Un système symbolique en construction : l’exemple du bateau birman

La mer, traditionnellement ignorée de la culture birmane tournée vers la riziculture et les eaux douces, pénètre les sphères des pratiques rituelles des habitants de l’archipel Mergui. Le développement rapide et récent de la pêche impose de nouveaux rapports socio-économiques. À la lumière des données recueillies pendant six mois de terrain, il convient d’apporter des précisions aux recherches préliminaires de Jacques Ivanoff. En effet, l’identité et le rôle technique et social du bateau comme des mythes afférents restent à étudier. L’auteur présente ici des hypothèses sur un système symbolique en construction s’articulant sur les relations entre l’homme, l’environnement, les mythes et plus globalement le monde surnaturel, propres aux pêcheurs birmans de l’archipel Mergui. Le bateau et le na(t) (esprit) qui y réside sont ici considérés comme l’élément essentiel de ce système et comme le support principal de l’appropriation du milieu marin et insulaire.A symbolic system under construction. The example of Burmese shipsTraditionaly, Burmese do not have got a sea culture, they were involved in rice growing and fresh waters. But the new and recent development of fishing have lead them to new socio-economic relations. After six months fieldwork, J. Ivanoff previous’work can be completed. The identity, the social and technical role of the boat and related myths need to be studied. I present here an hypothesis on a symbolic system under construction which is linked, in the Mergui Archipelago, to man, environment, myths and more generally to supernatural world. The boat, and the nat(s) (spirit) living in it, are considered as the main elements of this system and the main means for the appropriation of the marine and insulary environment.Un sistema simbólico en construcción : el ejemplo del barco birmanoIgnorado tradicionalmente por la cultura birmana que se orientaba hacia el cultivo de arroz y las aguas dulces, el mar va penetrando las esferas de las prácticas rituales en el archipiélago Mergui. El desarrollo tan reciente como rápido de la pesca acarrea nuevas relaciones socio-económicas. A la vista de los datos recogidos durante seis meses de trabajo de terreno, es conveniente proporcionar ciertas precisiones para completar las investigaciones preliminares de Jacques Ivanoff. Efectivamente, la identidad y el papel técnico y social del barco, así como los mitos que les corresponden, quedan por estudiar. El autor presenta unas hipótesis respecto a un sistema simbólico en construcción que se articula con las relaciones entre el hombre, el medio natural, los mitos y, globalmente, el mundo sobrenatural —un sistema propio de los pescadores birmanos del archipiélago Mergui. El barco y su nat(t) (especie de genio) son los elementos esenciales de este sistema. Son también el apoyo principal de la apropiación del medio marítimo e insular

Land tenure in rural lowland Myanmar: From historical perspectives to contemporary realities in the Dry zone and the Delta: Of lives of land Myanmar research series.

This study emerged out of an identified need to document social processes leading to land insecurity, and those leading to investment and sustainable use of lands by rural populations. Focusing on the Delta and Dry Zone, the main paddy producing regions of Myanmar, this analysis unravels the powers at play in shaping rural households’ relationship to land. From British colonization to the 2012 reforms, many issues have remained relatively unchanged with regards to local dynamics of landlessness, exclusion processes, local power plays, restrictions in farmers’ land rights and the State’s excessive focus on rice. In the midst of a fast evolving legal context, this work provides a typology of farmers and the landless and argues that more attention needs to be paid to understand the diversity of rural households and forms of landlessness

Les frontiers de Leach au prisme des migrations birmanes ou penser la société en mouvement

