Author: Martin Munro File Type: pdf In Tropical Apocalypse, Martin Munro argues that since the earliest days of European colonization, Caribbeanand especially Haitianhistory has been shaped by apocalyptic events so that the region has, in effect, been living for centuries in an end time without end. By engaging with the contemporary apocalyptic turn in Caribbean studies and lived reality, he not only provides important historical contextualization for a general understanding of apocalypse in the region but also offers an account of the state of Haitian society and culture in the decades before the 2010 earthquake. Inherently interdisciplinary, his work ranges widely through Caribbean and Haitian thought, historiography, political discourse, literature, film, religion, and ecocriticism in its exploration of whether culture in these various forms can shape the future of a country. The author begins by situating the question of the Caribbean apocalypse in relation to broader, global narratives of the apocalyptic present, notably Slavoj i eks Living in the End Times. Tracing the evolution of apocalyptic thought in Caribbean literature from Negritude up to the present, he notes the changes from the early work of Aime Cesaire through an anti-apocalyptic period in which writers such as Frantz Fanon, Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Edouard Glissant, and Michael Dash have placed more emphasis on lived experience and the interrelatedness of cultures and societies to a contemporary stage in which versions of the apocalyptic reappear in the work of David Scott and Mark Anderson.

Author: James C. Scott File Type: pdf For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have field the projects of the organised state societies that surround them slavery, conscription, taxes, corvee labour, epidemics and warfare. Significantly, writes James C.Scott in this iconoclastic study, these people are not innocent who have yet to benefit from all that civilization has to offer they have assessed state-based civilizations and have made a conscious choice to avoid them. The book is essentially an anarchist history , the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making that evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain agriculture practices that enhance mobiliy pliable ethnic identities devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. The Art of Not Being Governed challenges us with a radically different approach to history that views events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of internal colonialism. In contrast to the Western ideal of the social contract as fundamental to state-making Scott finds the disturbing mechanism of subjugation to be more in line with the historical facts in mainland area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-bushmen. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. Along the way he redefines our views on Asian politics, history, and demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization.** For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround themslavery, conscription, taxes, corvee labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an anarchist history, is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain agricultural practices that enhance mobility pliable ethnic identities devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of internal colonialism. This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scotts work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.**