Rituals, Lore and Legitimacy in Post-Coup Myanmar

This paper examines the strategic use of rituals in Myanmar after the 2021 coup, focusing on their role in political legitimacy. It explores how the military regime and protesters employed rituals in protests and observes divergent practices. The regime relied on symbolic rituals supported by monastic institutions, while protesters used rituals less aligned with normative Buddhist practices. The study highlights differing methods of ritual knowledge dissemination: hierarchical for the regime and network-based for protesters. Despite similar worldviews, their motivations and applications of ritualistic knowledge differ.