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Fashioning Parliament: The Politics of Dress in Myanmar’s Postcolonial Legislatures
Abstract
This article discusses the significance of dress codes and clothing in postcolonial Myanmar’s successive legislatures. Burmese representatives have since the 1950s been strongly encouraged to wear dignified garb and non-Western dress when carrying out their duties in parliament. What does it tell us? The contribution of this study based on field interviews and the analysis of newspaper reports and parliamentary procedures, is threefold. It first sheds light on Myanmar’s understudied parliamentary history and some of its startling institutional continuities despite decades of military rule. It then shows how the fashioning and reinvention of traditional attires by Burmese parliamentarians has accelerated the pace of decolonisation, while serving as an effective tool of representation. Lastly, it argues that the ritual of dress in parliament has contributed to a persistent reification of identities, thereby reinforcing the politicisation of ethnicity in an already fragmented Myanmar society.
... Instead, several wore jackets labeled with their ward's name, an outfit sometimes fashioned by ward administrators to create a collective identity for their offices. This choice of attire can be interpreted as a political statement and an attempt to demonstrate the clerks' actual sense of belonging (Egreteau, 2019). Indeed, ward administrators expressed continued disaffection towards the GAD, for instance mentioning that township-level administrators were generally unknowledgeable of local challenges, because often transferred, or were disinterested listeners. ...
... Furthermore, a few ward officeholders admitted being involved in nain ngan ye. For example, one administrator stated that he remained an NLD member "by heart" although he had formally surrendered his party membership to comply with legal requirements; a ward clerk boasted pictures of her family wearing the NLD's trademark jackets (Egreteau, 2019); and the NLD's peacocked flag or portraits of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi decorated several ward offices. ...
This article explores everyday urban governance and politics in Mandalay, Myanmar. We examine this through a focus on state-society interactions within Mandalay's ward offices, which are the lowest tier of the administrative backbone of the Myanmar state known as the General Administration Department. This reveals the existence of three intertwined forms of urban 'politics' in Mandalay: elite politics, which echo the practices of civil society in the sense of Partha Chatterjee; popular politics, which echo the practices of political society; and self-governance, which is an approach to politics culturally and historically situated in Theravada Buddhism and Myanmar's authoritarian legacies. The situatedness of the case prompts us to argue in favor of expanding the southern urban critique beyond its conventional focus on liberal democratic metropolises of the global South, in order to enrich our understanding of what constitutes postcolonial urban politics. We suggest this could be achieved, as we attempt here, by adopting collaborative research methodologies and by extensively building on southern area scholarship in ways that mediate epistemic expropriation.
... A handful of these legislative rituals were re-established in the 2010s. They include the oath-taking ceremony that MPs must attend before joining the house, the highly symbolic mace-bearing spectacle marking the opening of the daily session, the particular dress code imposed on members of parliament, or the way MPs must address the house speakers and other fellow representatives (Egreteau, 2019(Egreteau, , 2020. It has been argued that the introduction of reimagined parliamentary traditions and ritualistic activities in Myanmar's new legislative bodies is designed to demonstrate a certain institutional continuity after many years without recourse to parliament. 4 The systematic performance of age-old rituals can also facilitate the socialisation of novice MPs into particular, unfamiliar legislative roles and functions. ...
This article investigates the patterns of parliamentary change observed in Myanmar since a constitutionally sanctioned, partially elected legislature was revived in January 2011. In particular, it poses the question as to whether processes of legislative institutionalisation have taken place in the course of the 2010s. Grounded on ethnographic work carried out between 2013 and 2018 in Myanmar’s Union parliament, established in Naypyitaw, the article explores how in the two post-junta legislatures elected in 2010 and 2015 a number of institutional legacies and parliamentary procedures and functions have been both reintroduced and also reappropriated. The findings point to emerging patterns of routinisation of some legislative tasks and duties performed by neophyte lawmakers and parliamentary staff alike. It is argued that, despite persistent capacity and efficiency problems, and a continuing dominance of the executive and the armed forces in the post-junta context, a parliamentary culture has re-emerged in Myanmar. The article concludes by drawing attention to how a process of legislative institutionalisation has been developed, albeit cursorily.
