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Debate
The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia by James C.
Scott
Review by: MICHAEL R. DOVE, HJORLEIFUR JONSSON and MICHAEL AUNG-THWIN
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde,
Vol. 167, No. 1 (2011), pp. 86-99
Published by: KITLV, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies
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Debate
James
C.
Scott,
The art
of
not
being governed:
An anarchist
history
of upland
Southeast Asia. New
Haven,
CT: Yale
University
Press,
2009,
xviii
+
442
pp.
James
Scott,
in
keeping
with his
long-standing practice,
has chosen not to re-
act to the reviews.
The editor
regrets
that the
author of
The art
of
not
being
governed,
reviewers,
and
editor have had
different
expectations
of this discus-
sion,
but
respects
the decision of the
author. The comments of Michael
Dove,
Hjorleifur
Jonsson,
and
Michael
Aung-Thwin
are worth
to
be
published
also
without a
response
by
James
Scott.
MICHAEL
R.
DOVE
Yale
University
Escaping
the
state? Scott on
Southeast Asia
There is
no document
of civilization
which is not at
the same
time
a
document
of
barbarism.
(Walter
Benjamin
1974.)
In
contrast to his
previous
and
highly
influential 1998
book,
Seeing
like a
state,
James
C. Scott
presents
The art
of
not
being governed
as
being
not
about state-
making
but the
obverse,
'the
history
of
deliberate
and
reactive
statelessness'
(p.
x).1
Scott
characterizes this new
book,
focused
specifically
on mainland
South-
east
Asia,
as an
attempt
to
de-naturalize
its
hill
societies,
to
interpret
their dis-
tinctive character as a
consequence
of social and
historical
choices
by
its
peoples
to
distance themselves
from the lowland
states.
This is
only partly
about
geog-
raphy
and
topography.
The
state-resistant
spaces
in
the
uplands
are
not
just
places
on a
map,
Scott
argues,
but
positions
vis-à-vis
state
power.
The distinc-
tive features
of
hill
societies
-
their
agriculture,
religion,
social
structure,
virtu-
ally every aspect
of life
-
should be
interpreted,
Scott
argues,
as
mechanisms for
'escaping'
lowland state
authority.
The 'rude'
character of the hill
societies do
not
reflect a
condition of
being
'left
behind',
but
instead
represent
'secondary
1
Thanks are due to the
students in
the seminar
Disaster,
Degradation,
and
Dystopia:
Social
Science
Approaches
To
Environmental
Perturbation and
Change,
in
Spring
2011
in
Yale's
School
of
Forestry
and
Environmental
Studies,
with
whom the
author read
and
discussed The art
of
not
being governed
in a
memorable class that
greatly
stimulated his
thinking
about the book.
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Debate 87
primitivism'
or
'barbarism
by
design',
both
of which are 'state effects'
(p.
8).
The
character of
upland society
is the
antithesis of
the
civilized ideal
-
to be
a
subject
of
a
lowland
padi kingdom
-
promulgated by
the lowland states. The
political
choice of this
upland
antithesis,
through self-marginalization,
self-barbarism,
and
'dissimilation',
is
literally
unthinkable within the
civilizing
discourse of
the
lowland states
-
and
yet,
Scott
maintains,
it
was
a
choice
that
tens of
millions of
people
made over the
last several centuries
in
Southeast Asia.
Scott's works are famous
for their additions to our
analytic
lexicon:
weapons
of
the
weak,
moral
economy,
and
so on. One such
evocative term
in
the current work is 'friction'
(see
Tsing
2005).
Scott uses the term
to refer
to the relative ease versus
difficulty
for the lowland state
in
negotiating
the
upland
social
and
physical
landscape.
Seasonal
monsoons,
for
example,
practically
bring
state movement
to
a halt.
Of most interest
is
Scott's
point
that the
degree
of friction on
the
landscape
is not
just
there,
it is
engineered.
The lowland state works
to decrease
it,
whereas
the
upland
societies work to
increase
it
(p.
166).
A
major
mechanism
for
increasing
friction
involves choice
of
agricultural system:
the
upland
societies do
not
practice
the
irrigated
rice
cultivation of the
lowlands,
which is
highly
legible
to,
and thus
exploitable
by,
the lowland states.
Instead,
they practice
swidden
agriculture
which,
with
its
dispersed
fields,
multifarious
crops,
and
staggered
harvest
times,
is
highly
illegible.
Swidden
agriculture,
which Scott
says
is
'fiscally
sterile'
from the
standpoint
of a lowland
state,
is the 'friction
of
appropriation' (pp.
6,
193).
Upland-lowland
distinctions
A
key part
of Scott's
argument
rests
on his
comparative
analysis
of
upland
and
lowland
systems
of
agriculture.
His thesis is
that the inherent character
of
agri-
cultural
systems,
and even certain
types
of
crops,
are
predisposed
to facilitate
versus frustrate
state
surveillance,
control,
and extraction. He
offers a
telling
analysis
of roots
and
tubers,
for
example
as
being 'appropriation-proof
-
a
rare
example
of the
application
of
'staple
theory'
in
a
historical,
political
study
(p.
195).
Scott's
analysis
of the
state-frustrating
character of
swidden
agricul-
ture is
certainly
correct,
although
his
suggestion
that
upland
peoples
choose
it
largely
because of
this
character,
as
opposed
to the
simple
fact that
it
is
less
onerous
(given
its
high
returns
per
unit
labour)
is a little more
problematic.
His
political
analysis
does not
explain,
for
example,
the
persistence
of swidden
cultivation
in Western
and
Northern
Europe,
and also
in
the
United
States,
well
into the
nineteenth and
twentieth centuries
(Otto
and Anderson
1982;
Sigaut
1979;
Weimarck
1968).
Like others
before
him
(Burling
1965;
Geertz
1963),
Scott
somewhat essentializes
the divide
between swidden
agriculture
on
the one
hand and on the other
hand
irrigated
rice
cultivation. He
acknowledges
but
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88
Debate
does
not
completely
reconcile
with his
analysis
the
fact that the
two
types
of
fields
are often cultivated
at the same
time
by
the same
peoples,
in
the
uplands
as well
as
lowlands,
in a
pattern
that has
ancient roots
in
the
region
(Dayl994).
One of
the most creative
chapters
in The art involves
a
re-thinking
of the
characterization
of
uplands
and lowlands
as
respectively
pre-literate
and
literate.
Scott
suggests
that the
ubiquitous
myths
among upland peoples
in
the
region
of
having
once
possessed
but 'lost'
literacy
are
structurally
correct,
in
the sense
that
peoples
escaping
into the
uplands
from lowland
states
did
not
bring literacy
with
them,
because
'fixed texts'
did not
support
the con-
struction
of non-state
spaces.
Scott could
actually
have
pushed
this
analysis
even
further,
because
many
of these
'lost
literacy' myths
contain
within them
references
to
upland-lowland
patterns
of
ethnicity,
resource-use,
and
popu-
lation movement
that
directly support
his
over-arching
thesis of 'barbarism
by
design'.2
If
we
grant
that the
dis-acquisition
of
literacy
and
history
served
upland peoples
in
keeping beyond
the
reach of the
state,
a
question
that
remains to be
asked is what this cost them
(for
example,
in
being
seen as
a
'people
without
history')
when the state
eventually caught up
with them?
Hie distinction between
uplands
and lowlands is
always,
in
part,
one
of
ethnicity,
which,
Scott
maintains,
begins
where
state
sovereignty
ends.
This
argument
is consistent
with
much
of the current
thinking
about
indigenous
identity,
which is seen as
being forged
in
opposition
to
metropolitan
identity
and
even
as
relying
on
modernity
for its articulation
(Hirtz
2003;
Li
2008).
The
ubiquitous
concepts
of 'raw' versus 'cooked' for
upland
versus lowland
society imply
an irreversible
relationship
-
an
uplander
can become
a low-
lander
but not the
reverse,
although
movement
in
both
directions was
equally
common
-
which
is also
seen
as
being
true of
indigenous
status
-
you
can lose
but not
acquire indigenous
status. This
directionality
was
demanded
by
the
lowland
civilizing
discourse.
As with
ethnicity,
Scott
suggests
that
without the lowland state
there were
no tribes.
He
argues
that
you
cannot understand
upland
peoples
in
isolation,
as
'tribes',
which is consistent
with a
generation
of
anthropological
scholar-
ship, beginning
with
Wolf
(1982).
But to
argue
that tribes as such
never exist-
ed but are
only
creations of the
state,
raises the
questions
whether
tribes don't
sometimes
make
tribes,
as
the work of scholars like
Barth
(2008)
suggests.
2
For
example,
see this
story
from the
aboriginal
Batek
-
one of the
orang
asli
groups
of whom
Scott writes
-
of the
Malay
Peninsula:
In
the
beginning,
all
bangsa?
'races,
ethnic
groups'
were the same.
All were Batek. One
day,
Adam,
Tohan's
younger
brother,
set fire to
the
lalang
'grass,
weeds'
where the Batek
were
living....
One
family
fled into the forest.
They
left behind
their
surat
kitab
'religious
books or
papers'
Another
family
was
near
the riverbank.
They jumped
into the river
and
took the surat kitab with them downriver towards the sea.
These became the
Malays.
The Batek looked for their
surat
kitab but
the
Malays
had hidden them. This
is
why
the
Malays pray
now. So the surat kitab
belonged
to the Batek first.
(Lye
2004.)
