Details of Professor James Scott's Munro Lecture. Event details Lecture title: "The Last Great Enclosure Movement: the Massif of Mainland Southeast Asia as a Non-state Space" Date:13 March 2008 Venue: Faculty Room South, David Hume Tower, George Square Lecture abstract The hill peoples (sometimes erroneously called hill tribes) of the massif of mainland Southeast Asia are often understood by state-makers and populations in the valleys to be "our living ancestors", "what we were like before we discovered irrigated rice, Buddhism, and civilization." It is my contention, on the contrary, that we best understand such hill populations through out the entire massif from Central Vietnam all the way to Northeast India as a fugitive, runaway population. Providing we take a long view (e.g. 2,000 years) these populations have been moving uphill and away from state-making projects in the valleys. There in the hills they have deliberately practiced forms of "escape agriculture", "escape social structure," and "escape culture" designed to avoid being made into state subjects while, at the same time, enjoying the advantages of trade with the valleys. Professor James Scott is from the Department of Political Science at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. This article was published on 2024-08-28
