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Title: 'The Invention of the Tribe' Author: Anonymous Language: en Topics: Return Fire, La Mauvaise Herbe, review, James C Scott, asia, the state, governmentality, evasion, race, identity, empire, colonization, language, agriculture, nomadism, civilization, anti-civ, warfare, ethnicity, tribe, hill societies Source: Translated for Return Fire vol.5 from the French-language anti-civilisation journal La Mauvaise Herbe, Volume 12 no.1 Notes: To read the articles referenced throughout this text in [square brackets], PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by searching actforfree.nostate.net for "Return Fire", or emailing returnfire@riseup.net
“The history of people who have a history is, we are told, the history
of class struggle. The history of people without a history is, we might
say with at least as much truth, the history of their struggle against
the state.” Pierre Clastres,
La société contre l’État, 1974.
The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast
Asia, James C. Scott, Yale University Press, 2009 – 442 pages
Whole societies without a State have existed until recently in Zomia,
the vast mountainous region of south-east Asia which is far from the
urban centres and significant economic activity.
This zone is also situated between eight nation-states, where several
cosmologies and religious traditions co-exist and where the inhabitants
have a chameleon identity, in other words one of multiple identities.
This a zone which States only managed to penetrate in the mid 20th
century and then only with the aid of modern technology. This type of
zone has also existed elsewhere in the world; in the Alps, the
Appalachians, the Atlas mountains etc. Other kinds of geographical zones
have also managed to remain outside the reach of States: seas,
archipelagos, marshlands, coastal mangroves, forests, arid steppes,
deserts etc [ed. – 'smooth' space, a term in contest; see Return Fire
vol.4 pg56].
In this book, the author argues that hill people are best understood as
communities of runaways and fugitives who, in the course of 2,000 years,
have fled the oppression of State projects in the valleys – slavery,
taxes, forced labour, epidemics and war. Tales of escape run through
countless legends of the hills. These people's physical dispersion
across a rugged terrain, their mobility, their subsistence practice,
their family structure, their chameleon ethnic identity and their
devotion to millenarian leaders[1] have enabled them to avoid being
incorporated into States and have prevented the State from emerging
amongst them. He also argues that the culture of certain foods, the
social structure made up of small autonomous groups and the patterns of
physical mobility were political choices.
But since 1945 the capacity of the State to deploy distance-eliminating
technology – railways, roads that stay open all year, telephones,
telegraphs, aircraft and IT – has completely overturned the strategic
balance of power between the autonomous peoples and the nation-states.
Everywhere, States have invaded the “tribal zones” to extract natural
resources and ensure the security and productivity of their periphery.
Everywhere, they have ended up colonising the mountains and importing
the slave-subject-citizen model.
Zomia illustrates the extreme divide between inhabitants of valleys and
those of the mountains, between those on the lower and higher reaches of
the rivers. The populating of the hills goes hand in hand with the
State-forming process in the valleys, with the colonisation of the land,
the creation of borders and the grabbing of resources (slaves and raw
materials).
Living without state structures was the norm in human history. When the
State appears, living conditions change for semi-sedentary
horticulturists, pushing many of them into fleeing taxes and war.
The arrival of agriculture as the principal means of subsistence, and of
State society, came with new strategies for “bringing together the
population”, such as the establishment of permanent villages, thus
replacing open common property with closed private property.
Across the world, the phenomenon of enclosure[2] aimed to make the
peasantry and the periphery profitable, forcing peasants to contribute
to the wealth of the empire and into commercial exchanges, in the name
of “development” and of “economic progress”. In practice, this amounts
to making their activities ratable, taxable and liable to seizure.
This enormous ungoverned periphery (Zomia) long constituted a threat for
all the States present in the various valleys. It sheltered fugitive and
mobile populations organised on a subsistence basis – gathering,
hunting, peripatetic [nomadic] growing, fishing, small-scale livestock
farming – which were fundamentally resistant to appropriation by the
State. But the biggest threat for the States was the constant temptation
and alternative that it represented for their own populations of slaves;
that of a life beyond the reach of the State.
A massive majority of the population of the first States was not free.
Many dreamed of escaping from taxes, feudal labour and a condition of
servitude. In pre-modern conditions, the concentration of the
population, the presence of domestic animals and their heavy nutritional
dependence on a single variety of grain brought damaging consequences
for the wellbeing of humans and harvests alike, making famine and
epidemic commonplace. People also fled conscription, invasion and
pillage, all very frequent in State-run spaces.
The non-civilised chose their place, their subsistence practice and
their social structure in order to maintain their autonomy. They were
not “left” to one side by civilisation, but should rather be seen as
adaptations designed to escape both from capture by the State and from
the formation of a State. In other words, these are political
adaptations of State-less people to a world which consists of numerous
States.
