Geoffrey Gorer and the Study of Burma’s “Personality”

During the Second World War, the British social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer was commissioned by the US Office of War Information to write a “diagnostic study” of the “Burmese Personality”. His report made a strong impression at the time but, like its author, has now been forgotten. This article looks back at that exercise, its antecedents and its impact on perceptions of the country now known as Myanmar. It also notes how Gorer’s notions of “national character”, based on his idiosyncratic interpretation of Freudian teachings, continued to exercise some influence after the war. Echoes of such ideas can be found in more recent discussions of Myanmar’s “strategic culture” and claims by successive Myanmar governments to the country’s cultural distinctiveness.