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Debate
89
Scott sees
uplands
and lowlands as mirror
images
of one
another,
both
produced
as 'state effects'. The
latter is a zone of
uniformity
and
'hyperap-
propriation';
the
former is
a
zone of
heterodoxy
and
minimal
appropriation.
Scott calls the
uplands
the
'shadow',
'nightmare',
and 'dark twin' of the
low-
lands
(pp.
326-7).
This characterization
notwithstanding,
he takes
pains
to
say
that the two zones are
'in
dialogue',
are
in
'symbiosis'
with one another
(pp.
108,
182)
-
but this dimension
of the
relationship
seems over-shadowed
in
his
analysis
by
the
antagonistic
elements.
Thus,
Scott
devotes considerable
atten-
tion to the slave
trade between
uplands
and
lowlands,
but
less to the
more
ancient
and
far-reaching
trade
in
non-timber
forest
products,
which
has been
a
defining
feature
of
upland
society
in
Southeast
Asia
throughout
recorded
history
(Dove
2011).
In the nineteenth
century
in
Borneo,
for
example,
move-
ment of
tribal
populations
in
the interior
was
governed
much less
by
desire
to
escape
the state
than
by
desire to
exploit
stands
of natural
rubber
for
global
markets
in
gutta
percha,
caoutchouc,
and
jelutong
(Dove
2011).
Scholars
like Guérin
(2001)
have
argued
that
upland-lowland
trade
in
the
region
was
so
important
that the
two zones
need to be
seen as
part
of a
single
economic
system.
Also
perhaps
meriting
further
development
is the
idea
that the two
zones
constituted
a
single
cultural
system,
in which each
needed the
'other7
to construct
and
maintain its
identity.
The state
Scott
presents
this work
as a
history
of
non- or
anti-state
formation,
which
he
rationalizes
by
saying
that the absence
of
the state
has
largely
characterized
the
human condition.
But as
a
study
of
people
avoiding
or
being
extruded
by
the
state,
this book
is
in
some
sense
still
largely
a
study
of the
state.
At one
point
Scott
says
that whereas
the
upland
is a state
effect,
the lowlands
are
a
hill
effect
(p.
28),
but
his
emphasis
is
clearly
on the former.
In
characterizing
as
a
state-evading
adaptation
every
aspect
of
upland
society
-
location,
mobility,
swidden
agriculture,
social
structure,
religion,
egalitarianism,
oral
culture
(p.
9)
-
questions
could
be
raised about
the extent
to
which this
was
cognized
and
intentional,
as well as
questions
about
the extent
to which
this is
projecting,
in
retrospect,
a
pattern
onto more
fractious
historical
developments.
As
a
by-product
of their
state-evading
behavior,
as
Scott
himself
notes,
upland
cultures
have left
us few
written
records.
Non-state,
vernacular
his-
tories
lie
beyond
our
reach
(although
there
may
be more
that could be
done
with
oral
histories),
which
raises
the now
familiar
question
whether
the sub-
altern
can
speak
here?
Scott is
to some
extent
trapped
by
state
histories,
which
may
-
given
the bias of
their own
civilizing
discourse
-
exaggerate
the deter-
minate role of
the lowlands
in the
uplands.
Give
the
likelihood
of
this
bias,
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90
Debate
one
might
have wished
if
more
quantitative
data on
upland-lowland
rela-
tions
(for
example,
their
trade)
could
have
been drawn from
these histories.
Scott
severely
limits
-
perhaps overly
so
-
the
applicability
and relevance
of his
analysis.
He
says
that his
model of
upland-lowland
relations
applies
only
up
to
the mid-twentieth
century,
after which state
development
mark-
edly
decreased the
'friction' to its extension of
power
into
the
uplands
of
Southeast Asia
and, indeed,
as the entire
globe
became an
administered
space.
On the other
hand,
Scott's
analysis
aptly
describes continued state resistance
in
the
region
and
elsewhere to
swidden
agriculture,
for
example;
and it
also
seems
applicable
to the
emergence
of
indigenous
identity
and
identity
politics
in
tribal territories around
the
world,
including
in
Southeast Asia.
Upland-lowland
relations
in
countries like
Afghanistan
and
Pakistan still
seem to be
following
Scott's
model.
Viewing
state relations
more
abstractly,
the
emergence
of
back-to-the-land social
movements,
drug
cartel
territories,
and
even virtual
realities
all
could be
read
in
Scott's terms as state
effects
and
secondary
barbarism. The same
could be said of the
unanticipated 'gaps'
that
some
scholars have
discerned
in
globalization
(Ferguson
2006).
As the
shape
of the state has
evolved and
changed,
so too of
necessity
has
the
shape
of state
escape,
but the
underlying dynamics
still
look
quite
similar
to Scott's model.
In
the
end,
the most
telling point
that
one can make about
The art
of
not
being governed
is that no
one who has read it will
be able to think in
the same
way
about
the
uplands
of Southeast
Asia
again.
