Can I read The Traffic in Hierarchy : Masculinity and Its Others in Buddhist Burma on EtoBox?

The Traffic in Hierarchy : Masculinity and Its Others in Buddhist Burma by Ward Keeler; ProQuest (Firm) is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Traffic in Hierarchy : Masculinity and Its Others in Buddhist Burma about?

Until its recent political thaw, Burma was closed to most foreign researchers, and fieldwork-based research was rare. In The Traffic in Hierarchy, one of the few such works to appear in recent years, author Ward Keeler combines close ethnographic attention to life in a Buddhist monastery with a broad analysis of Burman gender ideology. The result is a thought-provoking analysis of Burmese social relations both within and beyond a monastery’s walls. Keeler shows that the roles individuals choose in Burman society entail inevitable trade-offs in privileges and prestige. A man who becomes a monk gives up some social opportunities but takes on others and gains great respect. Alternatively, a man can become a head of household. Or he can choose to take on a feminine gender identity—to the derision of many but not necessarily his social exclusion. A woman, by contrast, is expected to concern herself with her relations with family and kin. Any interest she might show in becoming a nun arouses ambivalent reactions: although it fulfills Buddhist teachings, it contravenes assumptions about a woman’s proper role. In Burma, hierarchical understandings condition all relationships, but hierarc

Author

Ward Keeler; ProQuest (Firm)

Publisher

Hawai'i : University of Hawaiʻi Press

Published

2017

Language

EN

ISBN

9780824865955

Subjects

Science, History, Sociology