From rebellion to resistance: From Eric Hobsbawm to James C. Scott

Abstract

This article analyses the contributions of the historian Eric Hobsbawm and of the anthropologist James C. Scott. The first one studied peasant societies highlighting the limits of their contributions to the revolutionary movements; the second, however, showed how every subaltern group of the society and the peasantry in particular, resists domination even if it does not openly challenge the Power. The author highlights how each one of these positions is determined by different historic moments of the intellectual perception of revolutionary movements.