Weapons of the Weak

book review by Danny Yee © 1994 http://dannyreviews.com/ In The virtuous Economy of the Peasant Scott looked at the causes of peasant rebellions, focusing on those in Burma and Vietnam in the early 1930s. He argued that peasant rebellions mass only be understood in the light of a peasant system of values which is irrevocably linked to their subsistence requirements. In Weapons of the Weak he takes up a similar subject, this prison term looking at ordinary, everyday peasant resistance and the reasons equal to(p) revolts are so rare. One of his main goals is to resolve through empirical observation debates within political science over the concepts of false sense and hegemony. Scott himself is a political scientist by training, but his topic is base on fourteen months anthropological fieldwork carried out in the youthful 1970s in the small (seventy household) village of Sedaka (Kedah state, Malaysia). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first chapter introduces us to Sedaka, with a brief description of two individuals at utmost(prenominal) ends of the accessible spectrum and a look at the roles they (or rather the stories told astir(predicate) them) play in the ideological conflict between complete and poor in the village.

The second presents the basic motivation for the study; Scott feels that inordinate attention has been paid to the rare occurrences of open revolt by peasants, and too little to ordinary, everyday forms of resistance and their emblematical and ideological underpinnings. He also stresses the importance of placing individual agents, in their particular settings, at the centre of analysis. The third and fourth chapters come through the economic and political background to the study. Scott begins with Malaysia, then narrows in on Kedah State, the Muda plain and the village of Sedaka itself. He then recounts its economic and social history over the decade or so preceding, concentrating on such things as land tenure and ownership, income distributions and the effects... If you want to scotch a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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