The history of the civilised is the history of the State and of
sedentary agriculture. Cereal-growing on fixed fields is the foundation
of its power. Peripatetic agriculture, slash-and-burn, was much more
widespread in the hills and permitted crop diversity and physical
mobility. Sedentary agriculture brought with it property rights, the
patriarchal family enterprise, and encouraged big families. Cereal
culture is inherently expansionist [ed. – see the companion piece to
Return Fire vol.3; Colonisation] and generates a surplus of population
and the colonisation of neighbouring land, while being liable to famine
and epidemic. However, as they had a constant need to keep the
population together for work and war, States had to use generalised
slavery to survive as ideological entities.
As a general rule, the social structure in the hills was much more
flexible and egalitarian than in the hierarchical and formalised
societies of the valleys. The higher the altitude, the less hierarchical
and more egalitarian the structure. The inhabitants of the hills paid
neither taxes nor tithes. It isn't surprising that they still host
separatist movements, struggles for indigenous rights, millenarian
rebellions and armed opposition to the States. This resistance can be
seen both as a cultural rejection of the patterns of the inhabitants of
the plains and as a zone of sanctuary. Many inhabitants fled to the
hills to escape State projects in the valleys. The nomadism of the hills
is also a strategy of survival and the multiple rebellions of these
regions pushed many to seek refuge in even more remote regions. This
historical pattern of flight is therefore a stance of opposition if not
resistance.
As elsewhere, cereals (such as rice) constitute the foundation of State
projects. From the perspective of a tax collector, cereals have a
considerable advantage over root crops. Cereals grow above the ground
and ripen at around the same time. Harvests can therefore be calculated
in advance. They have the effect of anchoring populations in a territory
and raising their visibility.
The State depends on its capacity to gather crops within a reasonable
distance. The further that the place to be controlled lay from its
centre, the further the power of the State dwindled. Watercourses were
the pre-modern exception to its limits. Before modern technology, it was
difficult for States with navigable watercourses to concentrate and
project their power and cultural influence. Flat lands thus enabled
State control and appropriation (State space), while undulating land is
intrinsically resistant to State control (non-State space).
Hills and marshes were sparsely populated and their populations
practised forms of mixed agriculture (peripatetic growing of mountain
rice and root vegetables, gathering, fishing and hunting) which were
hard to assess and even harder to appropriate. Before modern technology,
the state was a seasonal phenomenon in the hills; in the rainy season,
from May to October, the rain rendered the roads impassable, making
year-round military occupation impossible. The inhabitants of the hills
also knew when to expect the arrival of the armies and the tax
collectors. These people had only to wait for the rainy season, when the
supply routes were broken (or more readily sabotaged) and for the
garrison to be facing famine or in retreat. The coercive presence of the
State in these zones was episodic, or practically non-existent.
Political and military supremacy calls for a concentration of the
workforce within reaching distance. The concentration of the workforce
is only possible with sedentary agriculture. And such agro-ecological
concentration is only possible with the irrigated growing of rice (or
other cereals). This constitutes the most efficient means of
concentrating workforce and foodstuff. The two other means of achieving
this are the taking of slaves and pillage.
Peripatetic agriculture offers a greater return for less effort and
produces a considerable surplus for the families which practise it. This
type of growing disperses people across a territory, forming a
constraint to the State's need to concentrate the population and making
it difficult and costly to collect the food. Unlike monoculture, mixed
and dispersed agriculture ensures nutritional balance and offers greater
resilience to diseases and pests than does monoculture. Moreover, farm
animals transmit numerous illnesses to humans. Overall, monoculture
provides a diet that is nutritionally inferior to a mixed diet. However,
rice alone could not support a denser population, but did mean the
population was more readily mobilised when required for feudal labour or
war.
The growth of population by means of war and slave-raids is considered
to be at the origin of social hierarchy and the centralisation of the
first States. Kingdoms expanded their workforce base by forcing
prisoners of war to settle in their territory and by kidnapping slaves.
Soldiers burned the fields and homes of the captives to stop them from
returning there. They razed forests, turning them into fields and
drained the marshes. The majority of royal decrees were against runaway
serfs, forbidding them from leaving, from moving home or from ceasing to
grow cereals. Many subjects were even tattooed to indicate their status
and their master. In pre-modern systems, only physical coercion can
guarantee property and the accumulation of wealth.
Monoculture encourages social and cultural uniformity on many levels: in
the family structure, in the value of child labour, in diet, in
architectural styles, in agricultural rituals and in market exchanges. A
society shaped by monoculture is easier to watch over, evaluate and tax
than a society shaped by agricultural diversity. Empires have tried to
eradicate peripatetic agriculture, because its produce was not
accessible for State appropriation. In modern times, two other reasons
have pushed States to eradicate peripatetic growing: political security
and the control of resources. Peripatetic fields and forests are
therefore burned, razed and eventually replaced by mines. States thus
minimise the chances of survival for the inhabitants of the hills
outside State spaces.