It
is a
wonderful
book,
sweeping
in
scope,
much
of
it
lyrically
written,
and
provocative
from
begin-
ning
to end.
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1968
Ulfshult: Investigations concerning
the use
of
soil
and
forest
in
Ulfshult,
parish
ofÖrkened, during
the last 250
years: Ulfschult
at the 1717 and
1747
surveys.
Lund:
Gleerup.
Wolf,
Eric
R.
1982
Europe
and the
people
without
history. Berkeley,
CA:
University
of
California
Press.
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92
Debate
HJORLEIFUR JONSSON
Arizona State
University
States
lie,
and
stories
are tools:
Following up
on Zomia
The
highland peoples
of mainland Southeast Asia have
gone
from
a former
tribal zone of interest
to a
few eccentrics
to a must-read
example
of the last
enclosure;
the
ultimate
showdown between the
ever-expanding
state
and
peoples
who
had
long got away.
This
happened
with
Scott's
The art
of
not
being governed.
The book
brings
Southeast
Asian
highland
areas into inter-
disciplinary
conversations
about
history,
states,
marginality,
and
much
else,
as
it
creates
grounds
for debate. After
several
readings
and some conference
panels,
I
relate to the
book
as
I
would
any
field-site: It is more
my
line of work
to make
something
out
of it than to
take sides. There
may
be
more to
learn
from
state-highlander
interactions
than what
Scott
has
already
drawn
out.
So,
presuming
to comment on a
grand
vista that
he
has drawn with
flair,
I
propose
to follow
up
on two
things
that
Scott has
taught
us
already
-
states
lie,
and
stories are tools.
States
lie,
but how and
why
is
varied. Modern nation states insist on the
selective
incorporation
of
minorities,
while
pre-nation-states
insisted on
separation.
Both
are
lies,
in
a
way,
but
they
are different. Scott's case
may
lead us to assume that
all
states have been like the
aggressive
and
anxious
nation
state;
Zomians take
shape
as
people
whose
agriculture,
social
life,
mobility,
and
religious
ferment served to
repel
or
evade state control until
they
were done out of
options by
about 1950. There are
documented cases of
slave-raids into the
hills,
and
some of enforced
taxation,
but for
the most
part
the historical record
for
Southeast Asia
and
adjacent
China
indicates
policies
of exclusion
and
selective discrimination. The
people
who have
entered his-
torical records
and
ethnography
as hinterland minorities were
those whose
exclusion
was
integral
to the social
project
of the
state.
An
historical
juxtaposition
of the Yao on China's southern
edges
and
the
Lawa around Shan
and
Northern
Thai
areas
suggests
this much
(Jonsson
2005:16-40),
but
I
had no-one to
engage
with on the
matter
and
just
wrote
into
the wind.
It
is
possible
that
people
have
not noticed the fundamental shift
from
policies
of exclusion to inclusion
because not
many
have Scott's
curios-
ity
or historical reach. Modern nation
states
may
have
successfully
led
us to
believe
that
they
are
carrying
on
a
legacy
that
goes
back
a
millennium or
more.
This is
plain misrepresentation,
but
a
strategic
one;
the
legitimacy
of modern
rulers is tied to notions of
national
heritage
and historical
transcendence.
A
further dimension concerns hinterland ethnicities. The
labels we
know,
and which became the
focus of much
twentieth-century highland
ethnog-
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Debate 93
raphy,
were the
equivalent
of
rank
in
relation to the state. The reference
involved state
regulation
of
settlement,
service
duties,
and
taxes.
Archival
sources
repeatedly
insist on
separation,
that there cannot
be,
say, marriages
between
highlanders
and
lowlanders.
In
some
places
there were
particular
rituals of
separation
that insisted on
the absolute distinction of the two.
Are there reasons for
the rhetorical insistence on
the
exclusion
of
highland-
ers,
given
what
we can tell about
the
frequent
trade relations?
One is social
and
commonplace; any identity
has
ideological
notions of
its distinctness.
Another concerns
logics
of
power
and
inequality;
states
base their
power
and
legitimacy
on
temporal
assertions. Their others are 'uncivilized'
or 'less
evolved'.
Modernism,
suggests
Carol
Greenhouse
(1996:218),
'refers
produc-
tively
to
any temporal representation
that
involves
the simultaneous asser-
tion
and
management
of difference
as core functions of state
institutions'.
Insisting
that different
and
uncivilized
people
live
in
the forested
wilderness,
Chinese
and Southeast Asian states
repeatedly
took
ideological shape
as
the
guardians
of this
boundary
and as the source of
people's
identity-as-rank.
Many
cases of violence
and ritual served to
assert state
power
and ethnic
difference.
Highland peoples
did not need
strategies
of state
evasion;
they
were
actively kept
out or
denied
recognition.
