"Have a seat": teashops and the art of making space in downtown Yangon, Myanmar

Abstract

This thesis is a contemporary ethnography of teashops in downtown Yangon, Myanmar. It explores the making of the teashop as a significant public space in urban Yangon, and the ways teashops become significant sites for challenging Bamar-centric ideas of the Burmese nation, navigating everyday economic survival, and performing everyday male socialisation. At the convergence of preexisting cultures of consumption, colonial histories of migration, and post-colonial national ideologies, teashops in downtown Yangon are central to everyday life in the city. For the city's inhabitants who are mostly working class, but racially and religiously diverse teashops provide an accessible space to eat, drink, play and work. Importantly, teashops routinely serve a deeper purpose: teashops enable people to make space for themselves amidst the backdrop of economic precarity, political inequality and rigid social structures and hierarchies. This thesis makes visible these human acts of negotiation and survival, space-making and opportunity-taking with its ethnographic attention to patrons and proprietors in downtown Yangon. Who are they? Where do they come from? How do they find themselves at home in the teashop? This ethnography demonstrates why the teashop is so integral to life in downtown Yangon. Specifically, I examine the teashop's role as a social space that can be fluidly utilised to fulfil various functions for various people. The protagonists of this story are diverse in terms of race, gender, and class. I argue that the social and cultural importance of Yangon's teashops lies in their production of multiple social spaces that overlay one another in complex ways and, in this protected diversity, also compensate for spaces that are missing from the world that exists outside the teashop's walls. This thesis contributes towards urban anthropology and Myanmar studies, while engaging with existing debates and furthering theoretical understanding of postcolonialism, economic survival, masculinity, and belonging. Show more