ABSTRACT
Expressed at its most simple, parahita is defined as ‘for the good of the other’, and philosophically at least, the ‘other’ is neither defined nor limited. If parahita altruism is an expression of selfless neighbourliness, then lurking at the back of this study then is the question ‘who is my neighbour?’ In a Myanmar context, issues of citizenship and belonging are highly contested, to the extent that thousands are denied citizenship, or even the right to reside, based on narrowly defined legal criteria. Against this backdrop, attempts to build sufficient public support for a welfare state have been hampered by popular notions of eligibility and worthiness, which are also framed around ethnic identity. Practically speaking, would members of one ethnic or religious group be willing to donate, or pay tax, if the welfare recipients were of a different ethnic, or religious group, to them? This chapter explores how, without explicit expression of limits of parahita, the dominant performative form of parahita welfare organizations is Bamar Buddhist, which implicitly limits the wider, practical applicability of parahita in discourses on plural citizenship.
