to the Myanmar revolution, ေထာက်ပို is also considered as an inherently feminine labor rendering it as “not as important” to those who are fighting on the battlefields.

One afternoon, I was invited to an cook-out gathering at one of my knowledge co-producers’ apartment. After we shared a nice meal together so that our bellies became so full “a dog could kiss them”, a group of us retreated to lounging on a bed in the middle of the apartment. The host started nonchalantly recounting a recent argument with her boyfriend who yelled at her in mid-fight that he would have been able to “join the shade of the jungle” if it were not for her. It was only because of her, he also decided to flee to Thailand. Sleepily, we all sulked at her story but only the quiet set in the room. Among the Burmese migrant social circles in Chiang Mai, she seems to be well-known for her well-connected social networks and her ability and commitment to help with the transitioning of many young migrants who left Myanmar to the life in Chiang Mai. Since she came to Chiang Mai around May 2021, she has been involved in sending food, medical

3 In Anthropology, the term “participant,” “interlocutor”, or “informant” is widely used to refer to the people

While many of the young people I have met who arrived in Chiang Mai after the 2021 coup praise and admire the revolutionary spirit and the willingness to live a life with bare minimum in the jungle, this story about the lover’s seemingly unimportant quarrel breaks open the inevitable question of gender ideologies embedded in the revolutionary practices–who needs protection; who can endure pain and suffering; who is considered fragile and ultimately, what activities are considered epitome of revolutionary actions. At times, the answers to these questions do not necessarily map onto the body politics especially when global liberal feminist discourses have reached Burma during the country’s liberalization period (2010-2020). Women including former celebrities, actresses, models, and pageant queens who joined the jungle have largely been praised for their ability to give up a “feminine” life, or their transformation from “glamor to armor” as a 2021 Radio Free Asia post on Facebook writes, whereas those who decide to go abroad are criticized for their lack of willingness and ability to endure such bodily suffering just like men would and could.

Sometimes,

the researcher and the people she/ he works with, I intentionally choose the term “knowledge co-producer” to refer to the people who contributed to my work because I see them as my intellectual equals; they would and could very much be pursuing a doctorate as I am if the material conditions in Myanmar were to be different. Without them sharing their experiences and deep reflections, my work is not possible.

has a sustained relationship with them, they refer to them as “friend.” Acknowledging the inevitable power dynamics

the researcher works with.

if the researcher

between

Figure 3: A side-to-side before and after image of former film star Mya Hnin Yee Lwin began circulating on Facebook as early as October 2021. The image is usually accompanied by comments praising her ability to live such a life in the jungle. In the before image presumably taken in a photo studio, she is seen fully glamorized whereas in the after image, her face is bare from makeup and lipstick, dressed up in guerilla warfare outfit, smoking a cigarette and holding a gun

Bodily suffering is a recurring theme in diaspora activism (cf. Hue forthcoming). After the junta announced the news of former NLD party members Ko Jimmy and former rapper Zayar Thaw’s execution in July 2022, a local Thai theater group with a Burmese member staged a participatory silent performance protest near Tha Pae Gate under the burning mid-day sun of Chiang Mai. While some audience members observed from the blue tents unintentionally but conveniently set up near the performance or under the shades of nearby trees, others persisted in the sun, taking photographs or observing closely of the silent performance. Some audience members came prepared with umbrellas and some like myself were totally oblivious to the possibility of high heat and, as a result, totally unprepared. Stood under burning sun, some murmured why the theater group particularly chose that time of the day when it was so hot. The performance lasted only about an hour, but by the end of the performance, all of us were soaked in sweat as if we had just taken a shower.

In addition to attending local fundraising events or protests like this one, some of my knowledge co-producers are engaged in clicking. Considered as a subcategory of ေထာက်ပို (support and send), clicking is promoted as “such an easy job anyone can do with wifi” (Click2Donate Facebook Page 2021). Anyone can go into Click2Donate Facebook page, join their Telegram, and click the links that the Click2Donate team share every day to meet their daily goals of viewers so that they receive money to fund the revolution. Unlike fundraising, those committed to clicking do not even need to have money to buy things to contribute to the revolution. A lot of my knowledge co-producers emphasized these forms of

digital activism as an important counterpart to the armed resistance, albeit it is still considered a lesser one compared to joining the shade of the jungle. Having stable internet and electricity access, they claim they are now better able to dedicate their time and energy to activism mediated by these technological means.

Through the material and digital forms of ေထာက်ပို , my knowledge co-producers in Chiang Mai argue that they are able to help sustain the needs of those in the country and in the jungle. Indeed, others might argue that digital activism is not only easy but also lazy activism. However, in the era of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019) in which our attention also becomes a valuable commodity, clicking can also be a labor-intensive work.

If guilt is a baggage one must carry, its weight seems to have an impact on how far one flees. A lot of my knowledge co-producers shared with me that they chose Chiang Mai as it has been a political hub for many Myanmar dissidents. A friend referred to those who fled to Chiang Mai as “returning home”–home of many politically dissident organizations and groups. For them, Chiang Mai allows a geographical proximity to Myanmar, yet not too politically dangerous in a highly monitored bordered town like Mae Sot, as well as to those who are still deeply engaged with homeland politics in varying capacities. Their choice not to leave for far-away countries like the US or Europe but instead Chaing Mai allows some sort of justification–even if not for the public in Myanmar but for themselves–for their decision of leaving. Although I still need to figure out whether they would want to resettle in a third country other than Thailand or a place other than Chiang Mai, one thing they all could agree on is that by being in Chiang Mai, they feel safe;

they have more resources at their disposal to contribute to the revolution–even if it is as trivial as having a regular access to electricity to charge their phones so that they could click. And home is just a border away; they could always cross the river back home when it is finally safe for them to return. In the meanwhile, our souls may feel exposed in voluntary and involuntary exile–near and afar Myanmar, but at the end of the day, isn’t this process of perpetual attempt to not have our souls exposed, rather than actually being successful at it, at the core of what makes us human?

Acknowledgement: I am forever grateful to those who opened the doors to their houses and welcomed me with open hands in Chiang Mai. While the future of returning home to see my family in Myanmar is uncertain, it was them that made me feel at home–even if the feeling was destined to dissipate. I am also thankful to my niece for her valuable observations and her linguistic prowess in Thai and even Korean. At times when my mind seemed to wander, she grounded me. Thank you, tee ma!

References

Aung Phone Maw. 2020. လွတ်လပ်ြခင်းရဲ့ အဖိုးအခက ‌ေသြခင်းတရားပ [The Price of Freedom is Death]. We Resist - Burma. April 20.

Hue, E. Forthcoming. Economies of Vulnerability: Humanitarian Imperialism and Performance in the Burmese Diaspora Keeler, W. “Shame and Stage Fright in Java”. Ethos 11(3).

Minbuu Sayadaw U Awbatha. 2008. ပန္းေ႐ႊျပည္ ဇာတ္ႀကီးဆယ္ဘြဲ႕ေပါင္းခ်ဳပ္ [The Land of Golden Flowers: The Collection of the Ten Great Plays]. Nash, J. C. 2019. Black Feminism Reimagined. Duke University Press. Zuboff, S. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (First ed.). Public Affairs.

Figure 4: A performer with his upper body exposed and his face covered extends the arms out wide inviting the city pigeons to land on his body at the silent performance protest following the news of the execution of Ko Jimmy and Ko Zayar Thaw was announced. Photographed by Chu May Paing

Reflections from the Field

Archival Anxieties, or: ‘How I came to stop worrying and enjoy the AC’

Matthew Venker, Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of a 2020 CAORC-INYA fieldwork fellowship. His research examines interethnic constructions of race and religion in Myanmar, particularly through family law litigation in the colonial era. In this piece, he reflects on the long process of growing comfortable conducting archival research as an anthropologist trained in ethnographic methods.

Any time I’m flying for research, I get excited about the flight itself: the prospect of seven or ten or even thirteen unstructured hours unplugged from the distractions and obligations of the Internet; the chance to watch cheesy new releases you would never pay to see in a theater while flight attendants bring salty snacks and wine to your seat. It’s only on the descent that I start to get nervous. I begin to fear that nothing will go to plan, that I haven’t done enough to prepare, or worse, that all the prep I have done was totally misguided and is setting me up for embarrassment and failure. I get homesick before we even land, filled with worries that I’m creating obligations that I’ll never be able to reciprocate because my work will be a disaster.

I felt this way when I did research in China, after I graduated college, and when I started my research in Burma, over five years ago now. I don’t know why, but I didn’t think I would feel this way going to London. Of all the research I’ve done to this point, this trip seemed like it would demand the least of me. There would be no language gap; the social customs are familiar; and, working in public archives, I never worried I would make some unknown social gaffe that would lead people to shut me out, turning off my access to research. But as soon as the plane started that tell-tale drop and the pilot came over the intercom to tell us we were thirty minutes out from Heathrow, I got that same hot-fire knot in my gut that had me wishing I had booked my return flight for the next day.

I was nervous not just because I felt unprepared; I knew I was. I had never planned to do historical work. Even with the help of patient friends and colleagues in history and other disciplines who graciously took time to teach me how ar-

chives are organized, how to conceptualize archival methods, and how to find what I’m looking for, I felt very much an impostor in this new field. Even after months of preparation, up until the moment I entered the chilly, dry reading rooms that would become my new ‘field site,’ I couldn’t create for myself a picture of what this type of research would actually look like.

But while my archival site in the temperature controlled sterility of a central London library may have felt a far cry from the steamy, humid summer field

work I expected to do in Yangon back when I wrote my proposal in the winter of 2019, the project remained united in its curiosity about how Buddhism factors into the legal integration of Chinese migrants in Burma.

Only now, instead of exploring the topic in conversations with people in the present, I was looking at conversations other people had in the past. Working through court reports and trial transcripts, I was surprised by how often archival work came to resemble ethnography. Just like ethnographic interviews, each witness

Figure 1: A colonial era advertisement Matthew found during his reading

testifying before the court offers their own account of what happened; and just like talking with a lively group of people at a tea shop, witnesses contradict each other, disagree, fight over what really happened, and use a lot of words you don’t know, leaving you confused about how to sort the mess of reality into a coherent scholarly explanation.

It’s taken me a while to figure out what doing a historical anthropology actually means for me. In my experience, I felt most anthropologists only resorted to historical work after completing a good deal of ethnographic research; they often seemed to work through oral histories that brought to life bits of what either went ignored or was seriously mischar-

acterized by colonial sources. Working through colonial law reports and British court transcripts, neither of these would be available to me. So what would make it truly anthropological? And why would it interest people in Burma studies today? I’m still working through these questions today, as I sit some 3000 miles away from the archive and several weeks back into my dissertation writing.

I’ve come around to answering these questions by bristling at the simplistic suggestion that history can be so easily severed from anthropology. For me, if anthropology is the science of what makes us human, a historical anthropology involves digging deep into the question of how our current circumstances weren’t the product

of some decisions made by the ‘great men of history’ but rather of the unassuming, ordinary, often unconsidered interactions between ideologies and enactments. If my initial interests revolved around how religion may have allowed Chinese Buddhists to integrate into Burmese life in a way unavailable to non-Buddhist immigrants, my readings in history showed that orienting my questions around national categories can conceal more than it reveals, ceding territory to colonial bureaucrats that produced such distinctions as a matter of conceptual clarity amid the pluralist possibilities of life as people actually lived it. The work of historical anthropology, then, is to uncover these potentialities and imagine new ways forward for the future.

Figure 2. A image of Ngahtatgyi Buddha Statue “ငါးထပ္ႀကီး

Reflections from the Field

Field Work Reimagined: Embracing Digital Archives, Celebrating Human Exchanges

Melissa Carlson is a PhD candidate in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral research examines how modernism unfolded in postcolonial Burma under the trifecta of authoritarianism, censorship, and isolationism. In particular, she focuses on how avant-garde artists resisted state censorship of the visual arts to contest who and what could visually depict Burma’s national identity. Her research has been supported by CAORC-INYA, Berkeley’s Regents’ scholarship, and the Fulbright-DDRA Hays.

At the start of my PhD research, preCovid19, I envisioned how my fieldwork in Myanmar would unfold. I would interview surviving avant-garde artists who exhibited during Socialist Burma (1962-1988), multiple times no less, while documenting artists’ paintings and art historical material. Yet as Covid19 wreaked havoc worldwide alongside political disruptions at home in Hong Kong, I discovered a new approach to fieldwork with broader possibilities of inclusion and a new concept of the ‘field’. My deviation from the traditional concept of fieldwork, namely, a year spent immersed in a fieldwork site uncovering archival material and conducting in-person interviews, surprised me in what could be accomplished from home. Yet hours moored to my desk also reminded me about the value of hands-on archival work and in-person connections.

