Citation

Skidmore M. Am. Ethnol. 2003; 30(1): 5-21.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1525/ae.2003.30.1.5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Burmese military State constructs fear and vulnerability among its citizenry through the strategic use of political violence. Fear is inherently temporal and, unlike despair, requires that one have the ability to envisage alternatives to a future of complete domination. Burmese people strive not to express fear, and the anthropologist's articulation of fear contrasts with the silence that fear engenders among them. In this article I reflect on strategies for the ethical collection of experiences of fear in situations where suppressing or denying fear is the most common survival strategy. [Burma, Myanmar, violence, fear, state construction of affect, vulnerability, time]