Les transferts et leurs enjeux : ethnographie d’un moment de malaise lors d’un rituel d’initiation bouddhique au Myanmar

Abstract

This article analyses how a transfer of food can become a political act based on the description of a scene of embarrassment during the feast of a Buddhist initiation ceremony called shinbyu. A shinbyu is a religious donation in the full sense of the term (ahlu), crucial in the lives of the Buddhist Burmese. While the shinbyu has been studied for its symbolic and ritual aspects by various anthropologists, this article proposes to analyse it through the social scenes in which different types of transfers (invitation, reception, donations of food, money, mutual help, etc.) intertwine with the religious donation. It focuses especially on “The Plate Scene”, an ambiguous moment where uncertainty about the meaning of the staging – donors posing for a video while feeding the guests – reveals the political work at play in interpreting transfers – when an elderly lady refuses to be caught in the game. Ultimately, this article shows how a typological approach to the forms of transfers can be combined with a more political approach to the stakes underlying them.

Keywords

• ethnography
• transfer
• political anthropology
• staging
• ritual
• Burma/Myanmar