Writing off domination: the Chakma and Meitei script movements

Brandt, Carmen

doi:10.1080/19472498.2017.1411050

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…States simply cannot refrain from pushing toward the increased legibility of margins and marginal peoples, facilitating social and political control (Scott 1998). Margaret Nieke (1988), among others, has made the point that in this process literacy can be weaponized-in her case to subjugate early historic Scotland-with writing playing a decisive role in installing state power over a people on the fringes (for a roundup, see Brandt 2018;Déléage 2018;Duffy 2000;Goody 1986). As Goody and Watt markedly offered in 1963, it is compelling to see the abandonment of writing and hierarchical social organization as a result of a tactical refusal of legibility and imposition of state power.…”

Section: Competing Life Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Art of Not Being Scripted So Much

Michaud¹

2020

Current Anthropology

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If it is the author's pre-published version, changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this document. For a definitive version of this work, please refer to the published version.1. This title borrows from both James C. Scott's (2009) book title (The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia) and a conference given in 1978 by Michel Foucault in which he discussed l'art de n'être pas tellement gouverné, translated by Judith Butler (2002) as "the art of not being governed quite so much." This article continues a series of reflections first published in my article "What's (Written) History for? On James C. Scott's Zomia, Especially Chapter 6½" in Anthropology Today (2017). That article and this one are thus connected and can be read together.

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Section: Competing Life Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Art of Not Being Scripted So Much

Michaud¹

2020

Current Anthropology

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“…I also exclude scripts developed in the diaspora, such as Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong, or those created by outsider missionaries such as the Pollard script created for the Miao languages. For an account of scripts invented in South Asia seeBrandt (2014Brandt ( , 2018. I am indebted to Leke activist Sher Nay Moo, also know as Paung Mla Mla, for his expert advice on the Leke script.…”

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confidence: 99%

The art of not being legible: Invented writing systems as technologies of resistance in mainland Southeast Asia

Kelly¹

2018

Preprint

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James C Scott argued that the traditional non-literacy of highland minorities in mainland Southeast Asia may belong to a wider pattern of state evasion whereby lowland practices, including literacy, are strategically rejected. This position ignores the moral and material value attributed to literacy in upland folklore, as well as the many radical messianic movements that purported to bring writing back to the highlands. I review nine such cases of recuperated literacy among Southeast Asian minorities, all of which were created in circumstances of violent conflict with lowland states. Leaders of these movements recognised literacy as an important vehicle of state power but their appropriation of writing was limited to very specific purposes and domains. In short, the new literacy practices did not mirror its ordinary bureaucratic uses in lowland states. Instead, writing became a symbolic instrument for building state-like institutions of resistance.

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Graphic diversity and ethnic identification in contemporary Manipur

Devi

Choksi

2022

Contemporary South Asia

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Writing off domination: the Chakma and Meitei script movements

Cited by 5 publications

References 11 publications

The Art of Not Being Scripted So Much

The Art of Not Being Scripted So Much

The art of not being legible: Invented writing systems as technologies of resistance in mainland Southeast Asia

Graphic diversity and ethnic identification in contemporary Manipur

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