The narrative of civilisation is one of development, progress and
modernisation. To be civilised is synonymous with being governed: living
in a permanent village, cultivating fixed fields, recognising the social
hierarchy and practising one of the principal salvation-based religions
[ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg40]. In the eyes of the civilised, the
level of civilisation can be read by means of altitude: those living on
the peaks are the most backward; those living halfway down are slightly
more cultured and those who live on the plains and grow rice are the
most advanced, albeit still inferior to those living in the heart of the
State.
The more you adopt the dominant culture, the higher you raise yourself
culturally. Even if you live on a mountain, you are always “higher” in
town and “lower” outside. This has nothing to do with altitude, but with
cultural elevation. When entire peoples lead, out of choice, a
semi-nomadic lifestyle, they are seen as a threat and stigmatised.
Social policies and government aid measures are put into place to bring
these “uncouth and backward” people back into the fold of civilisation.
All those finding refuge among the rebels are associated with a
primitive condition, with anarchy.
The Great Wall of China in the north and the Miao walls in the
south-west were built not to prevent barbarian invasions but to keep
overtaxed peasants from escaping to live with the barbarians. It's in
the light of administrative control, and not of culture in itself, that
we should understand the invention of ethnic categories at the borders.
An ethnic group is no more than a social status, a way of telling
whether and how those in question are administered by the State. A
barbarian region is thus a political place facing up against the State;
it is a social position. The civilised are completely incorporated into
the State and have adopted the customs, the habits and the language of
the dominant group. Going off to live with the barbarians was less the
exception than the norm; if you left the State space you were in a
political space that was free and autonomous.
Mountain people can be seen as refugees displaced by war and choosing to
stay out of the direct control of State authorities. These authorities
tried to control the periphery by grabbing the fruits of their labour,
taxing their resources and by recruiting soldiers, servants, concubines
and slaves. The history of their flight is recalled annually by the
mountain folk with various rituals and their traditions are culturally
encoded within a strong tradition of familial and economic autonomy. The
valleys can revert to the characteristics of the social life of the
hills following a collapse of empire. Empires fear these latent forces
on their borders and have constantly launched campaigns of assimilation
or extermination, particularly after popular insurrections.
The principal reason for flight was war; when entire armies go on the
pillage, destroying everything in their path, capturing slaves and
raping, the inhabitants of the valleys are pushed out towards zones
beyond the reach of the State. Banditry and revolt were widespread
practices, but the typical response was to escape into a remote zone
where the coercive force of the State was the least felt, while the
elites moved towards the centre. Those withdrawing towards the mountains
saw there a significant natural advantage. They could, at any moment,
block the various accesses and, when necessary, withdraw even deeper
into the mountains. Mountains favour defensive warfare in general and
provide countless sites where small groups can hold off a much bigger
force. They can also destroy bridges, prepare ambushes or booby-traps,
bring trees down across roads, cut phone and telegraph lines, etc.
Those who try to escape the State can use several strategies: fleeing
into inaccessible zones, scattering and dividing into smaller groups and
adopting subsistence techniques which are invisible and low-profile. In
other words, when a society or part of a society chooses to flee from
incorporation and appropriation, it moves towards simpler, smaller and
more dispersed social entities. These remote regions are thus a choice
and part of a strategy enabling people to stay out of reach of the
State.
Peripatetic agriculture is a way of escaping the grip of the State. All
the representatives of the States of south-east Asia have discouraged or
condemned peripatetic agriculture, because it is a fiscally barren form:
diversified, dispersed, difficult to watch over, to tax and to
confiscate. Peripatetic agriculture offers relative freedom and
autonomy. By growing root vegetables, hunting and fishing, nobody needs
to work for a wage.
Tribes and States are mutually constituted entities. There is no
sequence of evolution; tribes do not precede States. They are social
form defined by their relation to the State. And when there is a
hierarchy in a tribe, it is often a theatrical performance by a group to
adapt to its relationship with the State. The position of the
hill-dwellers is that of equality, autonomy and mobility. Amongst the
Kachin gumlao, there is a tradition of assassinating, deposing or
abandoning more autocratic chiefs. They have a long history of applying
egalitarian social relationships by deposing or killing chiefs with
over-large ambitions for governing. The Lisu, Lahu, Karen, Kayah and
Kachin are known for their tradition of anti-chief rebellion.
But it is flight, rather than rebellion, which was the foundation of
freedom in the hills: many more egalitarian communities were founded by
fugitives than by revolutionaries.
Ethnic identity is defined by the mode of subsistence and the belonging
or non-belonging to a State; it is a social position regards the State.
