Rethinking Community in Myanmar

In this first anthropological study of Muslim and Hindu lives in urban Myanmar today, Judith Beyer develops the concept of “we-formation” to demonstrate that individuals are always more than members of wider groups. “We-formation” complements her rich political, legal, and historical analysis of “community,” a term used by Beyer’s interlocutors themselves, even as it reinforces ethno-religious stereotypes and their own minority status. The book also offers an interpretation of the dynamics of resistance to the attempted military coup of 2021.