James C. Scott Quote

Not so very long ago, however, such self-governing peoples were the majority of humankind. Today, they are seen from the valley kingdoms as our living ancestors, what we were like before we discovered wet-rice cultivation, Buddhism and civilization. on the contrary, I argue that hill peoples are best understood as runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys — slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare.

James C. Scott

Not so very long ago, however, such self-governing peoples were the majority of humankind. Today, they are seen from the valley kingdoms as our living ancestors, what we were like before we discovered wet-rice cultivation, Buddhism and civilization. on the contrary, I argue that hill peoples are best understood as runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys — slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare.

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About James C. Scott

James C. Scott (born December 2, 1936) is an American political scientist and anthropologist specializing in comparative politics. He is a comparative scholar of agrarian and non-state societies, subaltern politics, and anarchism. His primary research has centered on peasants of Southeast Asia and their strategies of resistance to various forms of domination. The New York Times described his research as "highly influential and idiosyncratic".
Scott received his bachelor's degree from Williams College and his MA and PhD in political science from Yale. He taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison until 1976 and then at Yale, where he is Sterling Professor of Political Science. Since 1991 he has directed Yale's Program in Agrarian Studies. He lives in Durham, Connecticut.