The exclusion is
a
historical
fact
that state
ideologies may
erase from
view. The
highland-lowland
divide is
not
a
guide
to the historical
landscape
as much
as an
expression
of
ideology
that
appears
natural because
we can tell
the difference between
forested
hin-
terlands and cleared
plains.
It
spells
out the state's
mission as
it
defines
the
state and who
belong
there.
Stories are tools. Scott
(1985)
writes of
weapons
but an allusion to
plough-
shares
is
justifiable.
The Mien
people
I have worked
with in northern
Thailand
formalized their relations
with the state
starting
in
roughly
the
1880s,
hav-
ing
had
relations
elsewhere before
then. But
Thai notions of themselves
made such
realities
repeatedly
unthinkable.
Categorical
notions of Mountain
People
and the like
systemically
erase
certain social realities.
Anthropologists
(including myself)
are
partly
to blame for the
expectation
of some fundamen-
tal divide and
antagonism
between
highland
and lowland
peoples.
We
have
absorbed certain social
biases
and
generalized
from them
for the timeless
shape
of the
region,
through
our
plotting
of
kinds of
people.
Something
simi-
lar
happens
with
the focus on
creolization
in the
Caribbean,
that
brings
with
it an
inability
to
recognize
South Asians
except
as
outsiders;
they simply
do
not
fit
national narratives
and the
resulting
scholarship
manifests
a
particular
'epistemological collapse'
(Munasinghe
2006).
Can we tell different stories?
One of Scott's creative
interventions
is the
re-evaluation of
highland ways
as
strategies
with
important political
conse-
quences
rather than as
expressions
of ethnic culture
or the lack of
progress.
While some
ethnographers may
be
skeptical,
this can also be
taken
in
stride
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94
Debate
as
a
license
to reconsider what constitutes
politics.
In
my
research
area,
people
have been
putting
on festivals focused on
sports,
ethnic
culture,
and
cash
crop
harvests. Such
dynamics
do
not
get
much
scholarly
notice because
they
seem
apolitical,
frivolous,
or
caught up
in
engagements
with
state
and
markets.
But
by
paying
some
attention,
I
have come to see their
potential
for
creating
grounds
for
political dialogue
and
various claims to
recognition.
Because
Thai
authorities view
highland
ethnic
groups
with
political
suspi-
cion,
only ostensibly apolitical
and
expressly
fun events can create avenues for
changing people's
situation.
Showing up
to
give speeches
or awards and to be
treated as
VIPs,
provincial
and
national
dignitaries
avail
themselves to
negotia-
tion;
they
need
applause
and a
feel for their
power.
This is not
general
for either
the state or
highland
peoples.
Rather,
somewhat like the stories
people
told
in
Sedaka
(Scott 1985),
it
is
an
indication that
official realities or archival records
can be a
poor
guide
to
what
goes
on. There is
on-going
interaction
among peo-
ple
with different
interests
in
highly particular settings
where much
depends
on words that
may
compel generosity
and a sense of
mutual benefit.
If
stories
are
tools,
we need to know
the
people
who tell them. It is
doubtful that
any
one
narrative is
representative
of a
village
or
ethnic
group,
or of
highland
peoples.
Can we
imagine
similar
diversity
within
what
we call the state?
From recent
conversations with
people caught up
in
war in
Laos until
1975,
1 find
that leaders and
followers and
men
and
women
may
have differ-
ent interests
and
experiences
and tell
different stories
(Jonsson 2009).
These
are never
just
stories,
but also
attempts
to
engage
with
the world and
perhaps
influence
what
interactions and
outcomes are
possible.
One
person's weapon
may
be another's
ploughshare,
and
having
some cases to think that
against
can make
all
the
difference. The art
of
not
being
governed
is a
challenge
and
an
invitation;
to reconsider
history
and
region,
and to
examine
what
possibilities
and whose stories
lie
in
our
concepts.
References
Greenhouse,
Carol
J.
1996 A
moment's notice:
Time-politics
across cultures.
Ithaca,
NY:
Cornell
Uni-
versity
Press.
Jonsson,
Hjorleifur
2005 Mien
relations: Mountain
People
and
state control in Thailand.
Ithaca,
NY:
Cornell
University
Press.
2009
'War's
ontogeny:
Militias and
ethnic boundaries
in
Laos and
exile',
Southeast Asian
Studies 47-2:125-49.
Munasinghe, Viranjini
2006
'Claims to
purity
in
theory
and culture: Pitfalls
and
promises',
American
Ethnologist
33-4:588-92.
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Debate 95
Scott,
James
C.
1985
Weapons of
the weak:
Everyday forms of
peasant
resistance.
New
Haven,
CT:
Yale
University
Press.
MICHAEL AUNG-THWIN
University
of
Hawai'
i
A
non-state
approach
I have been asked
to contribute
to a debate
in the
present
journal
on
Jim
Scott's
most recent
work,
The art
of
not
being governed.