A growing body of research highlights the connection between fashion and politics where women need to choose clothing that will reinforce their authority without undermining their femininity. Hence, traditional dress is often becoming a least preferred option. However, our chapter investigates the dynamics of fashion and politics in Indonesia and discovers that female politicians do not feel the necessity to appear masculine in order to get political support or public approval. In fact, female politicians benefit from choosing a traditional outfit. In one example, the media framed Indonesia’s first female Speaker of the House, Hon. Puan Maharani, wearing Minangkabau traditional garb as a political statement to win back voters’ support. Our respondents further argue the selection of attire is an opportunity to strengthen support toward MSMEs sector and nationalism. Dressing in a feminine and traditional manner offers female politicians the benefit of conveying support toward constituents by acknowledging their local wisdom. The findings shed light on how the experience in Indonesia uniquely does not conform to what we have seen in western and other Asian countries in terms of gender, fashion, and politics.
This study explores the complexity of Jokowi’s political fashion as a visual marker of status, identity, and political power, along with the digital technology advancement. The purpose of this article is to analysed details about Jokowi’s political power through fashion, which is related to five specific moments during the 2019 political campaign until his current leadership. The authors classified two typologies of clothing, including white and black shades of casual clothes and Indonesia’s traditional clothes. Roland Barthes’s semiotics theory and methods helps us to interpret series of symbols on Jokowi’s clothing. This is a qualitative research with document analysis procedure, including electronic material contain text and images (Jokowi’s Instagram archives) related to the main issue. Research shown that clothing wasn’t just an everyday business for Jokowi, but it is also tools that brands his personal identity. Public attention is often stolen when he incorporates local elements in his fashion style. The value of diversity (Kebhinnekaan) in Jokowi’s traditional clothing appearance couldn’t be separated with his identity as a president, as political figure, as Jokowi.
The Anthropology of Parliaments offers a fresh, comparative approach to analysing parliaments and democratic politics, drawing together rare ethnographic work by anthropologists and politics scholars from around the world. Crewe’s insights deepen our understanding of the complexity of political institutions. She reveals how elected politicians navigate relationships by forging alliances and thwarting opponents; how parliamentary buildings are constructed as sites of work, debate and the nation in miniature; and how politicians and officials engage with hierarchies, continuity and change. This book also proposes how to study parliaments through an anthropological lens while in conversation with other disciplines. The dive into ethnographies from across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Region demolishes hackneyed geo-political categories and culminates in a new comparative theory about the contradictions in everyday political work.
Keywords: Myanmar, ethnic languages, education, local curriculum, textbooks, language policy, language politics. ---
Key messages:
► The (re)introduction of ethnic minority languages in formal education is a key aspect of the Union of Myanmar (a country founded on supposedly federal grounds)’s unresolved issues regarding the management of ethnic diversity, which have led to decades of
ethnic confl icts and military dictatorship.
► Including ethnic minority languages in government schools is liable to bring a number of benefits in at least three different dimensions: improving access to education of ethnic minority children, preserving linguistic and cultural diversity, and contributing to “national
reconciliation”.
► While successive military government, and particularly the SLORC/SPDC, have undeniably contributed to the curtailing of ethnic language use in formal education, their policies have often been depicted in an overly monolithic and simplistic way, through repeating phrases along the lines of “the teaching of ethnic minority languages was banned after 1962”.
► The recognition of existing EBEPs by the MoE and the introduction of ethnic minority languages in government schools are two related, but nevertheless distinct, critical issues. The confusion between these two issues and the focus on the fi rst one, mainly through a “ethnic minorities vs Bamar State” lens, has contributed to blur the assessment
of challenges regarding the second issue.
► The two main structural challenges to the introduction of ethnic minority languages and cultures in government schools are geolinguistics (and decentralization) challenges, that are also described in the literature on language-in-education policy across the world:
1. The heterogeneity of populations, in terms of ethno-linguistic backgrounds, in the schools of certain regions of the country, and notably in urban areas.
2. The diffi culties involved in the process of producing a list of ethnonyms with a standardized language attached, to be used in education.
► The Union of Myanmar presents a number of characteristics that makes the more ambitious language-in-education policies particularly challenging. While ethno-linguistic diversity and limited public resources are not uncommon in Asia and the rest of the world, the extent of the politicization of ethnicity – which largely finds its roots in colonial
classifi cations underpinned by essentialist notions of race – does constitute a striking feature of contemporary Myanmar.
► Different actors within ethnic minority regions often have very different conceptions of what should be the language-in-education policy, with conflicting nation-building agendas. Blanket policies suggesting the recognition of the “main” ethnic minority languages to
be used in education defeat, to a large extent, the different purposes of the reform (maintaining diversity, improving educational results, fostering “national reconciliation”). They are very likely to be resisted in the contemporary Myanmar political context.
