1st Edition
Heritage, Power, and Liminality Culture and the Crisis of Authoritarian Transitions in Myanmar
1. Heritage, Power, and Liminality
2. Rethinking Heritage Theory with Political Anthropology
3. Two Centuries of Heritage and Transition in Myanmar
4. Political Uses of Sacred Heritage at Shwedagon and Uppātasanti Pagodas
5. Fractured Memoryscape of the Rangoon Secretariat
6. Trickster Makes a Democracy Museum
7. The Crucial Schism
8. Liminal Heritage
9. Conclusion: The Global Meantime
Biography
Alicia Stevens coordinates the Heritage, Memory, and Identity Pillar for MIT’s Global Humanities Initiative. She is a Gates Cambridge Scholar with PhD and MPhil from the University of Cambridge (Dept of Archaeology), a postdoctoral member of the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Two decades of international museum work for the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History also inform her research.
“This book reads the legitimacy of the political regime in Myanmar through the experiences of liminal heritage. Based on a rich in-depth study of key critical junctures of political uncertainty, Alicia Stevens weaves together a powerful panoramic picture in which she marries fine-tuned observation with impressive analytical rigour. She demonstrates that legitimacy cannot be understood simply by tradition or charisma but is also shaped by unexpected turns and twists, trickery as well as symbolic inventions and myth-making. This book superbly delivers on this promise and thus constitutes a milestone in connecting heritage studies to political anthropology.”
- Harald Wydra, Professor of Politics and Holden Fellow in Politics at St Catherine’s College, University of Cambridge
“In this book, readers will find an exploration of how heritage fares in times of acute and extended socio-political upheaval. Stevens borrows from political anthropology to propose ‘liminal heritage’ and observes different contexts in which this comes about as a response to prolonged periods of political unrest and social uncertainty in the context of Burma/Myanmar. Given the proliferation of both uncertainty and transition in the world today, it is a timely contribution to Heritage Studies.”
- Dacia Viejo-Rose, Associate Professor in Heritage and the Politics of the Past and Director of the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge
