Power-Hurt

The Pains of Kindness Among Disabled Karen Refugees in Thailand

Bibliographic Data

ID2142964
AuthorsTomas Cole (Stockholm University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume85
Issue2
Pages224-240
Publication date2020-03-14
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00141844.2018.1542411
OpenAlexW2933122132
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited42

In this paper I show how, for many Karen living as refugees in 'temporary-shelter-areas' in Thailand, acts of care and kindness often slipped into something painful and controlling. Drawing on fieldwork among Karen refugees disabled by landmines I show how asking for and receiving help was almost always accompanied by the visceral sensation of ana, literally, 'power hurt'. On the one hand, ana was the force driving the circulation of care and kindness, provoking people to help others. On the other hand this circulation also carried with it the constant potential to compromise not only the recipient's but also the donor's 'power', which was understood as their capacity to have an effect on the world. In this manner ana may offer us with a way to grasp the ethical-affective basis of a social arrangement that slips smoothly between lateral solidarities and vertical hierarchical relations allowing egalitarianism and hierarchy to co-exist

Coercion (linguistics · Compromise · Egalitarianism · Hierarchy · Kindness · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Refugee · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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