I
agreed,
but since
Vic-
tor
Lieberman
has
already published
a
thoughtful
and detailed
critique
of
it,
the current
essay
will focus on
two
categories
of issues
that
the
book raises
re-
garding
Burma's
history,
one
dealing
with
evidence,
and the
other,
analysis.
No one
in
Southeast
Asian studies
needs to be
convinced
of
Jim
Scott's
contribution
to the
field
in
terms
of
theory.
His Moral
economy of
the
peasant,
Weapons of
the
weak,
Domination
and the arts
of
resistance
and
Seeing
like
a
state
are not
only
integral parts
of Southeast
Asia
scholarship,
but
have introduced
the
latter into
mainstream
Western
scholarship
in
ways only
some have been
able to
do
successfully:
the
late Clifford
Geertz
and Paul
Wheatley,
Melford
Spiro,
Ben
Anderson,
Vic
Lieberman,
Tony
Reid,
to
mention
a few.
There
is a common
theme
in
all of Scott's
scholarship:
the
giving
of
'agen-
cy'
to
the
'periphery'
-
the
peasant,
the
rural,
the non-state
components.
In
the
present
work under
discussion
as
well,
'agency'
is
given
to the
hill-farms,
ethnic
minorities,
the
non-state
areas,
along
with
their
peoples,
cultures,
his-
tories,
and
ways
of
doing
things.
I see no
intrinsic
problem
in
taking
such
a
position.
However,
for
us
historians,
it
must
be
supported
by primary
evidence
-
dated,
original,
and
contemporary
records
-
otherwise,
it is
only argument.
The
main
question
I
ask,
therefore,
is whether
or not the
primary
evidence
supports
Scott's
charac-
terization
of
Burma's
'Zomia'
and its attributed
relationships
with the centre.
First,
can
a 'Zomia'
of Burma
during
the
pre-colonial
period
even be
reconstructed
from the
primary
evidence?
These
non-state
regions produced
little or
no written
records until
the
nineteenth,
and
in
some
cases,
the twen-
tieth-centuries,
when their
languages
were,
for
the first
time,
put
into
writing.
And
what little there
was earlier
belonged
to the
centre,
reflecting
it and its
concerns,
not
that of 'Zomia'.
Similarly,
the Chinese
records
regarding
these
areas
of Burma:
they
are
exogenous
and centre-oriented.
What is left are
late
English-language
ethnographies
compiled
by
the
British,
travelogues by
the
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96
Debate
occasional
European
visitor,
missionary
accounts,
and
modern social science
studies. These
are,
of
course,
anachronistic
to
the
era on which the book is
focused.
In
other
words,
there is
precious
little information
in
the
primary,
indigenous
sources that can
be used to
accurately
reconstruct
pre-colonial
Burma's 'Zomia'.
So
if it
is the tatter's
'voice' Scott is keen
in
representing,
I'm
afraid it
hasn't been heard.
Instead,
what
we have
in
Scott's
work is
a
re-creation based on
published,
secondary English
language
works
that
are far
removed
in
time
and
space
from the
subject
matter,
while the
theoretical works cited to
support
the idea
of
'Zomia',
address even less
the issue of
original
evidence.
In
other
words,
the 'Zomia' of
pre-colonial
Burma
exists
mainly
in
Scott's
mind
(and
now,
also
in
his
book,
henceforth to be
cited as
'evidence').
If
the
historicity
of
Burma's 'Zomia' itself
cannot be documented
by pri-
mary
evidence,
how can
we be confident that
the characteristics
attributed to
it,
and
its
alleged
relationships
with
the
centres,
are
also viable?
I am
think-
ing
particularly
of one
fundamental
component
of Scott's thesis: the
issue of
population 'leakage'
from the centres to
the
periphery
-
my
second
point.
He
argues
that
people
in
pre-colonial
Southeast Asia had
the
propensity
to
flee the centres to the
periphery,
to
get
away
from the
oppression
of state-
making
projects
in
the
valleys. Leaving
aside for
a
moment the
question
of how
Scott knows the
motives of
people
who moved a
millennium
ago,
the bulk
of the
primary
evidence that
represents pre-colonial
Burma
(and
Mainland
Southeast
Asian)
history suggests just
the
opposite
scenario
in
any
case:
people
moved toward the
centres,
not
away
from them.
Under
ordinary
circumstances,
centres
in
early
Southeast Asia
tended to
attract
rather
than
repel people,
and
mainly,
for
socio-economic reasons. For
example, Pagan
and Ava
attracted
people
because
labour was
paid,
not slave
(if
such an
institution even existed
in
early
Burma).
The
highest wages
-
nor-
mally
in
gold
and silver
kyat
as well
as other valuables
-
went to
those
with
occupations
directly
and
indirectly
related to the
huge temple-construction
industry,
which,
in
turn,
was the main
economic
engine
for the
development
of the
kingdom.
