On reading a reading: Tania Murray Li on James Scott and the problem of order

Tania Murray Li's reading of James Scott is perhaps the best way to see Scott's rational applied to local situations.

Scott's book begins with a comment on the "...efforts to permanently settle these mobile people (sedetarization) seemed to be a perennial state project...". This trope is used to understand the ways in which 19th century German Scientific forestry was implemented (removing those that inhabited the forest and then creating a new kind of forest). Extended to the idea of the city, the ways in which cities were laid out, specifically in turn of the century city planning in the USA, speaks of a need to monitor the people by segregating and creating grid lines. These were particularly useful for "... Delivering mail, collecting taxes, conducting census, moving supplies, putting down a riot...". This is not unlike the roman camp which was laid out according to a master plan which then allowed soldiers and messengers to navigate.

What is not lost on the reader here is the need to 'know' a region/city/place so as to 'control' it. The Colonial powers spent a great deal of time and thought on how to control. Both Li and Scott make detailed examples of this in their work.

Scott's work raises the following questions/Points:

• When he speaks of segregation and sedentarization of certain people, it does bring to mind the notion of 'cleansing'. In the example of German Forest Science, the 'wild' forests are cleansed so that the state can reap benefits of the commercially developed forest. 
• The idea of mapping and monitoring, methods used in ethnography and other social sciences, as feeding the State's plan to segregate and Sedentarise. 
• The emphasis on local knowledge:
• Using local knowledge to implement policies
• Local knowledge feeding into the development of policies

In both texts, there is reference to the richness that local knowledge can bring to policy making. But in most cases, including the implementation of benefits for Farmers in Indonesia, the local knowledge is ignored. 

This is much like the way in which centralised universities design Syllabi for students and often ignore the fact that different models are required for different subjects. For example, using local knowledge, one can plan and set a syllabus that approaches art education holistically within the institution. what has happened now is that the syllabi are designed from a 'global' perspective, ignoring the knowledge that a student or a teacher from the region can bring. 

This example is being used to try and illustrate the ways in which local knowledge can affect change within the system, but state support and state imposed implementation often comes in the way. The most significant point raised by both Li and Scott is the ways in which the state's mechanics suppress and ignore the local context.