Organizer: Harvard University Asia Center

Type/Location: Hybrid / Cambridge, MA

Description:

In this lecture, I describe the technologies of self and subjectification that were built up around political imprisonment in Myanmar. Political imprisonment, the brutality it entailed, the heroism that it signified, the attempts by the military administration to suppress the memory of the suffering bodies of activists, and the dangers and deprivations in the everyday life of civilians under military rule provided fertile ground for the emergence of a rich repertoire of social, ritual, and self-technologies, which helped to sustain the nonviolent movement for democracy in Myanmar for almost three decades. In the first part of the lecture, I analyze the sedimentation of charisma in the 88 Generation through an analysis of their bodily comportments, gestures, and ceremonial attire. I then liken the intersubjectivity that is achieved between political leaders (gaungzaungs) and their supporters to the imaginative and social processes that occur in relation to other-worldly beings and liminal figures within a broad pantheon, particularly the Buddhist figures of the hpayalaung (Bodhisattvas), the Cakkavatti (Universal Ruler), and the arahat (saint); as well as supernatural beings such as nats and weikza.

About the Speaker:

Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson, PhD, has been conducting long-term ethnographic and psycho-cultural research in 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. Dr. Thein-Lemelson has worked with former political prisoners and democracy activists in Myanmar since 2013 and is finishing a book-length ethnographic study on political imprisonment and self-sacrifice in Myanmar. Dr. Thein-Lemelson is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, where she teaches undergraduate classes on “The Anthropology of Burma,” “Political Imprisonment,” and “Social Movements and Controlling Processes.”

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