Karaoke fascism : Burma and the politics of fear
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Karaoke fascism : Burma and the politics of fear
(The ethnography of political violence)
University of Pennsylvania Press, c2004
- : cloth
- : pbk
Available at 13 libraries
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  Iwate
  Miyagi
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  Kyoto
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-
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Library (GRIPS Library)
cloth302.238||Sk00899896
Note
Bibliography: p. [223]-234
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780812218831
Description
To come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore's experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life.
Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, girl prostitutes, and poor and vulnerable women in forcibly relocated townships speak about fear, hope, and their ongoing resistance to four decades of oppression.
"Karaoke fascism" is a term the author uses to describe the layers of conformity that Burmese people present to each other and, more important, to the military regime. This complex veneer rests on resistance, collaboration, and complicity, and describes not only the Burmese form of oppression but also the Burmese response to a life of domination. Providing an inside look at the madness and the militarization of the city, Skidmore argues that the weight of fear, the anxiety of constant vulnerability, and the numbing demands of the State upon individuals force Burmese people to cast themselves as automata; they deliberately present lifeless hollow bodies for the State's use, while their minds reach out into the cosmos for an array of alternate realities. Skidmore raises ethical and methodological questions about conducting research on fear when doing so evokes the very emotion in question, in both researcher and informant.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Rangoon: End of Strife
2. Bombs, Barricades, and the Urban Battlefield
3. Darker Than Midnight: Fear, Vulnerability, and Terror-Making
4. Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar
5. The Veneer of Modernity
6. The Veneer of Conformity
7. The Tension of Absurdity
8. Fragments of Misery: The People of the New Fields
9. The Forest of Time
10. Going to Sleep with Karaoke Culture
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
- Volume
-
: cloth ISBN 9780812238112
Description
To come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore's experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life.
Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, girl prostitutes, and poor and vulnerable women in forcibly relocated townships speak about fear, hope, and their ongoing resistance to four decades of oppression.
"Karaoke fascism" is a term the author uses to describe the layers of conformity that Burmese people present to each other and, more important, to the military regime. This complex veneer rests on resistance, collaboration, and complicity, and describes not only the Burmese form of oppression but also the Burmese response to a life of domination. Providing an inside look at the madness and the militarization of the city, Skidmore argues that the weight of fear, the anxiety of constant vulnerability, and the numbing demands of the State upon individuals force Burmese people to cast themselves as automata; they deliberately present lifeless hollow bodies for the State's use, while their minds reach out into the cosmos for an array of alternate realities. Skidmore raises ethical and methodological questions about conducting research on fear when doing so evokes the very emotion in question, in both researcher and informant.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Rangoon: End of Strife
2. Bombs, Barricades, and the Urban Battlefield
3. Darker Than Midnight: Fear, Vulnerability, and Terror-Making
4. Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar
5. The Veneer of Modernity
6. The Veneer of Conformity
7. The Tension of Absurdity
8. Fragments of Misery: The People of the New Fields
9. The Forest of Time
10. Going to Sleep with Karaoke Culture
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
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