The centres also financed
important religious
and
agrarian-based
folk
festivals on
a
regular
basis,
plus
other
socio-cultural activities
that,
in
scope
and
scale,
could not have been matched
by any
non-state area. Thousands
of monks
in
thousands of
monasteries at the centres
taught
the
'Three R's' to
the
public,
whose
literacy
is
documented
by
the
large
number of
inscriptions
written
by ordinary
folk that
outnumber
(by
a
ratio of
1-3)
those
belonging
to
the
elite.
Apart
from their
educational functions where students were awarded
with
scholarships
that
cover room and
board,
monasteries
were
also
society's
'human
services' networks where the
aged
and
the
orphaned,
along
with
anyone
who was destitute were
assured
of
free
housing,
food,
and a sense of
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Debate 97
belonging
to a
social
community.
All
this was
supported by
land
and
labour
endowments made to the
sangha by religious
devotees,
both state
and
private.
Exemplary
centres
in
Burma such as
Pagan
could also claim to have some
of the most
holy temples
in
the Buddhist
world,
enshrined with some of the
most sacred
bodily-relics
of the
Buddha, that,
for centuries attracted domestic
and
foreign pilgrims
to the
capital.
The latter could also boast the
presence
of
some
of the most
internationally
renowned monks
and the
leading
masters
of
literature, dance,
theatre,
and
music
in
the
country.
Shin
Thilawuntha,
who became one of Burma's most
exemplary
literary figures,
left his humble
village
at the invitation of the
king
of
Ava to
write,
preach,
and reside
at
the
capital.
This sort
of movement from rural
village
to
capital
illustrates
the
attraction
the
centres
had;
not the
repellant
imagined by
Scott.
Centres also
appealed
to
people
with
military,
administrative,
and
legal
skills who moved
up
the
socio-political
ladder
by
joining
the ranks of
presti-
gious
crown
service
groups
(ahmudan).
Centres also offered the
best
agricul-
tural
land on which cultivators
could
settle,
much of which
already
contained
state-sponsored
irrigation
works,
thus
obviating
the need
for
emigrants
to
clear
jungle
or otherwise
start from
scratch.
In
short,
centres
had the wherewithal
to
provide
the kinds of
opportunities
that 'Zomia' could not
and did not
have,
hence the reason
people
tended to
gravitate
toward the
'bright lights
of
the cities' rather
than
away
from them.
And for those
already
living
at these
centres,
why
would
they
want
to
move to
the bundok under
normal circumstances
anyway?
Why
would
expe-
rienced
ministers,
educated
scribes,
spoiled princes
and
'high-maintenance'
princesses,
renowned
scholars,
respected
monks,
skilled
cavalry
and
ele-
phantry
officers,
famous
artists,
expert
craftsmen,
and rich merchants
want
to
move to the 'sticks'?
Even
the farmer
with commoner
status would have little
reason
to leave.
Tied to his
land
in
psychological,
social,
and economic
ways,
it was much better
developed
and
provided
a much
higher
yield
than he
could eke out
in
the
hills,
and for which
there was continuous
and
predictable
demand. There
is no
evidence,
in
any
case,
that cultivators left
their lands for
the hills.
In
fact,
it
appears
to have
been
just
the reverse:
cultivated
land saw
a threefold
increase
in
less
than two centuries
during
the
Pagan period
alone.
'Pull'
factors can
also
explain
much better
how and
why
centres/states
such as
Pagan
and
Angkor
accumulated
huge
concentrations
of
people
-
despite
rampant
death
and disease
in
early
Southeast Asia
-
than
arguments
about coercion
or
conquest
can, which,
in
any
case,
occurred
infrequently
and
was much less
reliable
as a means of
acquiring
significant
amounts of
people
in
any
sustained
manner.
(In
the four hundred
years
of
the
Pagan dynasty,
there is
only
one,
very
late record
of
conquest
that was said
to have
brought
back
labour to
the
centre
from
the
periphery,
whereas we
know from
contem-
porary
inscriptions
that continuous
emigration
from
'pull'
factors increased
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98 Debate
the size of the
capital
six-fold
in
two
centuries.)
Similarly,
in
subsequent years,
Burma
conquered Ayutthaya only
three
times
in
five centuries
(twice
in
the sixteenth and once
in
the
eighteenth),
something
that can
hardly
be considered
a
typical
or reliable method for
replenishing
(what
convention has
long
deemed)
severe
labour
shortages
in
early
Southeast Asia.
And
although
labour
was
indeed
brought
back from
these three
conquests,
that
doesn't
mean labour
acquisition
was the
cause,
rather than
the
consequence
of
these
conquests.
Other economic
and
politi-
cal
reasons
appear
far
more
important
as
causal factors.
