HIØA00674U Civilizing the Margins: Formations of Frontier Societies in Southeast Asia

Starting with James C. Scott’s fulminant work, The Art of Not Being Governed, this course provides an ethno-historical perspective on the relationship of emerging nation-states and ethnic minorities in the frontier regions of continental Southeast Asia. Calling it ”an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia,” Scott argues that indigenous minorities in the upland massive called ”Zomia” comprising Burma, China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, assessed state projects of civilizing the margins and made a choice to avoid them. In this course, we will use academic studies, social and oral histories, fiction aand film (including documentary footage) to be in a position to evaluate and discuss Scott’s path-breaking, but provocative text. Doing so, this course hopes to contribute to a deep understanding of the processes of state formation and expansion, border making, social control and resistance.