In short, Covid19 and the 2021 coup d’état in Myanmar morphed my research from a planned year in Yangon in 2020 under Fulbright-Hays and INYA-CAORC fellowships to an abbreviated six-months in London in 2022, supported by both programs, with the rest of my fieldwork conducted from Hong Kong. This first phase of my fieldwork took place over a year where strict government covid regulations and quarantine policies curbed travel in or out of Hong Kong. Fortunately, previous research trips and language study in Myanmar had permitted me to establish contacts with the artists at the center of my research. Without these prior relationships, I would have needed to change my dissertation topic. Gradually, after waves of lockdowns and closed borders, I shifted my research to concentrate on gathering oral histories by video and audio calls and searching online archives. At times, it felt like I was writing art history in the

absence of any physical art to analyze, a not uncommon position in researching Southeast Asian modern art history. Many countries in the region maintain inaccessible national archives or museums lack comprehensive postcolonial modern or contemporary art collections.

However, from my desk in Hong Kong, I conducted oral history interviews with surviving avant-garde artists in Burma or elsewhere who exhibited during Socialist Burma (1962-1988) through audio or video digital platforms, recording and transcribing interviews almost as fast as they occurred. I also discovered online resources to a degree that I had not appreciated. Libraries, museums, auction houses, and social media sites offered a startling array of archival material related to the artists at the center of my disserta-

tion. Careful dissection, organization, and curation of these online materials became a new skill along with mastering new methods to record digital sources. To a certain degree, the amount of art historical material surfacing on Facebook became so overwhelming that I soon capped my collection of digital posts.

Yet, after conducting online research from Hong Kong, I recognized the limitations in uncovering art historical material and missed the freedom of in-person interviews where one can assume a more relaxed, conversational manner undisturbed by blackouts or unstable Wi-Fi connections. Furthermore, to acquire digital archives of the content that I had envisioned discovering in artists’ studios and homes through fieldwork in Yangon, such as photographs, dusty paintings, stacks of

Figure 1: Dr. Arthur Sun Myint in his living room, September 2022

exhibition brochures, would place an unacceptable burden of requests onto artists already traumatized by devastating waves of Covid19 and the ongoing violent aftermath of the 2021 coup d’état. Therefore, I remain grateful to have had a window of fieldwork in London where I visited the homes of two artists who led the modern art movement in Socialist Burma and who maintain substantial archives from that period. I had previously interviewed both artists over digital platforms. The material that I gathered in-person added more depth to information that they shared with me by phone or video call. Both no doubt will be useful components of my dissertation.

In northern England, Dr. Arthur Sun Myint, a leader of the 1960s modern art movement in Rangoon, walked me through his art collection. We examined his paintings from the 1970s and 1980s alongside those by other key Burmese modern artists while he recounted the challenges of holding art exhibitions let alone in bypassing the censors in Socialist Burma. He also shared photos of exhibitions and previous paintings, many now scattered around the world, as well as reviewed his former art exhibition brochures. Seeing this material alongside him, each photo or exhibition brochure

triggering his detailed explanations and memories, was a true privilege. In the outskirts of London, I met his sister Khin Myint Myint who supplemented our previous phone interviews with a large stack of photos and other material, such as press clippings and exhibition brochures, from her time as a leading modern female avant-garde artist in Rangoon. Her extensive archives offered visuals to exhibitions that I had only read or heard about from other artists, plus provided glimpses of the artwork exhibited. Our in-person meetings in the UK also proved bittersweet. In December 2019, I interviewed their sister Tin Tin Sann, the first female avant-garde artist, in the last of many interviews conducted from Hong Kong; in-person meetings with all three siblings on a future trip to London had seemed certain. Unfortunately, Tin Tin Sann passed away in January 2020, one of nearly 60 Burmese artists lost to Covid19, which decimated a generation of avant-garde artists, poets, and writers.1

My research in London also unfolded at the British Library where I searched Socialist era publications for illustrations and cartoons by avant-garde artists who worked as cartoonists or illustrators when censorship curbed their economic opportunities as professional artists. These

artists used the pages of print media as an exhibition space where they experimented with new mediums and modes of artistic expression. I also accessed the British Museum archives which contain substantial number of works on paper by Burmese artists from the late colonial and early postcolonial eras. These paintings revealed how artists began to experiment with new approaches to color and artistic formats as they participated in education abroad or accessed trends in cultural material, such as movies and books.

Fieldwork is no doubt a key component of dissertation research, but I propose that expectations for the structure of fieldwork, primarily expectations for time abroad, embedded in cities or communities, should be altered in line with the shifting availability of online sources. As a result, perhaps a wider range of research and researchers can emerge alongside equally rich scholarship. Covid19 reframed my sense of priorities concerning dissertation research. I recognized the privilege in connecting with artists in Yangon over digital platforms or afternoons spent with new friends in England. And, I relished quiet days spent in the reading rooms at the British Library, browsing journals and magazines from another era.

Figure 2: Arthur Sun Myint, ငါမဟုတ်ေသာငါ, oil on canvas, 1970. Collection of the artist

1 The Association of Myanmar Contemporary Artists (AMCA) is recording the deaths of avant-garde artists, writers, and poets from Covid-19 since the outbreak began in Myanmar. As of July 2022, AMCA recorded 59 deaths. Chaw Ei Thein, 18 July 2022, email to author.

Recent Activities at Inya

Promoting EPSD through Evidence-based Activities in Rakhine State and Tanintharyi and Yangon Regions,

by May Saung Oo and Pyai Nyein Kyaw

From March to November 2022, the Inya team together with the Minbya Youth Association (Rakhine State), Candle Light Youth Group (Tanintharyi Region), and Transform With Me (Yangon Region) developed a project focusing on ‘Education for Peace and Sustainable Development’ (EPSD) with funding from UNESCO. Ranging from skills and awareness training, production of community assessment report, community mobilization, and online talks and webinars, the project helped the participants not only to gain more general knowledge about peace and sustainable development but also offered them practical guidance on how to apply these principles in daily life and seek together alternative ways to be a more cohesive society and possible avenues for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) from various approaches.

Following a five-day research methodology training attended by a total number of 48 participants, the youth groups in Minbyar and Myeik conducted community assessments on the following topics: “Rubbish Collection System in Minbya Town” and “Mangrove Deforestation and Natural Resource Scarcity in Kyun Su.” These assessments led to reports highlighting the difficulties encountered by local communities in pursuing sustainable environment objectives and also to formulate recommendations on improved service provision and community-led conservation.

The findings of the community assessment reports then served the basis upon which the remaning activities of the project were developed, including two panel discussions and six community talks, covering topics such as ‘Attributes of social cohesion’, ‘Extractive industries

and the environment’, or ‘Plastic recycliing and environmental protection’.

For the two series of events, the team mobilized a cumulative number of 234 participants. This, in turn, helped the team reach out to an even larger public through podcasts and videos on Facebook.

The EPSD project was a good collaborative project with partners working on different themes and lines of works but similarly focusing on youth groups. In the long run, some activities may be pursued by partner organizations in a sustainable way (if the overall conditions are met). Even if the project implementation was very short (9 months), it still provided valuable interaction and space for mutual learning between the core team and partner organisations.

Training on Participatory Action Research in Myeik (Tanintharyi) and Minbya (Rakhine) in the early phase of the project

Recent Activities at Inya

Documenting Monastic Library Collections in Southern and

Eastern Shan State

On November, 10–21, in Taung-gyi and November, 24–December, 5, in Kengtung, the institute ran a training course on cultural heritage preservation and conducted some field research with groups of local students, scholars, and monks. The one and a half-day training course on cultural heritage preservation and manuscript cataloging and preservation was led by Dr. Francois Tainturier and Dr. Jotika Khur-Yearn, Subject Librarian for Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands Collections, SOAS, who ran his training sessions remotely from London. A seven-day period of field research followed during which field researchers visited monasteries in both areas in search of monastic libraries holding materials of cultural, historical and religious significance.

Building on an earlier digitization project developed in Northern Shan State from 2016 to 2018 at Punlong

Monastery, Kyaukme Township, the institute is now documenting colonial and post-independence monastic library collections from other parts of the Shan State with funding from the University of California-Los Angeles “Modern Endangered Archives Program.” The focus is on identifying written, printed, and photographic materials that are held in monasteries patronized by Shan (both Tai Long and Tai Khuen) and Pa-O communities in the Taung-gyi and Kengtung areas as well in Muang Pai and its surrounding areas in northern Thailand.

This will be the first step toward an assessment of the significance of these library collections, which in turn may warrant a digitization plan. Digital preservation of these collections will mitigate the risks associated with high humidity, bug-related damages, lack of maintenance, artifact smuggling and deliberate destruction. Another objective pursued

with the digitization of these monastic library collections is to support on-going scholarship on Shan history and culture that examines colonial-era and postindependence religious dynamics and the mobility of Buddhist ideas, practices, and monks and lay persons across the Shan State and further beyond in Myanmar and northern Thailand.

