12 - Alexander Horstmann (Tallinn University): "Evangelical Activism in the Karen Hills of Myanmar: The Free Burma Rangers and Mobilization of the Karen in the War against Evil" [ID:33392]
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Thank you, Dominic. Can you hear me well? Yes. Great. Thanks, Dominic, for the generous

introduction. I didn't have such an introduction for a long time, I think. And I'm delighted really

to join the SDRAC program at Pfau. And really looking forward to meet my colleagues and the

students especially. And today I'd like to share my work with you, my current work. It's an ongoing

project. It's actually a monograph project with Berkhan on vernacular humanitarianism.

And it's a work with the Karen minority in Eastern Myanmar. And it's on displacement, humanitarianism,

and religion, of course. But it's a case study as well on the encounter of the Karen

with the Free Bulma Rangers. And that's a humanitarian organization that has fascinated me

and that continues to occupy me. And it's growing, you know, it's growing and it's developing into a

book project on its own. So I share my screen with you.

Okay, great.

Okay, wonderful. Very smooth. So here you are. So the, well, it's really a big project.

But I try to limit myself for the time of the seminar, of course, and it's entitled

Evangelical Activism in the Karen Hills, the Free Bulma Rangers and Mobilization of the Karen

in the War Against Evil. And that says already something about the encounter of the Karen,

the indigenous people of roughly 7 million people in Eastern Myanmar.

Or some of them with the humanitarian organization of the Free Bulma Rangers,

which is an interesting organization, as you will see.

And I have already some publications here. And I tried to arrange the presentation in a way

that I invite the students to reflect with me, both on the fieldwork material, on my fieldwork,

material on my fieldwork, as well as on the analysis, and hopefully inspire the students to do

a fieldwork, a similar fieldwork on your own. And so if you're interested, after this,

there are some publications already, as you can see. Also in the journal Public Anthropologist.

And I want to summarize my research question for you. So studying the FPR Free Bulma Rangers,

I explore the agency of the individual in the globalizing religious configurations

and nationalist projects and how the individual self relates to changing notions of home,

shelter, and nation. Theoretically, I'm interested how migratory journeys are transformed into

narratives of spiritual awakening and missionary calling. Missionization is on the one hand about

disciplining of bodies and minds. Missionization mediates the competition for political and economic

resources. For example, humanitarian resources, targeting the souls of the displaced. So the most

vulnerable. To speak of the creative, creative imposition of the realities in the diasporic space

moves the conversation towards the notion of religion and faith-based humanitarianism

as an enabling force. So I'm interested in the blending of humanitarian interventionism

and religious ideologies, making the Karen agents of their destiny and life.

And transversely enablers who negotiate the local culture of the Karen and the global spirit of the

FPR. So later I argue that the Karen Rangers in a way, so the Karen who become Rangers of the FPR

are convert twice. One time to Christianity. If they are already Christian, they convert to a

different Christianity, namely the Pentecostal Christianity of the Freemont Rangers in the US

and to modernity. Yeah. So the Karen becoming Rangers are not the helpless victims often discussed

in the humanitarian literature and in the media again and again, right? But actually agents of

missionization, they become missionaries of their own in their own right, yeah. Dressed in a

humanitarian frame. So the Karen Rangers regain control over their lives. So in a way, making a

refugee career, yeah. Connecting networks and sacrificing spaces by moving in and out of the

official international refugee regime, you know, becoming recognized refugees. So in the name of

the UNHCR, the United Nations, a commissioner for refugees. And then, but also then out of the

international refugee regime, for example, if they leave the refugee camp. Yeah.

So I like to do it. So that was maybe a little bit difficult. So I like to do it a little bit

more easier. And the question is, the research question really is for my talk today is what I'm

doing here because I'm taking up you banks, David Eubanks, the leader of the free boomer Rangers

own question. He says in the trailer that we will see together, Jesus, what I'm doing here.

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2021-05-27

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