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For decades, the heartland of Myanmar has been configured as a pacified space under military surveillance. A closer look reveals how politics is enacted at distance with the state. Calibrated Engagement weaves together ethnography and history to chronicle the transformation of rural politics in Anya, the dry lands of central Myanmar. The book presents situations as varied as local elections, inheritance transmissions, land conflicts and ceremonies, to show that politics is about how people calibrate the way they engage with each other.
“This is an incredibly important piece of scholarship … not only is this the first village study of lowland Myanmar (with Ardeth Thawnghmung’s Teak Curtain exception) in 60 years, but we have never before seen a text that develops a diachronic account of Burma’s villages over time.” • Elliott Prasse-Freeman, National University of Singapore
“Huard not only delivers the first ethnographical account of a rural village in Central Myanmar since Manning Nash and Melford Spiro’s studies in the sixties … he also writes a lively history of the making of the local rural society. Easy to go through, infused with the author’s empathy for his hosts, the book is well written.” • Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, Centre Asie du Sud-Est-EHESS
Stéphen Huard is Researcher in anthropology at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). He has previously co-edited a French publication Transferts non marchands en Asie du Sud-Est et au-dela: Diversité des échanges et dynamiques des rapports sociaux (Moussons, 2021).
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Text
Chapter 1. The Coming of Village Headship
Chapter 2. The Last Men of Power
Chapter 3. The Rise of Village Affairs
Chapter 4. Being the Headman
Chapter 5. Transmitting Land
Chapter 6. The Worth of the Big Men
Chapter 7. Coda. Choosing a New Headman
Conclusion: History, Power and Violence