Nationalism, Culture, and Gender in Myanmar

This book employs zat pwe —a popular performance art event—to examine how nationalist concepts of culture and gender shape and sustain power relations in Myanmar society. The focus is on the performance events, including the ten-hour nightly shows, the professional troupes that stage them, the Bama-speaking village and ward communities that organise and attend them, and the absent intellectuals who discuss them. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with several traveling zat troupes based in Mandalay, but performing across various states and regions, as well as with residents of different wards in Mandalay, the study uncovers a nationalist discourse that reaches beyond political arenas and into the everyday life of Bama society. This discourse is transmitted through concepts of culture and gender that influence the power dynamics between the educated elite and ordinary citizens, as well as between men and women. The research illustrates how these concepts, embedded in nationalist discourse, intersect with one another and with ideas from other discourses, reinforcing hierarchical relations. By focusing on zat pwe events, this book sheds light on a significant yet frequently overlooked aspect of Bama society, precisely due to the very power structures under examination.