A Revisionist History of the Mainland Southeast Asia Massif: Why Civilizations Can't Climb Hills

12/02/2008 - 16:00

12 February 2008
Leiden, the Netherlands

Lecture by James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology and Director Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University, USA

James Scott has become known by his studies on the moral economy and hidden forms of resistance by South East Asian peasants against social inequality (Weapons of the weak, 1985 and Domination and the arts of resistance, 1990). More recently he published the book Seeing like a state (1998), in which he tries to understand why utopian state lead projects, meant to further the greater good, have had such disastrous effects. With his work Scott has become famous among anthropologists, historians, politicians and political scientists and his work and theoretical concepts are used widely. At the moment he works on a new book on the effects of centralizing state formation in Malaya for people living in the hills and who are partly outside the reach of the state and thereby not ‘legible'.

James Scott and his work will be introduced briefly by Leo Lucassen, professor of Social History at Leiden University.

This  lecture is organised by the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS) and the Graduate School of History.

Time: Tuesday 12 February 2008, 16.00 hrs

Venue: Lipsiusgebouw, room 028. Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden