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Oral History Center University of California the Bancroft Library Berkeley, California James C. Scott James C. Scott: Agrarian Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California James C. Scott James C. Scott: Agrarian Studies and Over 50 Years of Pioneering Work in the Social Sciences The Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project Interviews conducted by Todd Holmes in 2018 This project was generously supported by the following organizations at Yale University: Dean's Office, Faculty of Arts and Sciences The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Areas Studies The InterAsia Initiative Council on Southeast Asia Studies Program in Agrarian Studies Copyright © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley ii Since 1953 the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and James C. Scott dated September 9, 2020. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1,000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://ucblib.link/OHC-rights. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: James C. Scott, "James C. Scott: Agrarian Studies and Over 50 Years of Pioneering Work in the Social Sciences" conducted by Todd Holmes in 2018, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2020. Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley iii James C. Scott (Photo by Michael Marsland) Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley iv Abstract James C. Scott is the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, with appointments in the Department of Anthropology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is the author of over nine books, most of which are not only widely read across the disciplines of the social sciences, but considered foundational works in those disciplines. In this oral history, Jim Scott discusses his childhood in New Jersey and the Quaker school that played a large role in shaping the scholar known for marching to his own drum. He discusses his experience with the National Student Association during the early 1960s, the interesting turn his studies took upon entry to Yale Graduate School, and the string of books he produced in the decades that followed. These include The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia; Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance; Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts; Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed; The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia; and Against The Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, among other works. He also recounts the founding of the Program in Agrarian Studies, an interdisciplinary flagship in the humanities and social sciences now celebrating thirty years of operation at Yale University. Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley v Table of Contents Interview History by Todd Holmes ix Interview 1: September 22, 2018 Hour 1 1 Birth in New Jersey, 1936 — Father's career as a doctor — Mother's family history — Relationship with older brother — Sunday school attendance despite atheistic and agnostic background — Financial transformation of family following father's death — Attendance at a Quaker school — Mother's suicide attempt, effects on self — Experience living in West Virginia for six weeks — Memory of crying in music class — School as a refuge — Characterization of New Jersey Quakers — Volunteer experiences and special activism with Quakers — Discussions and feelings surrounding the Korean War at school — Brother's service during the Korean War — Father's authoritarian standpoint — Graduation from high school to attend Williams College, 1954 — Family's focus on education — Social and academic environment at Williams — Role of McCarthyism on campus — Extracurricular activities at Williams — Rejection from Emile Déspres as honors thesis advisor, switch to Bill Hollinger — Decision to go to Burma for Rotary Fellowship instead of Harvard Law School — Experience in writing reports on Burmese student politics for the CIA — Travel as a representative for the National Student Association (NSA) — Exposure to North African politics while in Algeria — Experience in Calcutta — Travel via refurbished motorcycle in Burma — Reception of death threats in Burma, research struggles — Mindset of naïveté when going to Burma — Communist and social politics of Burma, Singapore, and Indonesia — PhD studies after working in Burma for a year — Postponement of graduate school at Yale University following election as NSA vice president — Switch from Yale's Department of Economics to the Department of Political Science — Desire to specialize in Southeast Asia — Behavioralism in the political science department — Influence of Robert E. Lane — Lack of an interdisciplinary environment at Yale — Political discourse on campus, process of getting drafted and deferred in 1965 Hour 2 15 Experience during preinduction physical, reception of Communist literature — First book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite — Experience in interviewing individuals for the book — Introduction to anthropological literature — Influence of George Foster's article, "Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good" on dissertation and first book — Mixed reception surrounding the book — Search for jobs at other universities — Family life amid different research jobs Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley vi Interview 2: September 22, 2018 Hour 1 22 Decision to work at University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison), fall 1967 — Crawford Young — National Student Association — Leon Epstein's efforts in targeting Scott due to political values — Incoming faculty at UW–Madison with left-wing politics — Dow Chemical Company protests and anti-war activism on campus — Instruction in theories of peasant revolution — Sterling Hall bombing — Patron-client relationships as vertical and interclass — Process of becoming a "peasantist" and devoting career to the study of peasantry — Influence of the Land Tenure Center — Eugene Havens — Interest in animal husbandry — Machine politics — Petty corruption as a people's instrument — Influential books: Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation and A. V. Chayanov's On the Theory of the Peasant Economy — Conception of The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1976) — Carl Lande as the father of patron-client relationship analysis — E. P. Thompson's "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," as inspiration for title of The Moral Economy of the Peasant — The Moral Economy of the Peasant in comparison to Sam Popkin's book on peasant rebellion — Influence of Chayanov, subsistence minima concept and "MinMax" — Shift on peasant politics — Public interest in peasant politics — Influence of market growth and capitalist exchange on peasant societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — Backlash after publishing Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985) Hour 2 36 Return to Yale, 1976 — Familiarity of the Yale campus and surrounding area — Perception of undergraduate students at Yale — Hospitable character of the political science department at Yale — Appointment as chairman of the Southeast Asia Council — Personal critique of The Moral Economy of the Peasant — Ideology and critique implicit in peasant culture — Experience living in a Malay village to study peasants — Effect of field work on perception of class — Influence of Yale course on powerlessness and dependency — Application of Antonio Gramsci's idea of hegemony — Opposition to Gramsci's idea of consciousness — Early reception of Weapons of the Weak — Triangulation
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