ABSTRACT
Footdragging tactics are integral parts of the Hobbesian struggle between elites and cultivators that has been central to both pre-colonial and colonial political economies in South and South-east Asia, as in virtually all pre-industrial societies. In the late 1840s, large numbers of peasants from the Demak and Grobogan areas of the Semarang Residency on Java’s north-east coast fled from their villages which were situated in areas where the Dutch had introduced the forced production of tobacco in the previous decade. The chapter focuses on an examination of the historical and situational factors in pre-colonial and colonial South and South-east Asia that influenced peasant preferences for different forms of avoidance protest and often determined the extent to which the peasant activities would be recorded. It examines the many forms of non-confrontational or avoidance resistance into three main types: the protest of denial – everyday resistance; the protest of denial – exit; and the protest of retribution.
