Zomia: An Introspection - A One Day Workshop
- Date :: 5th March 2011 at University of Hyderabad -

Zomia: An Introspection
A One Day Workshop
Date: 5th March 2011 (10:30am to 4:00pm)
(Venue: Political Science Seminar Hall, Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad)

James C. Scott's recent book, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, attempts to destabilise our common sense idea of "state". By focussing on the "zomia", Scott teases out the obverse of state-making and disrupts long-held views of hill peoples as "pre-state".

The Art of Not Being Governed confronts us with a "radically different approach to history that views events from the perspective of state-less people and redefine state-making as a form of internal colonialism". Virtually everything about the communities inhabiting the "zomia" - their social structure, agricultural practices, belief system, orality - are/were designed to escape state or thwart state springing up within them.

For example, Scott argument, "agricultural practices are not ecologically given, but are political choice", disjuncts conventional notion of shifting agriculture as pre-wet agriculture. This is a history of communities who chose to keep the state at arm's length. The one day workshop brings together students from different parts of the North-East India, at the University of Hyderabad, to discuss what impact this path breaking book have had on their ideas.

To register please contact the Executive Members North-East Students' Forum:
R K Debbarma
Research Scholar
Department of Political Science
Or
Sanjeeta Aheibam
Research Scholar
Centre for Comparative Literature

Or write to [email protected]
North-East Students' Forum
University of Hyderabad

Programme Schedule

Zomia: An Introspection
A One Day Workshop
Date: 5th March 2011 (10:30am to 4:00pm)
(Venue: Political Science Seminar Hall, Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad)

Schedule for the Day
5th March, 2011

10:30am to 12:30pm

Introduction by Jasmine Yimchunger

(Session-1 Paper Presentations)

Chair: Dr. Venusa Tinyi
Department of Philosophy

R K Debbarma: From Place-Everywhere to Placeless: Space, (Im)mobility and Exclusion*

P. Thirumal and C. Lalrozami: On the discursive and material context of the first handwritten Lushai newspaper 'Mizo Chanchin Laishuih', 1898

Lunch 12:30pm to 2:00pm

Session-2 (2:00pm- 4:00pm)

Introduction by Jasmine Yimchunger

Discussion on "The Art of Not Being Governed" by James Scott

Moderator: Dr. P Thirumal
Department of Mass Communication

Discussant

Daniel Swu
Research Scholar, Department of Economics

Lalzarzoa Ralte
Research Scholar, Department of History

Thongam Bipin
Research Scholar, Centre for Comparative Literature

Golan Naulak
M.A., Department of Political Science

Discussion

Vote of Thanks by Samuel Lalrinawma

Break for Tea