Interview with James C. Scott: Egalitarianism, the teachings of fieldwork and anarchist calisthenics

Abstract

The following conversation took place in Lisbon, April 2012, and gathered many students and researchers from both Portugal and Spain. The conversation was first directed by our own questions and we then opened the floor for discussion, taking some questions from the audience. The subjects discussed ranged from Scott’s participation in the Perestroika Movement in Political Science to his critique of the State and the concept of high-modernism (see Seeing like a State – How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Scott’s 1998 book). The conversation also included his perspectives on resistance and their relation to contributions made by authors such as E.P. Thompson, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Clastres, among others. Finally, we also discussed the possibility of an “anarchist turn” in social sciences and came to know Scott’s law of anarchist calisthenics, and some hints about his new book, Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play (2012).1