While field research in Muang Pai is scheduled in mid-2023, the two field trips of 2022 made it possible to identify monastic library collections of high significance in the Taung-gyi and Kengtung areas. Overall very few monastic library collections still hold a significant number of palm-leaf manuscripts, Shan paper manuscripts and Shan paper bound scrolls, which makes the documentation project’s sense of urgency even more acute.

Monastic collections at a varying level of care and conservation in Southern and Eastern Shan State

The local teams in the Taung-gyi area (left and middle) and Kengtung area (right)

Current Opportunities at Inya

Application Contents

The application to be completed in the CAORC SM Application Portal https://orcfellowships.smapply.org requires the following items:

The Inya Institute is now accepting applications for its 2023 CAORC-INYA Short Term Fellowships competition for research that will contribute to studies on Myanmar in any aspect of its wide linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity and to a better understanding of the country’s past or present political and socio-economic situation. Applicants must be U.S. citizens currently enrolled in a graduate program (Master’s or Doctoral level) at an institution of higher education in the U.S. or elsewhere.

The 2023 CAORC-INYA Fellows will have until September 30, 2024, to complete their field work in a Third Country (outside of the U.S. and Myanmar).

Information about the fellowship competition

• Research must contribute to studies on Myanmar in any aspect of its wide linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity and to a better understanding of the country’s past or present political and socio-economic situation. Any field of research will be considered, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, economics, political sciences, law, environment studies, and public health;

• Field research in a Third Country must be for a minimum of two months and a maximum of four months;

• Joint research projects are not eligible for this competition. Only individual research projects will be considered;

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens. U.S. permanent residents are not eligible for this competition;

• Students enrolled at Minority Serving Institutions are especially encouraged to apply.

Fellowship Benefits

• Award from $3,200 to $4,400 for a maximum of 4 months;

• A transportation stipend of up to $1,600 for the round trip airfare from the U.S. to Third Country and in-country travel expenses;

Deadline, Selection, and Notification

Applications must be sent by February 28, 2023 (11:59 PM EST).

Fellowships will be awarded by a Selection Committee composed of academics with long-standing experience and recognized expertise on Myanmar. Applicants will be judged according to the following criteria:

• Merits of the proposal, its significance, relevance, and potential contribution to research on Myanmar studies;

• Applicant qualifications;

• Feasibility of the research design;

• Feasibility in terms of resources and amount of time allocated to the project.

Awards will be announced by April 30, 2023. More info here

• Information about the Applicant: first name, last name, mailing address, email address, phone number, citizenship, major field of study, department, institutional affiliation, dates (if any) of previous research in Myanmar, length of award requested, tentative dates of project; • A Curriculum Vitae;

• Description of the proposed study with the following sections:

1. Project title

2. Project abstract (max. 100 words)

3. Approach and research methodology (max. 500 words)

4. Significance of the project (max. 500 words)

5. Work done to date (max. 300 words)

6. Work to be accomplished during the fellowship period (max. 500 words)

7. Budget narrative describing how the award will be expended

8. Name of the Third Country where research on Myanmar will be conducted

9. List of places that will be visited in Third Country

•

One Reference Letter.

Project Bibliography; •

This program is funded by CAORC through a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department.

Current Opportunities at Inya

Application Contents

The application to be completed in the CAORC Survey Monkey Application Portal (orcfellowships.smapply.org) requires the following items:

• Information about the Applicant: first name, last name, mailing address, email address, phone number, citizenship, major field of study, department, date and year the PhD degree was obtained, university where it was obtained, current occupation, dates (if any) of previous research in Myanmar, length of award requested, tentative dates of project;

• A Curriculum Vitae;

• Description of the proposed study with the following sections:

1. Project title

2. Project abstract (max. 100 words)

3. Approach and research methodology (max. 500 words)

4. Significance of the project (max. 500 words)

5. Work done to date (max. 300 words)

6. Work to be accomplished during the fellowship period (max. 500 words)

7. Third Country selected and list of places where research work will be conducted (max. 300 words)

8. Budget narrative describing how the award will be expended

• Project Bibliography;

• One Reference Letter.

This program is funded by CAORC through a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department.

The Inya Institute is now accepting applications for its 2023 CAORC-INYA Scholars Fellowship competition for research that will contribute to studies on Myanmar in any aspect of its wide linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity and to a better understanding of the country’s past or present political and socioeconomic situation. Applicants must be U.S. citizens who have obtained their PhD degree in the last 10 years (at the time of submitting application).

