RUDN journal of Sociology (Dec 2012)
Zomia: Successful Strategies of Flight from the State
Abstract
This publication is a synopsis-translation of the first chapter from the book by James Scott “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), which came out in the “Yale Agrarian Studies” series. It continues the line of argument started by Scott in his work “Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed”: the central task of the state is to control the territories and the citizens, this is why the mobile, self-governing communities are opposed to the very idea of national unity. Scott suggests that we take a different look at the conventional history of mankind (focusing exclusively on national institutes in all possible formats), taking the example of South-East Asia and drawing numerous historical and regional analogies.
