Blue sky thoughts Book

This is a superb book: Scott sets out and for the most part successfully outlines the role of what he calls the hidden transcripts of domination in cultural and political life. His basic assumption is that all systems of domination include a means of resistance - the 'backstage talk' of the oppressed and the subaltern - that the dominant suspect might exist but cannot in any way get access to.

My only real concern is that he tends to crudely characterise the Gramscian notion of hegemony as simple acceptance of that dominance when in many ways it seems to me that what he is outlining is the operation of what Gramsci refers to as a war of position - the constant shifting struggle of domination and resistance where one group - the oppressed, the dominant - make advances in one area of life only to lose a little power or advantage in another, as opposed to what Gramsci also calls the war of movement - direct confrontation.

Scott's major contribution is, I think, two-fold: he shows the ways in which the hidden transcripts work in similar ways in different settings, and he proposes a relationship between the wars of position and movement - the ways the hidden transcript becomes public and serves as a rallying cry. He draws on a wide range of evidence - US slave narratives, historical analyses of medieval France, anti-state action in Soviet-era eastern bloc states - to build a compelling argument that we analysts of cultural politics, of social movements, and of everyday life ignore at our peril. Essential reading.