Hardback : HK$206.00
Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception - the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, labourers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, the author, a social scientist, offers a discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage - what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the author examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. The author describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups - their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater - their use of anonymity and ambiguity.
He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally he identifies - with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign - the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power.
Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception - the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, labourers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, the author, a social scientist, offers a discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage - what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the author examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. The author describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups - their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater - their use of anonymity and ambiguity.
He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally he identifies - with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign - the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power.
Behind the official story; domination, acting and fantasy; the public transcript as a respectable performance; false-consciousness or laying it on thick; making social space for a dissident subculture; voice under domination - the arts of political disguise; the infrapolitics of subordinate groups; a saturnalia of power - the first public declaration of the hidden transcript.
“Scott argues his thesis uncompromisingly and with relentless
power. From his vantage point it is easy to see through many
standard illusions of social science. . . . Scott’s argument is all
the more persuasive for the wealth of cases he brings under his
magnifying-glass and for the vibrancy and liveliness of his style.
One is tempted to say that his own discourse is a revelation of
that transcript normally hidden by the ‘official’ discourse of
sociology and an example of how rich and fascinating such hidden
transcripts can be by comparison with the rhetoric of
pretence.”—Zygmunt Bauman, Times Literary Supplement
“Likely to become a classic work of theory in the social sciences
and history. Its arguments are original, subtle, clear, and
accessible to readers without theoretical inclinations.”—John D.
Rogers, Journal of Asian Studies
“Scott elaborates his argument with a dazzling array of
illustrations drawn from centuries of history and all four corners
of the earth. . . . Intellectually convincing and also very
moving—not something one expects to find in an academic
treatise.”—Paul Littlewood, Sociology
Received an Honorable Mention for the 1990 Professional/Scholarly
Publishing Division Award in the History, Government, and Political
Science category given by the AAP
“Drawing on a dazzling array of source material, the book is a
wonderful read as well as a provocative discussion of a global
phenomenon of great importance. It seems destined to throw out a
major challenge to the existing literature on power and domination,
and to set in train a new school of research.”—Anthony Reid,
Australian National University
“An engaging as well as intellectually provocative book, this will
be a major theoretical contribution to debates about power.”—Theda
Skocpol, Harvard University
“A splendid study, surely one of the most important that has
appeared on the whole matter of power and resistance. It is rich in
apt evidence and extremely effective and original.”—Natalie Zemon
Davis, Princeton University
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