It is a sort of cultural phenomenon. States are made up of prisoners and
slaves and slavery is primarily an urban phenomenon. The slave-raids at
the periphery were aimed against the hunter-gatherer and horticulturist
animists [ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg40] so as to deport them towards
the needs of the centre. Seeing as most of the town-dwellers originally
came from the hills, do they really share an ethnic identity?
The Karen people and many other minorities seem to be ethnically
chameleon, capable of passing from one identity to another without
problems. Living close to a diversity of cultures, ethnic chameleons
learn the performances required by each of the cultural paradigms. For
example, the Lua/Lawa, who are animists, who practise peripatetic
agriculture and speak a Mon-Khmer language at home, are skilled in the
Thai language when they move into the valleys. Ethnicity is thus a
self-made project; those who adopt a specific identity become members of
the identity in question. Ethnicities in the hills are not rigid, but
are deployed in the aim of incorporating neighbouring populations. The
area has been populated for 2,000 years by wave after wave of people
fleeing State centres, invasions, slavers' raids, epidemics and feudal
demands. There they joined localised populations in hilly and relatively
isolated areas. They accentuated the phenomenon of complex dialects,
customs and identities.
The identities found in the hills represent a position against the
States of the valleys. They have been put into the service of autonomy
and the absence of State. The anti-State identity is perhaps the most
common foundation of mountain identities up until the 20th century, when
a life outside the State was still possible.
States assimilated all the persons that they captured, but the culture
under a State barely altered as a result because the dependence on just
one kind of cereal crop ended up dominating the work routines of a
majority of the people. The homogenising effects of an agricultural
system and a class structure were often punctuated by revolts,
reproducing the previous social order under a new administration. The
only structural alternative was flight towards the communal properties
in the hills.
Most of the hill peoples of south-east Asia didn't have what we regard
as proper ethnic identities. They identified themselves often by the
name of a place – the people of this or that valley or catchment basin –
or by a lineage or family group. Their identity varied according to the
person they were addressing. Many names were implicitly relational – the
people from up high, the people of the western ridge – making sense only
as an element in the relational whole. Others names used were those
given by foreigners, as was the case with the Miao. Most of the
hill-dwellers had a repertoire of identities which they could use
according to context. A person's ethnic identity would be in a sense the
repertoire of their possible performances and the contexts in which they
were displayed. Ethnicity is not a given, but a choice.
Across the world, colonial forces have identified and codified customs
and traditions with the aim of using them as the basis for indirect
power via the nomination of chiefs. This technique involves not only new
fixed identities, but assumes a mainly hierarchical and universal order.
Egalitarian and chameleon peoples without chiefs or permanent political
order beyond the hamlet or the family line have no place in this order
of things.
There was a lack of institutional levers by which they could be
governed. These institutions were introduced by force. For example, in
their dealings with the Kachin, Lahu, PaO, Padaung and Kayah, the
British handed institutional power and privileges to a few local chiefs
so as to control them better.
In any case, once it has been invented the tribe takes on a life of its
own. An entity created as a political structure in order to govern has
turned into an expression of political protest and self-affirmation. It
has become the recognised means of stating a claim regarding one's
autonomy, natural resources [sic] or the earth. Confronted by peoples
without a State, the State only recognises claims based on ethnic
identities and tribal rights.
It's the standard mode of making claims to States and answers the same
needs as a trade union or association in contemporary society. The more
you look at the reality behind the concept of the tribe, the more it
seems to be the creation of the white man [sic] to describe indigenous
people, to be able to negotiate with them, administer them, encourage
them to think in the same way. The invention of the tribe must be
understood as a political project.[3]
The vagueness of social forms in the hills, the historical and
genealogical flexibility and the baroque complexity of languages and
populations, all form part of the constitutive characteristics of hill
societies.
[1] ed. – Leading via apocalypse visions.
[2] ed. – see Return Fire vol.4 pg51
[3] The creation of the Cossacks as a self-conscious ethnicity is
particularly instructive in grasping this phenomenon. Those who became
Cossacks were fugitives and serfs who fled western Russia in the 16th
century for the steppes of the River Don so as to escape social control.
They had nothing in common with each other, apart from their servitude
and their flight. They were geographically fragmented into 22 groups.
They became a people because of the new environmental conditions and
subsistence routines. They established themselves alongside Tatars,
Circassians and Kalmyks. They lived by a communal land system, were
egalitarian and had total freedom of movement. Cossack society was thus
a mirror image of the servitude and hierarchy of tsarist Russia. The
three big revolts which threatened the empire started in Cossack lands.
After the failure of the Bulavin Rebellion (1707-8), the Cossacks were
forced to provide the tsarist army with cavalry units in exchange for
the preservation of their autonomy. And after the defeat of Pugachev's
Rebellion (1773-74), their local democratic assemblies were replaced by
a Cossack aristocracy.