Everyday forms of peasant resistance

Peasant rebellions are uncommon. This text explores peasants' foot dragging, feigned ignorance, false compliance, manipulation, flight, slander, theft, arson, sabotage, and similar prosaic forms of struggle.

These kinds of resistance stop well short of collective defiance, a strategy usually suicidal for the subordinate.

The central argument about peasant resistance is presented in the opening chapter by James Scott in which he summarises and extends the thesis of his book on Malaysia's peasantry, 'Weapons of the Weak'.