Power Protection, Social Relationships and the Ethnographer

ABSTRACT Thailand’s Shan people are Buddhists but their ideas of power as protection are not explained with reference to Buddhism. Juxtaposing their ideas with the cases made for Thai and Javanese helps clarify commonalities and specificities within Southeast Asia. My understanding of power in Shan terms derives from fieldwork encounters. I trace how my understandings grew with repeated fieldwork and with my increasing embedding in social networks in the research community. Former strangers are now close friends and semi-family. Examining this process helps clarify power’s embedding and negotiation in social relations. Powerful beings are in theory free from the consequences of their actions, but in real life they are entangled in shifting networks of mutual obligations, exchanges and benefits.