Description
Book SynopsisTo 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 h
Trade Review
"Skidmore captures perfectly how even the passing visitor to Burma absorbs the atmosphere of fear and internalises the vulnerability and precariousness of a life under a military dictatorship. It is rare for an academic work to be so captivating." * Australian Journal of Anthropology *
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
