Research On James C.Scott’s Thought Of Peasant Everyday Resistance

Unlike most previous scholars" too much concern about the large-scaled peasant protests like peasant uprisings, James C. Scott studied peasants’ everyday resistance with a unique perspective. Through empirical researches, he found that in the history, while peasants" everyday resistance in the form of "weapons of the weak" have been ignored, most peasants were engaged it. Scott focused on the Southeast Asia rural areas which are transitting from the traditional agricultural civilization to the modern industrial civilization, where the landowners and the peasants have formed a relatively stable political and economic relationship called "protect and be protected" based on survival. With the penetration of capitalist commodity economy, the original dependency relationship was gradually deconstructed. In order to defend their right of survival, peasants took a series of non-confrontational means for long-term handling with the landlord, and Scott referred to this phenomenon as peasants’ everyday resistance in the form of "weapons of the weak". Scott’s study on the peasants’ everyday resistance theory is of great enlightenment for China’s correctly handling the "Three Rural Issues" during the transition period.This paper is divided into four chapters and the contents are as follows:The first chapter talks about the foundation of the political study on the peasants and Scott’s thought of peasants’ everyday resistance. This chapter explains the contemporary three major research schools-Formalism, Substantialism and Marxism’s main thoughts and characteristics on peasants’ protest issues. Besides, it analyzes Scott, the representative of the Substantialism, his theoretical basis and practical basis on constructing the theory of peasants’ everyday resistance.The second chapter centers on rural areas and peasants’ everyday resistance during the social transformation period. This chapter presents the Scott’s empirical study on Chasedaka. a small village in Southeast Asia transforming from traditional agricultural societv to modern industrial society. He found there always exist the poor’s resistance in the form of weapons of the weak" during the peasants. This chapter also analyzes the background, the causes and the external manifestations of peasants’ everyday resistance in form of "weapons of the weak".The third chapter is about the peasants’ everyday resistance performed in ideological level. First, it emphasizes Scott’s reflection on Marxist theory of exploitation and ideological hegemony theory for letting the reader better understand how does he interpret the peasants’ everyday resistance from the ideological level. Then it gives three main examples of the peasants’ everyday resistance in the ideological level. Finally, it analyzes the peasants’ everyday resistance in ideological level as well as its effects.The fourth chapter is the comment of Scott’s thought of peasants’ everyday resistance. This chapter.starts from analysis of the significance of Scott’s peasants’ everyday resistance theory and then gives an objective assessment of the limitations of Scott’s thought on peasants’ everyday resistance. Finally, it analyzes the enlightment brought by Scott’s thought on peasants’ everyday resistance to solving China’s "Three Rural Issues".