T he initial inspiration for this collaboration came from the experience garnered at an international conference on Burmese studies in 2002, titled “Burma-Myanmar Research and Its Future.”
1. It was convened to reflect on social science and humanities-based scholarship on Myanmar in the past half century, which had started in earnest in the 1940s, and culminated in the first wave of publications based on empirical research in the 1950s and 1960s.
2. At the start of the millennium, the conference acknowledged a new era in engaging in constructive discussion amongst scholars in many areas of Burmese-Myanmar studies. Some of the articles in this special issue were originally presented as part of a panel on religion convened by the guest editors of this issue, Hiroko Kawanami and Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, whilst others were written anew to fit the theme of power, authority, and contested hegemony in the field of Burmese-Myanmar religion. Although most approaches are generally phenomenological or anthropological, some have undertaken analysis from a historical perspective or a hermeneutical approach to enrich the discussion. What must also be highlighted here is that the scope of this issue was restricted to those concerned primarily with social phenomena that have relevance to Buddhism, it being the religion of the majority population in Myanmar. Other religions such as Islam and Hinduism that are also adhered to by Myanmar people of other ethnic origins, as well as Christianity and indigenous religions practiced by minority groups, were left out here.
