On Monday, June 15 presentation by Ken George (Australian National University) on the topic "Cosmography and Politics in Upland Southeast Asia: A Set of Questions"

Monday, 18 May 2015 (11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.)

Maison de l'Asie, first-floor salon, 22 avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris

In his recent book, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, political scientist James C. Scott argues that the relatively egalitarian peoples of Zomia (the mountain region spanning mainland Southeast Asia and southwest China) have historically pursued a kind of statelessness that would allow them refuge from political subjugation by lowland states. Neither cosmography nor gender factor significantly into his account of upland-lowland political relations. Using materials from my research and fieldwork in upland South and West Sulawesi, Indonesia-quite far from Zomia-I treat cosmography as crucial to the upland political imagination in its variable embrace and evasion of the lowland state. READ MORE