45
2
Said was also influenced by Foucault and believed that all statements are fundamentally ideological, especially when they concern other cultures. While he
mainly discussed the relationship between the West and the Arab countries, inspired
by Orientalism recent postcolonial studies have focused on other parts of the
world, such as Africa, Asia and the Arctic.
2.4 Peasant Studies
The roots of peasant studies lie in efforts to explain the motivations and behaviour
of peasants who may be seen as pastoralists and small-scale farmers. A key question has for instance been to understand why peasants tend to resist modernization. In parallel to Netting’s cultural ecology, such agrarian studies often imply a
critique of dominant ideas about peasants being irrational and inefficient
producers.
James Scott, who is professor of agrarian studies at Yale University, is one of
the leading scholars in peasant studies. In The Moral Economy of the Peasants:
Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1976), Scott argued that peasants have
a tendency to attempt to avoid risk by developing social institutions for the redistribution of surplus in order to protect themselves against bad years. Such arrangements may include the communal sharing of land and labour.
In Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985), Scott
described what he called the peasants’ everyday resistance to modernization and
exploitation. Such tactics of non-compliance require little or no coordination or
planning and include ‘foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering,
Definition
Furthermore, Foucault’s concept of biopower has also been used to some extent
within political ecology (Cavanagh 2018). Foucault distinguishes between
sovereign power as the power to ‘take life or let live’ and biopower as the power to
‘make live or let die’. Biopower implies that in order to secure lives, governmental
concerns have emerged about the qualities of various populations such as health,
and opportunities for improvement of living standards. Foucault opens up
perspectives on how disciplinary forms of power-knowledge have come to
normatively prescribe how both individuals and populations should behave.
Moreover, as people are ‘intricated’ in a ‘perpetual conjunction’ with nature, the
sovereign will have to intervene by acting on the environment if he wants to change
human populations. Thus, biopolitical forms of knowledge and governance
perceive the environment as a central object of concern (Cavanagh 2018).
In political ecology, the notion of biopower is reflected in studies of famine,
food security, infectious diseases and climate change adaptation that critically
examine the power–knowledge mechanisms involved when the justification for
security interventions are based on unclear distinctions between the wellbeing of
humans and the environment. Biopower is, however, a perspective that has been
examined only to a limited degree so far by political ecologists (Cavanagh 2018).
2.4 · Peasant Studies
2
Said was also influenced by Foucault and believed that all statements are fundamentally ideological, especially when they concern other cultures. While he
mainly discussed the relationship between the West and the Arab countries, inspired
by Orientalism recent postcolonial studies have focused on other parts of the
world, such as Africa, Asia and the Arctic.
2.4 Peasant Studies
The roots of peasant studies lie in efforts to explain the motivations and behaviour
of peasants who may be seen as pastoralists and small-scale farmers. A key question has for instance been to understand why peasants tend to resist modernization. In parallel to Netting’s cultural ecology, such agrarian studies often imply a
critique of dominant ideas about peasants being irrational and inefficient
producers.
James Scott, who is professor of agrarian studies at Yale University, is one of
the leading scholars in peasant studies. In The Moral Economy of the Peasants:
Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1976), Scott argued that peasants have
a tendency to attempt to avoid risk by developing social institutions for the redistribution of surplus in order to protect themselves against bad years. Such arrangements may include the communal sharing of land and labour.
In Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985), Scott
described what he called the peasants’ everyday resistance to modernization and
exploitation. Such tactics of non-compliance require little or no coordination or
planning and include ‘foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering,
Definition
Furthermore, Foucault’s concept of biopower has also been used to some extent
within political ecology (Cavanagh 2018). Foucault distinguishes between
sovereign power as the power to ‘take life or let live’ and biopower as the power to
‘make live or let die’. Biopower implies that in order to secure lives, governmental
concerns have emerged about the qualities of various populations such as health,
and opportunities for improvement of living standards. Foucault opens up
perspectives on how disciplinary forms of power-knowledge have come to
normatively prescribe how both individuals and populations should behave.
Moreover, as people are ‘intricated’ in a ‘perpetual conjunction’ with nature, the
sovereign will have to intervene by acting on the environment if he wants to change
human populations. Thus, biopolitical forms of knowledge and governance
perceive the environment as a central object of concern (Cavanagh 2018).
In political ecology, the notion of biopower is reflected in studies of famine,
food security, infectious diseases and climate change adaptation that critically
examine the power–knowledge mechanisms involved when the justification for
security interventions are based on unclear distinctions between the wellbeing of
humans and the environment. Biopower is, however, a perspective that has been
examined only to a limited degree so far by political ecologists (Cavanagh 2018).
2.4 · Peasant Studies