Naoko Kumada, or Nu Nu Lwin, as she is known in Myanmar, is anthropologist of Myanmar society and culture. She is recognized as the only researcher since 1962 to have succeeded in doing extended ethnographic field work in rural Myanmar. Her doctoral dissertation on Myanmar society, religion and economy in the context of daily life and practice was one of the first anthropological studies by a foreign scholar to rely on fluency in the Burmese language. She is currently an independent scholar and consultant focusing on urbanization and business in Myanmar. Email:
Notions of kinship within systems of rebirth challenge the dominant Euro-American view of kinship as fundamentally biology-centred. By reading across the domains of religion and kinship in Burma, this article will show that what substance is, as well as does, is not self-evident, and thereby reorient the analysis of substance. Furthermore, it will show that it is in the movement of spiritual essences, rather than biogenetic items, that the continuity of each living being’s existence is sought in Burma. Thus, kinship relations are shaped, not necessarily by biology, but by religious and spiritual views of existence.
目次
Introduction 75 The problem of kinship in Burma 79 Space, body, and intimacy 84 Rebirth 88 Reincarnation 90 Death 92 Conception 93 Conclusion 96 Acknowledgements 96 Disclosure statement 96 Funding 96 Notes 97 References 104
