Matthew Schissler

This project seeks to identify and explain changes in inter-religious life in Myanmar. It does so at a time when attacks on Muslims in western Myanmar have attracted headlines, and a consensus among foreign observers that recent events are a continuation of resentments generated during the colonial era. Yet in preliminary research my interlocutors persistently highlighted change rather than continuity, inviting my central question: What practices, identities, and values make up contemporary inter-religious life, how have these changed, and why? To answer this question, I am applying for a Wenner-Gren to support 12 months of ethnographic research on the practices of inter-religious life in a low-income multi-religious township in Yangon, Myanmar. Extended case studies that result from this research will triangulate longitudinal analysis, deepening understanding of an important phenomenon in Myanmar and making a significant contribution to theorization of both violence and its apparent absence.