Paper short abstract:

By using the Burmese democracy movement as a case study, I unpack the complex relationship between extreme bodily self-sacrifice, the elicitation of sublime, self-transcendent emotions, such as awe, and what I describe broadly as individual and community-level “resilience.”

Paper long abstract:

Over the last seven years, as a part of a long-term ethnographic project, I have been documenting the lives of former political prisoners in Burma who took part in a non-violent movement for democracy. Those who rise as gaungzaungs (leaders) in this movement are known not only for having survived extreme experiences of torture, dehumanization, and deprivation at the hands of the military state, but for their ability to endure such states for unusually long periods of time—sometimes living through imprisonment for upwards of twenty years. Once released from prison, these gaungzaungs retain their leadership roles in the movement, exercising both political power and interpersonal agency, as well as commanding a unique moral authority. Indeed, it is through their extreme acts of bodily self-sacrifice, that gaungzaungs inspire both devotion and emulation on the part of their supporters. In this paper, I unpack the complex relationship between extreme bodily self-sacrifice, the elicitation of sublime, self-transcendent emotions, such as awe, and the relative “resiliency” of the Burmese democracy movement. I synthesize empirical findings from the science of human flourishing with anthropological theories that emphasize the beneficial effects and functional properties of rites of terror and passages. I discuss my ethnographic findings not only in terms of universalizing psychological models, but situate them both historically and culturally within a moral and cosmological universe that draws heavily upon Theravada Buddhist epistemology and folk beliefs.