À partir de deux migrations « birmanes », l’objectif de cet article est de rendre compte des mouvements affectant la société birmane. La migration n’est pas envisagée ici comme un acte fondateur mais comme un processus créateur de continuités et de discontinuités sociales. Elle nous permet d’étudier des « tensions » se créant entre la société d’origine des migrants et la société locale, ces « tensions » étant le résultat de l’appropriation de nouveaux environnements écologiques, socioculturels et ethniques. Mon hypothèse est que la continuité nécessaire entre la société d’origine et la société d’arrivée mobilise des structures sociales que la migration permet de révéler. Les discontinuités inhérentes au processus de socialisation des environnements conquis révèlent quant à elles des frontières de différentes natures (écologique, d’organisation sociale, culturelle, ethnique) permettant de structurer le paysage social. La relation birmane au kyé’zu’shin est ici mise en valeur comme structure de la continuité et puissant vecteur de birmanisation et de bouddhisation du delta de l’Irrawaddy. À l’extrême sud de la Birmanie, cette relation se transpose à celle de tokè et se modifie au contact des Moken (nomades d’origine austronésienne) entraînant des interactions agissant à la fois comme le creuset d’une différenciation sociale et le vecteur d’intégration de l’environnement insulaire à l’espace social birman.From the example of two Burmese migrations, this articles aims to show the movements taking on the Burmese society. The migration is not envisaged here as a founding act but as a creation process of social continuities and discontinuities. It allows us to study “tensions” emerging between the “native” and the local society, these “tensions” being the result of the appropriation of new ecological, socio-cultural and ethnic environments. I argue that on the first hand, the necessary continuity between the “native” and the arrival societies mobilizes some social structures revealed by the migration. On the other, the inherent discontinuities in the socialization process of the conquered environments reveal some frontiers of various natures (ecological, of social organization, cultural, ethnic) structuring the social landscape. The Burmese relationship to the kyézu’shin is emphasized here as a continuity’s structure and a powerful vector for the Irrawaddy delta’s burmization and buddhisation process. In the southernmost region of Burma, this relation is transposed to the taukè’s one and modifies itself at the contact with the Moken (nomads of austronesian origins). As a consequence, the interactions between the two populations act both as the core of a social differentiation and a vector to integrate the insular environment to the Burmese social space

L’arakanisation d’Arakan : les racines d’un nouvel exode ?

The conflict opposing Buddhist and Muslim populations in Rakhine State (Arakan) since June 2012 is different from the previous ones for its national knock-on effects and a generalization of the confrontations to the Muslim populations of Myanmar. Nonetheless, political analyses omit to take into account the ethnic complexity and the fluidity of identities characterizing Arakan populations: they cannot be summarized to the sole Arakanese and Rohingya like they cannot be classified simply between Buddhists and Muslims. This article tries to explain this long-standing complexity that allowed interethnic exchanges despites splitting imaginaries and the effects of essentialist discourses linked to the conflict on the relationship between these populations and the Rakhine territory. The current identities’ idealization process tending to deprive any other population than Arakanese Buddhists from legitimacy on the Rakhine territory will be determining in shaping the constantly increasing Rohingya emigration

The “Moving” Frontiers of Burma

From the frontiers as an object to the frontiers as a method Anthropology of borders in its contemporary developments answers to the awareness of the radical changes bring by the drawing of national borders. Before the colonization, territories were seen by their populations differently, subjected to moving and relative relations of power regarding the hegemony of a State, a kingdom or a society. Even if Thailand haven’t been, strictly speaking, colonized, the work of Winichakul (2005) Siam M..

Les frontières « mouvantes » de Birmanie

Des frontières comme objet aux frontières comme méthode L’anthropologie des frontières dans ses développements contemporains répond à une prise de conscience des modifications radicales apportées par l’apposition de frontières nationales conçues comme des limites. Avant leur colonisation, les territoires étaient perçus différemment par les populations et sujets à des relations de pouvoir beaucoup plus relatives et mouvantes quant à l’hégémonie d’un État, d’un royaume ou d’une société sur ce t..

Buddhists and Muslims of Arakan: religious conflict or national identity crisis?

November 2012 On 28 May 2012, a young Buddhist was raped and killed by assailants who were immediately identified as “Rohingya” Muslims by the Burmese authorities of Sittwe, in Arakan (Rakhine State). In the weeks that followed, the mutual resentment of the two communities – “Rohingya” Muslims and Buddhist Arakanese, which had festered since the end of British colonization, exploded into incendiary brawls, leading thousands of people of both faiths to flee their homes. Despite the curfew impo..

The “Moving” Frontiers of Burma

From the frontiers as an object to the frontiers as a method Anthropology of borders in its contemporary developments answers to the awareness of the radical changes bring by the drawing of national borders. Before the colonization, territories were seen by their populations differently, subjected to moving and relative relations of power regarding the hegemony of a State, a kingdom or a society. Even if Thailand haven’t been, strictly speaking, colonized, the work of Winichakul (2005) Siam M..