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Metamorphosis

Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar

With a young population of more than 52 million, an ambitious roadmap for political reform, and on the cusp of rapid economic development, since 2010 the world’s attention has been drawn to Myanmar or Burma.


   But underlying recent political transitions are other wrenching social changes and shocks, a set of transformations less clearly mapped out. Relations between ethnic and religious groups, in the context of Burma’s political model of a state composed of ethnic groups, are a particularly important “unsolved equation”.


         The editors use the notion of metamorphosis to look at Myanmar today and tomorrow—a term that accommodates linear change, stubborn persistence and the possibility of dramatic transformation. Divided into four sections, on politics, identity and ethnic relations, social change in fields like education and medicine, and the evolutions of religious institutions, the volume takes a broad view, combining an anthropological approach with views from political scientists and historians. This volume is an essential guide to the political and social challenges ahead for Myanmar.

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements


Introduction—Metamorphosis: Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar
Renaud Egreteau and François Robinne

PART ONE: EVOLVING POLITICAL ECOLOGIES
Chapter 1: Soldiers as Lawmakers?: Assessing the New Legislative Role of the Burmese Armed Forces (2010-15)
Renaud Egreteau

Chapter 2: The 2010 Election and the Making of a Parliamentary Representative
Alexandra de Mersan

Chapter 3: Grassroots Protest Movements and Mutating Conceptions of “the Political” in an Evolving Burma
Elliott Prasse-Freeman

PART TWO: CONTINUING STRUGGLES FOR IDENTITY AND NATION-BUILDING
Chapter 4: How Far from National Identity?: Dealing with the Concealed Diversity of Myanmar
Maxime Boutry

Chapter 5: Ethno-nationalism and Participation in Myanmar: Views from Shan State and Beyond
Jane M. Ferguson

Chapter 6: Competing Identities and the Hybridized History of the Rohingyas
Jacques P. Leider

Chapter 7: Unwanted War, Unachievable Peace: Examining Some Kachin Narratives in Times of Conflict
Carine Jaquet

PART THREE: TRAJECTORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE
Chapter 8: Students and Teachers as Agents of Democratization and National Reconciliation in Burma: Realities and Possibilities
Rosalie Metro

Chapter 9: Transnational Activism as Practised by Activists from Burma: Negotiating Precarity, Mobility and Resistance
Susan Banki

Chapter 10: Accessibility of Biomedicine in Contemporary Rakhine State
Céline Coderey

PART FOUR: A TRANSITIONAL “BUDDHIC” LANDSCAPE
Chapter 11: Is There a Future for Buddhist Nuns in Myanmar?
Hiroko Kawanami

Chapter 12: A Generation of Monks in the Democratic Transition
Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

Chapter 13: To Be Burmese is Not (Only) Being Buddhist
François Robinne

Contributors
Bibliography
Index

 

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