► In the context of these structural challenges, the current language-in-education policy, (namely teaching ethnic minority languages as subjects and using them orally, as “classroom languages”), based on the 2014-15 Education law, is in our opinion well calibrated for the foreseeable future, and may constitute a decisive step towards more ambitious language-in-education policy. Despite the numerous critics saying that it did
not go far enough (as opposed to a Mother Tongue Based Education system) resorting to orality (in addition to the teaching of ethnic languages as subjects) does offer a substantial amount of fl exibility, and allow to bypass, at least to some extent, the above described
challenges.
► In this context, the last few years have witnessed signifi cant developments and increased momentum towards introducing ethnic minority languages in government schools. As of 2019-2020, according to offi cial fi gures, a total of 64 languages are being taught to
766,731 children by 24,792 teachers throughout the country.
► New teaching positions (the Teaching Assistants, TA) have been created for ethnic minority languages teachers, with salaries that are still modest, but constitute a very significant improvement compared to the 30,000 Kyats received by the language teachers (LT) positions created in 2013. The TAs are also encouraged to carry on their studies in order to become full-fl edged government school teachers, a shift that could be seen as a form of positive discrimination, and which contributes to link carrier opportunities to ethnic minority language skills.
► Other measures to encourage the nurturing of teachers from the more remote geographic areas, in order notably to tackle the language barrier issue, include a shift in access to Education colleges, with seats attributed for candidates of each townships, proportionally
to the school children population of these townships.
► The development of the Local curriculum – content produced for each State and Region, amounting to 15% of the curriculum and including ethnic languages – is also underway since 2017, with the support of UNICEF. Five pilot states have been producing Local knowledge textbooks for the teaching of their respective local histories, geographies
and cultures. There is at the time of writing signifi cant uncertainties regarding this ongoing process, which has already required a good deal of efforts and compromises to overcome diverging views, notably regarding history and its symbols.
► Despite these uncertainties, processes such as this, which entail regular interactions between State/Region levels actors (State/Region governments and parliaments, MoE, MoEA, ethnic literature and cultures committees, as well as other local personalities and CSOs) are critical in the emergence of new political ecosystems. These ongoing processes constitute decisive steps towards decentralizing the Union of Myanmar,
building capacity at sub-national levels and thereby taking on the great political challenges the country has been facing since its inception.
Shedding light on an understudied aspect of Myanmar's institutional history, this study interrogates the perpetuation of parliamentary rituals in the country's successive postcolonial legislatures. It focuses on two ritualised ceremonies: the oath taken by new members of parliaments and the mace-bearing spectacle marking the opening of the daily session. Their maintenance, re-appropriation and re-designing under Myanmar's different post-independence regimes reveal a persistent linkage between institution-building, state formation and the reinvention of royal symbols and religious traditions of the country's dominant ethnic group, the Bamar. Furthermore, drawing on document analysis, archival research and interviews with MPs and parliamentary staff carried out in Myanmar's Union legislature, this article argues that the continuing performance of such parliamentary rituals has served two other purposes: conferring hegemonic powers and status on the parliamentary speakers, while ensuring loyalty, discipline and deference in the house.
In an attempt to better grasp the realities of Myanmar's national legislature, which was formed after the 2010 elections, this paper examines the personal profiles and social backgrounds of its elected and appointed members. I have sought to record data on the social composition of Myanmar's first “post-junta” parliament and provide a dataset for further comparative research on the resurgence of legislative affairs in the country. The study draws on official publications containing the biographies of 658 national parliamentarians. Focusing on six socio-demographic variables, the findings suggest that the typical Burmese legislator still closely mirrors the conventional image of Myanmar's characteristic postcolonial leader: a man, in his mid-fifties, ethnically Bamar, Buddhist, holding a Myanmar university degree, engaged in business activities or in the education sector (in the case of the 492 elected legislators) or in the security sector (for the 166 military appointees). However, I argue that the profile of Myanmar's first post-junta legislature offers a quite unexpected level of diversity that may augur well for the emergence of a new civilian policymaking elite in Myanmar.
This article explores the importance of ceremony and ritual as a frame within which to examine political institutions such as parliaments. It suggests that through such analysis we can trace the circulation of meanings, the particularity of institutional cultures and the sedimentation of power in political institutions. Methodologically, the article challenges the popular view that ceremony and ritual can be regarded simply as ‘trappings’ of power; it thus emphasises their continued political relevance. Finally, the article assesses the values ascribed to particular forms of institutional power rather than the other – to understand why certain norms, rituals and ceremonies are normalised and others deemed deviant, thus rendering marginal those that are seen to be the ‘others’ within the institutional space.
