ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on several related forms of avoidance protest found in many Asian and African societies. It examines the ways in which the coming of colonial rule transformed contest states into more centralized, bureaucratic systems and to consider the effects of this transformation on the modes of protest adopted by peasant groups. Peasant migration from the lands of an unpopular lord, for example, was both a means by which the group in flight protected itself from what it felt to be excessive exactions and a dramatic way of protesting and drawing attention to the maladministration of the noble or official in question. The chapter considers the conditions under which these defenses were violated or judged insufficient to provide adequate protection and were thus superseded by various forms of collective protest. In mainland Southeast Asia, the Buddhist Sangha and extensive monastic estates served as places of refuge for disgraced ministers, thwarted princely claimants to the throne, and overburdened peasants alike.
