Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

摘要

In The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, author James C. Scott describes a massive expanse of mountainous terrain in upland southeast Asia that he calls "Zomia", which includes parts of modern-day India, Burma, China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Scott asserts that until the mid-twentieth century, Zomia served as a "zone of refuge" from pre-modern states and colonial regimes. Utilizing dynastic records, reports of pacification efforts, European records of hill populations, oral histories and the fieldwork of ethnographers such as Edmund Leach, F.K. (Chit Hlaing) Lehman, and Richard O'Connor, Scott argues that many of the agro-ecologies, social structures, religious practices, location and mobility of highland ethnic groups in mainland southeast Asia can be understood, at least in part, as strategies for maintaining autonomy from historical lowland padi states.