This article focuses on the contested, and frequently postponed, construction of a new parliament house in postcolonial Myanmar. Since the late colonial period, the country’s legislative bodies have convened in four different buildings, three located in the former capital Yangon and the latest one in Naypyitaw. Drawing on legislative proceedings and media reports, this study interrogates the relationship between decolonisation, national identity, state-building, and public architecture in post-independence Myanmar. It suggests that the commissioning and construction of a new legislative house has always served a dual objective: projecting state power and national pride in both Myanmar’s early postcolonial and later post-junta political contexts, whilst symbolising a sense of nationhood grounded on the representational ideals of the dominant and ruling ethnic Bamar elites.
This article investigates gendered nationalist ideologies and their attendant myths and narratives in present-day Kyrgyzstan through an investigation of clothing items and practices. Clothes “speak volumes,” revealing tensions between gendered narratives of nationhood and various interpretations of what “proper” Kyrgyz femininities and masculinities should be. Clothing thus becomes both a sign and a site of the politics of identity, inscribing power relations and individual strategies of Kyrgyz men and women onto their bodies. Individual clothing choices and strategies take place within the general context of discursive struggles over what authentic and appropriate representations of Kyrgyzness should be. Thus, such clothing items as ak kalpak (conical felt hats) and the practice of Muslim women covering their head (hijab) acquire social and political meanings that stand for wider processes of identity contestations in the country.
A concern with unity has been a consistent theme in modern Burmese politics. This article examines a particularly problematic conception of unity that I argue draws strength from its resonance with Buddhist moral notions of the self and overcoming self-centeredness. As a moral concept, this narrative of unity is idealized in devotion to a common purpose and loyalty to a group or community; it requires subsuming one’s own interests for the benefit of the whole, something that encapsulates the Buddhist practice of rejecting atta (ego). Disunity, then, is the result of a group of individuals committed only to their own benefit; it is evidence of moral failure. This discourse of unity has been an effectively anti-democratic disciplining tool (deployed by both governments and opposition groups) for suppressing internal dissent. Despite General Aung San’s oft-quoted slogan of “unity in diversity,” political movements in Myanmar have been more commonly characterized by hegemonic attempts at imposing a top-down unity that labels deviation from or criticism of dominant positions as disloyalty. This article examines the perpetuation of a rigid, unitary understanding of unity and argues that developing a more flexible and accommodating notion of unity will be a necessary step in the process of national reconciliation.
Traditional anthropological participant-observation and cultural interpretation can provide insight into the relationship of dress to human individual and social experience that more expedient methodologies may ignore. This interpretation of female dress of the Karen, a hill tribe in northwest Thailand, relies primarily on anthropological symbolic theory. It suggests that dress may serve as a symbolic metaphor of the relationship of the individual to the cultural system. As such, dress can be an extremely powerful symbolic way of expressing and reinforcing subtle values, relationships, and meaning in human culture. Dress can contribute to the maintenance of cultural continuity by interaction with ritual to cause individuals to want to act as they must act in order to preserve their own cultural system.
How does one approach a study of the archi-textures of parliamentary spaces? How do the walls, floors, doors, grilles, sculptures, murals and glass sensate legitimate parliamentary rites, rituals and performances? How do they also provide researchers with opportunities for telling altered iterations of how parliamentary space has both contained and been taken apart? If the buildings and its textures are embedded with iconography and haptic architectures which provide containers of democracy, how can we, as researchers working through different occupations of architectures, evacuate a different imagination of political space?
This article works across disciplines: politics, geography and social and cultural theory. Issues of space and body are brought to bear on how we think about the question 'making a difference'. By considering difference in terms of the socio-spatial impact of the presence of hitherto socially excluded groups, such as women and racialised minorities, the gendered and racialised nature of the body politic and most specifically its 'elite' positions is brought into focus. The co-existence of women and 'black' and Asian MPs in Westminster demonstrates how these 'groups' are both historically and conceptually 'space invaders'. This positionality underlies a series of social processes which illustrate how their very presence is a disruption as well as a continual negotiation. While accepting the agnostic perspective that there are 'no guarantees' that the arrival of these 'new' bodies will articulate a different politics, in terms of policy outcomes and political debate, this article asserts that the sociological terms of their presence deserves in-depth attention.
- Parkins
A Decade of Parliamentary Life in Burma
- Srinivasan