2015 Volume 2015 Issue 44 Pages 5-26
The purpose of this article is to investigate the cohesiveness or communality of Myanmar village society in comparison with Japan and Thailand. The village societies are considered from three viewpoints: a village as a group or organization, a village as a sphere of cognition, and a village as an outcome of the political power.
The first section will review conceptualizations of village societies in Japan, Thailand, and Myanmar. Two strains can be discovered in the theories of village societies in Japan and Thailand. One is the thesis of group or organization, which includes group accumulation theory and household alliance theory in Japan, and multi-household compound theory in Thailand. The other thesis is that of subjective recognition, which includes village spirit theory in Japan and family circle theory in Thailand. The two strains are often at odds. This article will try to connect the two to formulate a new theory on Myanmar village society.
The second section will compare characteristics of intra-village groups in Myanmar and in Japan. The prototype of Japanese villages was shaped by the Tokugawa feudal government in the beginning of the 17th century. Joint production activities -such as agricultural cooperative movements, irrigation management, rice procurement, land consolidation, and reduction of rice acreage -have been conducted by each village as a unit up to the present date. In contrast, in Myanmar each village has not been organized as a unit for joint production. These historical configurations made Japanese villages tight and Myanmar villages loose. However, various groups-namely consumer cooperatives, congratulatory or condolence associations, fire brigades, pagoda committees, and drinking water committees- have been set up in Myanmar villages for purposes of living together.
The third section will synthesize theories of group and recognition in order to illuminate how the above-mentioned groups are created and arranged. Firstly, multi-household compounds extend to neighbouring household clusters after a compound is divided by inheritance. A Myanmar village is composed of these compounds and clusters, with non-kin households residing in the empty spaces between them. Secondly, the villagers meet and visit each other’s households following close kinship ties. Open house structures and encounters in various ceremonies and labour arrangements enable these frequent meetings and visits. Thirdly, the “frequent contact” creates an elaborate mesh of dyadic networks in the village. Both sides of the dyad refer to each other in kinship terms even when they are not blood relatives. If one cannot determine the familial relationship, the one calls the other Yat Swe Yat Myo or “relatives of the place.” This cognition leads to the identification of a fellow villager as a family member. Fourthly, when “catalysts,” such as orders from the state, assistances of NGOs, money, competent leaders, crises, or the maintenance of pagodas and monasteries, impinge on these close-knit networks and social circles, the groups and organizations mentioned above are formed in this loosely structured society.
Such groups and organizations based on dyadic networks can be effortlessly set up and become active by the presence and mediation of good catalysts, but they can be easily broken up with waning catalysts or personal disputes among the members. These groups are constituted not for collective production as seen in Japan but for various purposes of living together. Myanmar villages are communities for living, lacking in production.
