n°19 - Pouvoir et médiatisation. Rituels de résistance et guerre psychologique en contexte birman de révolution
Chloé Baills
IRASEC, Bangkok
August 2024, 14 p.
French text
Following the 1st February 2021 coup in Burma, ritual modes of action were mediatized in the streets and on social media by resistance forces to act against the military. These modes of action, widely known in the Burmese and Buddhist context, have been variously interpreted : psychological warfare against the military, instrumental tool to denounce their alleged beliefs, manipulation of powerful forces, feminist revolution, etc. The circulation of ritual content in the street and on social media, sometimes reappearing in traditional media, reinvented or transformed in the public space, constituted an unprecedented moment in the Burmese revolution that was effective, in the first months after the coup, in facing the violence imposed by the military. A closer look at this moment, which mobilizes rituals but is not perceived as such by part of the resistance, provides an insight into what is at stake in the globalized, mediatized context of the revolution. In the face of violence, these ritual techniques are used politically to denigrate and frighten the military, as much as a Burmese way of acting on the world. The innovation of this moment, however, lies in its mediatization : the dialogue that has emerged between ritual content, reinvented derivative forms and their readings, thus constitutes a ritual dynamic in its own right. This ritual mobilization is intrinsically effective in resisting the military, and enables a community of resistance, within Burma or deterritorialized in the networks of the exiled diaspora, to invent itself through a common language.
Read the note :
- Note 19
Chloé Baills is a doctoral student in anthropology at EPHE, attached to CASE and GSRL, and an associate doctoral candidate at IRASEC (2023-2025).
