legitimize facts. To be able to do so, I will use Unni Wikan´s work in Bali as
inspiration(Wikan, 1990). In her work, she explains how the Balinese connect thoughts and
feelings, something she calls feeling-thoughts. She also introduces the term resonance.
Resonance evokes shared human experience, what people across “cultures” and through time
have in common. Unlike the concept of “culture,” that tends to underscore differentness and
praise the exotic, “resonance” builds bridges from a lived realization that this is the practiced
way.
“It does not deny difference… …but renders difference relatively insignificant in the face of
that which counts more: shared human experience”(Wikan, 1990, pp. 281-282)
Wikan shows us how experience is being shaped, and memories activated by the active
engagement of feeling-thoughts and uses feeling-thought as a lens to see things through. Her
informants would laugh at the western view of feeling as something irrational since they
regard feelings and thoughts as the same, is then thoughts irrational as well? This way of
looking at emotion and thoughts I will bring in to my argumentation and analysis in chapter 5.
There seem to be some similarities between the way Balinese and Burmese links these factors
and makes sense of them. When one of my Burmese informants talks about the connection of
brain and heart, Wikan says that from her stay in Bali she has grown convinced that feelingthought may be the better concept in that it does justice to a flow of experiences. This flow is
neither embedded “in” the heart nor “in” the mind; it flows (Wikan, 1990, pp. 137-139). Brain
and heart are not distinguished but part of the same process.
In chapter 5. I will also address Michelle Rosaldo and her works on guilt and shame amongst
the Ilongot people (Rosaldo, 1983). She writes that “shame” is accepted as necessary
constraint amongst Ilongot, in order to avoid acknowledgment of conflict breeding
inequalities. Further that “shame” when associated with action, is individual and that it is
undesirable, but, equally, “shame” is associated with autonomy and respect (Rosaldo, 1983,
pp. 144-145). It is essential to recognize that in Ronaldo's work amongst Ilongot, their
particular understanding of “shame” and “guilt” is connected to violence and extreme actions.
This is not the case in Yangon; however, it has while discussing privacy and surveillance
proved a helpful tool to distinguish and understand my informants.
Anthropology and Myanmar
Myanmar, earlier named Burma, has been an essential contribution to several works through
the anthropological history. However, there is still much research to do in this country, and
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