`Author:` [[James C. Scott]] `Availability:` ## Summary James C. Scott’s _The Art of Not Being Governed_ reinterprets the history of **Zomia** — a vast, mountainous region stretching across parts of Southeast Asia (from northeast India through Burma, Thailand, Laos, and into southwest China). He argues that Zomia’s highland peoples have historically organised themselves not as remnants of failed civilisations but as **deliberate refugees from state control**. According to Scott, the upland societies developed cultural, social, and economic practices specifically designed to **avoid incorporation into lowland, valley-based states** — the traditional centres of taxation, conscription, and forced labour. These practices include: - **Shifting agriculture** rather than permanent farming (harder for states to tax), - **Oral traditions** instead of written records (to resist bureaucratic capture), - **Fluid ethnic identities** (to evade classification and control), and - **Dispersed settlement patterns** (to avoid centralised authority). Scott describes this as a form of **“state evasion”** — a political art of remaining ungoverned rather than a failure to modernise. Far from being “backward,” the peoples of Zomia embody an **intentional anarchism** rooted in autonomy and self-determination. He further argues that the state’s expansion is not an inevitable civilising force but a coercive one — often built on slavery, grain taxation, and the capture of populations. Seen this way, civilisation itself becomes a project of domination, while the periphery represents freedom and creativity. --- ### **Themes** - **Anarchism as survival:** Statelessness can be a political choice, not a deficiency. - **The moral geography of power:** Hills as zones of freedom; valleys as zones of control. - **Resistance through culture:** Language, religion, and migration as tools of autonomy. - **Critique of progress narratives:** Challenges the assumption that state formation equals advancement. --- ### **Significance** Scott’s work reshapes how historians and anthropologists view both **state formation** and **resistance**, offering a vision of history “from the periphery” — where evasion, not conquest, is the central political act. It has become foundational in discussions of anarchist anthropology, autonomy, and non-state societies. ## Key Takeaways ## Quotes - ## Notes > [!info] > ![[Book-Goverened.jpg]] `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:` [[Books index]]