Jeux d’échelle et enjeux : Dynamiques identitaires des cérémonies processionnelles en Birmanie bouddhique

The districts of Thibaw and of Nyaung-Shwe (Inle Lake), situated respectively in the northern and southern parts of the Shan State of Burma, are characterised by an important linguistic and cultural diversity as well as by strong and dynamic links between villages. In these districts, the hierarchical pattern of the administration of the Shan princes (sawbwas) exerted a strict control over the economic and religious networks until the Burmese military coup in 1962. However, since 1962, the evolution of two local processional ceremonies around Inle and Thibaw has played a significant role in the restructuration of the local interethnic relationships and social “ landscape.” Actually, these ceremonies evolved in opposite ways : while processions at Inle have continued through a steady expansion both in terms of geographic coverage and duration, the ritual at Thibaw “ shrank” from a processional ceremony spread over a sizeable area to a “ confined” local pagoda festival. However, despite this marked contrast, the result in both cases is a marginalisation of the regional networks and of the interethnic links. Understood in the context of the interethnic dynamics they used to be part of, the role of the processional rituals at Inle and Thibaw has become less and less significant— be it as key factors of social bondage between the ethnic communities, or as tools of mutual appropriation of the social landscape by these communities. The progressive stranglehold accomplished by the Burmese central power on such rituals took a drastic turn in the early 1990s, an era that saw the institution of a parade on Lake Kandawgyi in Yangon. Mostly corporatist, this parade constitutes a secular incarnation of the Buddhist rituals from which it is derived.