Ayutthaya
was not
only
Lower
Burma's
main
competitor
in
terms
of trade
and
commerce
in
this
region
at
the
time,
but also its
political
and
ideological
rival. After
all,
there
can be
only
one
cakravartin
ruling
one
Jambudipa.
Besides,
these
conquests
were not of 'Zomia' but of
another
centre,
so can-
not
be used as
evidence
for
Scott's
arguments
concerning alleged
labor raids
of 'Zomia'.
Indeed,
the latter
would not have
provided
as
lucrative
a
return
on the
investment as a
populated
centre like
Ayutthaya
would
have,
not
only
with
regard
to the
quantity
but also
quality
of
labour obtained.
Why
march
on
poor,
distant,
sparsely populated,
and
difficult-to-reach
'Zomia' enclaves
when
Ayutthaya
was
easier to
get
to and
provided
much
more
booty
of far
better
quality?
Indeed,
Pegu
and Ava
brought
back not
just
many people;
they
were also
highly
skilled
-
militarily,
artistically, literarily,
administratively.
Raiding
'Zomia'
simply
did not
pay;
but
raiding
another centre did.
Other
'push'
factors
-
even crises and war
-
cannot be
supported
with
the
evidence we have.
For
during
such
times,
people
fled the
capital
to
other
(provincial)
centres,
not
to the hills.
When the
Mongols
threatened the
Pagan
Kingdom
twice
in
the
late thirteenth
century
and once
again
in
the
early
fourteenth,
people
fled to
nearby myosaships
such as Prome and
Moksobo.
When Ava
was taken
by
Sawbwas
in
1527
people
who fled
went to
Prome,
Toungoo,
Pyinmana
(adjacent
to
today's capital
of
Naypyidaw),
and
other
fortified
towns close
by.
When
Mrauk-U
(in
Arakan)
took
Pegu
in
1599
(helped by
Ayutthaya) refugees
migrated
to
Upper
Burma or
were taken back
to
Mrauk-U
(and
Ayutthaya).
And
when
a
rejuvenated
Pegu
took Ava
in
1752,
most
fled to
Shwebo,
Prome,
and
other
nearby
towns.
These
provincial
centres were
usually
within a
few
days
march
of one
another,
and most
were fortified with
high
brick
walls, moats,
and
other
defensive
measures.
They provided
much
better
security
for
refugees,
their
locations were
easily
accessible and well
known,
and
they
were
part
of
the
same
polity,
therefore under the
same
laws,
shared the same
language
and
culture,
notions of
authority
and
power,
food
and
dress,
religion
and
other
beliefs.
Why
trek to
the hills and
unknown
territory,
to
peoples
whose lan-
guages
one did
not
understand and
cultures with
which one
was
unfamiliar,
and
where one's
socio-economic future
was unknown?
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Debate
99
Apart
from the
evidence,
there are
problems
of
analysis
in
the book.
First,
the notion
that
people
must
have
wanted to flee to the
periphery
despite
the
many
material and emotional
benefits available
at the centres
rests on
the
assumption
that a.
their
motives must
have been
ideological
rather
than
material,
and b. that this
'ideology'
had
to
have been one of freedom
versus
tyranny
-
a
modern
populist
philosophy.
The
burning
desire for
individual
political
freedom
pre-empted
everything
else
in life?
That it did to
Scott,
comes out
clearly
in his statement
that even social
organization
can be
interpreted
as
'strategic positioning'
against
the state.
(I
wonder how
anthropologists
might respond
to such
an
explanation
for
the
origins
of social
organization.)
It
implies
a
political
motive
and
cause
for
just
about
everything,
one
of
many problems
when
political
scientists
attempt
to
'do'
history;
indeed,
the heart
of the
problem
with this
study.
Second,
positioning
the
periphery
against
the centre
in
such
a fashion cre-
ates
a
(false)
dichotomy
between
people
living
in
lowland
villages
and
towns,
and those
living
in the
hills,
so
that 'the
art of not
being governed'
becomes
a desire
and skill
possessed
only by
those
living
in
the
bundok;
as
if towns-
people
did not
want,
or know
how to evade
taxes
or
mitigate
state dominance
with
'everyday
forms of
passive
resistance'.
This
binary
model
forces
the
periphery
to exist
only
in
opposition
to
the centre
rather
than
in
terms
of
it.
Underlying
all this celebration
of
the
periphery
appears
to
be sentiments
reminiscent
of
the 'noble
savage',
'Waiden
Pond',
and 'folk
wisdom'
(or
as
Scott
put
it
elsewhere,
'local
knowledge').
As stated
in
the
beginning
of
this
essay,
on
a theoretical
level,
this book
will
once
again
contribute
to the
study
of
and debate
about Southeast
Asia
as
Scott's
other
books
have done.
As
a
non-state,
alternative
approach
to assess-
ing
(or
re-assessing) early
Southeast
Asian
history,
however,
it is
not
viable.
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