Calibrated Engagement

Stéphen Huard is Researcher in anthropology at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). He has previously co-edited a French publication Transferts non marchands en Asie du Sud-Est et au-dela: Diversité des échanges et dynamiques des rapports sociaux (Moussons, 2021).

“This is an incredibly important piece of scholarship … not only is this the first village study of lowland Myanmar (with Ardeth Thawnghmung’s Teak Curtain exception) in 60 years, but we have never before seen a text that develops a diachronic account of Burma’s villages over time.” • Elliott Prasse-Freeman, National University of Singapore“Huard not only delivers the first ethnographical account of a rural village in Central Myanmar since Manning Nash and Melford Spiro’s studies in the sixties … he also writes a lively history of the making of the local rural society. Easy to go through, infused with the author’s empathy for his hosts, the book is well written.” • Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, Centre Asie du Sud-Est-EHESS

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgementsNote on TextIntroductionPart I: HistoriesChapter 1. The Coming of Village HeadshipChapter 2. The Last Men of PowerChapter 3. The Rise of Village AffairsPart II: Making PoliticsChapter 4. Being the HeadmanChapter 5. Transmitting LandChapter 6. The Worth of the Big MenChapter 7. Coda. Choosing a New HeadmanConclusion: History, Power and ViolenceGlossaryReferencesIndex