The Art of Not Being Governed

Argument

Zomia is a geographical term coined in 2002 by historian Willem van Schendel of the University of Amsterdam to refer to the huge mass of mainland Southeast Asia that has historically been beyond the control of governments based in the population centers of the lowlands.

As defined by Scott, Zomia includes all the lands above 300 meters, stretching from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to Northeastern India, encompassing parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar, as well as four provinces of China. The region measures about 2.5 million square kilometers, roughly the size of Europe. For two thousand years, the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia have defied slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée, and other controls attempted by the nation state societies that surround them. This book is essentially an "anarchist history" which attempts to evaluate why people would deliberately choose to remain stateless.

Scott's main argument is that these people are "barbaric by design": their social organization, geographical location, subsistence practices and culture have been maintained to discourage states from curtailing their freedoms. States want to integrate Zomia peoples and territory to increase their landholdings, resources, and people subject to taxation: in other words, to raise revenue. Scott argues that these many minority groups in the Zomia region are "...using their culture, farming practices, egalitarian political structures, prophet-led rebellions, and even their lack of writing systems to put distance between themselves and the states that wished to engulf them." Tribes today do not live outside history according to Scott, but have "as much history as they require" and deliberately practice "state avoidance".

Scott admits to making "bold claims" in his book, but credits many other scholars, including the French anthropologist Pierre Clastres and the American historian Owen Lattimore, as influences.

Reception

Scott's book triggered significant debate. Some academics argue that it reduces complexity to simplistic binaries between state evasion and state co-optation, or between freedom and oppression. Andrew Ong writes, however, that The Art of Not Being Governed acknowledges throughout that autonomy is not binary but rather a negotiated process of positioning and mutual adaptation. Others have recognized Scott's contribution to championing highland communities, while criticizing what they believe are his simplistic views of environmental determinism.

Recent empirical archaeological and historical evaluations of Scott's anthropological theory suggest that highlands in Southeast Asia were places of creative transformation, and could both resist states and also create new forms of social organization, including new cities and states. Historical as well as anthropological material also show how hill people were regularly attracted by the wealth of the plains, either raiding plains' villages or settling in lowlands.

References

Reviews

• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia review by Foreign Affairs
• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia review by The Independent Institute
• Life on the Edge review by Reason
• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia review by Reviews in History
• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia review in Journal of Folklore Research Reviews

References

1. (30 September 2009). "The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia". Yale University Press.
2. Sethness, Javier. (3 July 2011). "Refugees' Descendants in Southeast Asia Prove Stateless Society Is Possible".
3. Hammond, Ruth. (4 September 2011). "The Battle Over Zomia". [[The Chronicle of Higher Education]].
4. "Willem van Schendel".
5. (2005). "Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space". Singapore University Press.
6. van Schendel, W.. (2005). "Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space". Singapore University Press.
7. Bennett, Drake. (6 December 2009). "The mystery of Zomia".
8. (21 October 2019). "'We try to not be Thai': the everyday resistance of ethnic minorities". New Mandala.
9. (12 April 2011). "Foreign Policy: Why It's Hard For Strongmen To Leave". NPR.
10. Ong, Andrew. (2023). "Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border". [[Cornell University Press]].
11. Leadbetter, Michael Paul. (2023-12-01). "Do mountains kill states? Exploring the diversity of Southeast Asian highland communities". Journal of Global History.
12. Leadbetter, Michael Paul. (2023-12-01). "Do mountains kill states? Exploring the diversity of Southeast Asian highland communities". Journal of Global History.
13. Wouters, Jelle JP.. (2011). "Keeping the Hill Tribes at Bay: A Critique from India’s Northeast of James C. Scott’s Paradigm of State Evasion". European Bulletin of Himalayan Research.