A Myanmar Village is a Community of Life

In this chapter, I explore how Myanmar villages are organised and what the essence of a Myanmar village is. I suggest that a Japanese village is a “collective for production” and a Myanmar village is a “community for living”. In Japanese villages, joint production activities—such as agricultural cooperativeAgricultural cooperative movements, irrigationIrrigation management, rice procurementProcurement, land consolidation, reduction of rice acreage, and management of common landsCommon land—have been conducted by each village as one unit. In Myanmar, however, there are no such organisations for agricultural production, and even if there are, they are either short-lived or converge on administrative or individual management. However, various groups—namely, consumer cooperativesCooperative, congratulatory or condolence associationsCondolence association, fire brigadesFire brigade, pagoda committees, and drinking water committees—have been set up in Myanmar villages for purposes of living together, in the same way as in Japan. Thus, a village in Myanmar is a community of lifeCommunity of life, but not a collective of productionCollective of production. I detail the socio-economic characteristics of Myanmar villages by comparing them with Japanese villages and consider their positive significance beyond the argument that Myanmar villagers are economically poor or loosely constructed socially.