The 2023 CAORC-INYA Scholars will have until September 30, 2023, to complete their research work in a Third Country of their choice.

Information about the fellowship competition

• Research must contribute to studies on Myanmar in any aspect of its wide linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity and to a better understanding of the country’s past or present political and socio-economic situation. Any field of research will be considered, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, economics, political sciences, law, environment studies, and public health;

• Research must take place in a third country outside of the U.S. and Myanmar (due to the current closure of Myanmar’s international borders); For example, it may be conducted at the British Library and other U.K. libraries, or among Myanmar communities living in India, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, etc…

• Joint research projects are not eligible for this competition. Only individual research projects will be considered;

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens. U.S. permanent residents are not eligible for this competition;

Fellowship Benefits

• Award from $4,000-$4,500 for a maximum of 3 months;

• A transportation stipend of up to 2,050$ for the round trip airfare from the U.S. to a third country and in-country transportation expenses.

Deadline, Selection, and Notification

Applications must be sent by February 17, 2023 (11:59 PM EST).

Fellowships will be awarded by a Selection Committee composed of academics with long-standing experience and recognized expertise on Myanmar. Applicants will be judged according to the following criteria:

• Merits of the proposal, its significance, relevance, and potential contribution to research on Myanmar studies;

• Applicant qualifications;

• Feasibility of the research design;

• Feasibility in terms of resources and amount of time allocated to the project.

Awards will be announced by March 31, 2023. More info here

Upcoming Events across the U.S. and beyond

January Events

1. Exposing Enlightenment: The ‘Living Arahant’ in Photography and Print in Post-colonial Burma

Location: University of Toronto, Munk School

Date: January 13, 2023 at 4:00 pm- 6:00 pm

Speaker: Tony Scott, Matthew Walton & Christoph Emmrich

The saint, prophet, liberated guru, or enlightened being occupies a powerful place not only in their respective religious spheres, but in the social lives of the cultures that create and maintain them. Yet how are these social categories “created” and through what means are their parameters delimited over the last century and a half as technologies of mass communication have transformed the epistemology of discourse?

To approach these questions, this paper focuses on the “living arahants” of early twentieth-century Burma, examining how the narratives surrounding this supposedly enlightened class are negotiated and contested in the public sphere through the mediums of photography and print.

More info here

3. Masculinity for Sale: Shan Migrant Male Sex Workers in Chiang Mai, Thailand and the Performance of Manhood

Location: University of Hawaii Date: January 25, 2023 at 2:00 pm (HST) Speaker: Dr. Amporn Jirattikorn The talk focuses on Shan male migrant sex workers from Myanmar who engage in selling sex to gay men clients in Chiang Mai, Thailand. As most of Shan male sex workers identify themselves as heterosexual men, I attempt to understand how selling sex to gay men affects their masculinity and how they redefine and reconstruct their masculinities devalued by selling sex to men. Based on two sets of in-depth interviews with Shan migrant male sex workers in Chiang Mai, Thailand before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, the research will also discuss how the pandemic shapes the ways in which Shan men engage in sex work.

Zoom registration here

February Event

2. CSEAS Spring Lecture Series: Healing while Performing the Ritual to the Burmese Spirits

Location: Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies Date: February 24, 2023 at 12:00 pm-1:00 pm in Central Time (US & Canada) Lecturer: Catherine Raymond More info here

Zoom registration here

April Event

1. CSEAS Graduate Colloquium Lecture: Resistance, Accommodation, Violence, and the Role of Local Administrators in Post-coup Myanmar

Location: Northern Illinois University, Zoom Date: April 7, 2023 at 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm in Central Time (US & Canada) Lecturer: Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung More info here

Zoom registration here

Conference Event in June

15th International Burma Studies Conference Envisioning Myanmar: Crisis, Change, Continuity

2. Decolonising

Elephants:

Animals and the End of Empire in Myanmar

Location: SOAS University of London

Date: January 13, 2023 at 12:pm-1:30 pm

Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Saha

Recent calls to decolonise academia have percolated through to the field of animal studies, pushing scholars to reject colonially-derived understandings of nonhuman creatures and to engage with indigenous thought. This welcome, if nascent, shift is often divorced from the messy history of decolonisation itself. This talk looks at how the experience of decolonisation in Myanmar altered the lives of working elephants. How far were elephants decolonised during decolonisation?

