Banditry, Rebellion and Social Revolution 3102-FBRR

Uprisings against rulers appear throughout human history and across all societies, usually when larger groups experience hunger, injustice, humiliation, or cruelty as unbearable. However, the aim of most of such uprisings is not so much radical change, as the restoration of the status quo. Revolutions are something different, for the idea that many revolutionaries share is that social reality can be transformed through political action. Drawing upon a wide range of case studies on western and non-western societies in Anthropology and cognate disciplines, this course examines types of social conflict specific to different kinds of class-based society, including social banditry, primitive rebellions, and peasant revolutions. More generally, social conflict is used to explore the variety of ways that pre-industrial societies have been made part of the modern world economy. The course attempts to answer questions such as: How do we explain why people participate in revolutions or social movements? Why is it that some people never revolt? What tactics do people use to resist the power of the state? Can governments repress revolutions or social movements? What determines whether a social movement or revolution is successful? What happens after the revolution? Because banditry, rebellions, and revolutions may have an ambiguous legacy, the course seeks to show that the study of such phenomena may also help us understand larger trends in culture and society.