More info here

Zoom registration here

1. CSEAS Lecture Series. Massacre in Myanmar: How two reporters uncovered a Rohingya mass grave— and the price they paid for it

Location: Univeristy of Michigan Date: February 10, 2023 at 12:00 pm-1:00 pm Eastern Time (US and Canada) Speaker: Antoni Slodkowski

In August 2017, the Myanmar military launched a massive offensive against Rohingya Muslims living in the country’s northwest, killing thousands of people, burning hundreds of villages, and pushing more than 700,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh. The Aung San Suu Kyi government declined to condemn the offensive. Many ministers claimed the Rohingya burned their own homes and returned to their “homeland” of Bangladesh. The officials declared the area off limits to the press, but two Myanmar journalists with the Reuters news agency, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, kept reporting. They uncovered a mass grave with ten Rohingya men and boys, complete with before and after pictures of the execution and first-person, on-therecord testimonies by the perpetrators. More info here Zoom registration here

Location: University of Zurich Date: June 9-11, 2023

The Burma Studies Group, the Myanmar-Institut and the University of Zurich cordially invite you to participate in the next Burma Studies Conference Envisioning Myanmar: Crisis, Change, Continuity! Tatmadaw’s 2021 coup d’etat precipitated a crisis for Myanmar and its people. Scholars are taking stock of how the coup has reshaped a wide range of issues, encompassing conflict, livelihoods, gender relations, and the environment. In doing so, they ask if the coup has indeed undermined long-held orthodoxies in Myanmar, or if much of what appears to have changed is actually a continuation of underlying processes. But although crises tear apart, they can also mend. New social relations are being formed among people and groups who were once divided, and as a result, new aspirations for the country are taking root. As scholars continue their support for research and educational endeavours, they too participate in co-creating these new futures.

More info here

New Books On Myanmar

seeking. MacLean compels practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights “fact” production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern.

TheRohingya,JusticeandInternational Law

Kriangsak Kittichaisaree

Routledge

Publisher, 2021

Focusing on the plight of the ethnic and religious group of persons called the ‘Rohingya’, normally residing in Myanmar, as the case study, the book elaborates the complex legal technicalities and impediments in international courts and foreign domestic criminal courts exercising ‘universal jurisdiction’ in relation to acts amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and/or war crimes.

AlongtheIntegralMargin:Uneven CapitalisminaMyanmarSquatter Settlement

Stephen Campbell

Cornell University Press, 2022

In recent years anthropologists have focused on informal, unfree, and other non normative labor arrangements and labeled them as “non-capitalist.” In Along the Integral Margin, Stephen Campbell pushes back against this idea and shows that these labor arrangements are, in fact, important aspects of capitalist development and that the erroneous “noncapitalist” label contributes to obscuring current capitalist relations.

Heritage Drinks of Myanmar takes the reader on an anthropological journey through emerald mountains and rust-red valleys to showcase some of the myriad alcoholic drinks made in this unique and fascinating country. In Myanmar, freshly brewed and distilled beers, wines, and spirits are integral parts of village economies, providing health, communal, and financial benefits. Rice whiskeys infused with insects and fresh beers made from a cornucopia of grains await eager drinkers, brewed as they have been for generations by village residents with their own individual customs and traditions.

Ken MacLean

University of California Press, 2022

Using Myanmar as case study, Ken MacLean examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global NGO-led campaign. Foregrounding fact-finding, in critical yet constructive ways, prompts long overdue conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truth-

Silkworm Press, 2022

CraftingParliamentinMyanmar’s DisciplinedDemocracy(2011-2021)

Renaud

Egreteau

Oxford University Press, 2022

This book offers a compelling account of Myanmar’s halting efforts to develop the institutional framework and practice of a parliament-based democratic governance between 2011 and 2021. It charts the stages of such a legislative resurgence, tracing its causes, and exploring how various institutional and political legacies both informed and constrained the reestablishment and operations of the Union legislature, or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. Renaud Egreteau’s analysis concentrates on key legislative mechanisms, processes, and tasks pertaining to government oversight, budgetary control, representation, and lawmaking and interrogates how they were learned, (re)appropriated, and (mis)performed by Myanmar’s new breed of legislators and parliamentary staff until the 2021 army takeover.

HeritageDrinksofMyanmar Luke J. Corbin & Photographs by Shwe Paw Mya Tin