2. Seeing Like a State
● Forestry
● Measure
● Citizenship
● Map-making
● Social science
3. Scientific Forestry
What does "fiscal
forestry" mean, and how
does it view the forest?
(pages 11-12)
What is lost in this view? (pages 12-13)
What did scientific forestry attempt?
What were its results?
4. Weights and Measures
What examples of local (or "popular")
measures does Scott provide? (pages 25-27)
What does he mean by "the politics of
measurement"? (page 27-29)
What about measures being "sticky"?
What allowed for the triumph of the metric
measure?
5. Weights and Measures
What examples of local (or "popular")
measures does Scott provide? (pages 25-27)
What does he mean by "the politics of
measurement"? (page 27-29)
What about measures being "sticky"?
What allowed for the triumph of the metric
measure?
market exchange, Enlightenment, Napoleon
6. Measures and
Citizenship?
Scott argues that those who
promoted the metric measure
"understood that what was at
stake was not merely
administrative convenience but
also the transformation of a people . . . .
The abstract grid of equal citizenship would
create a new reality: the French citizen"
(page 32).
What is he arguing here?
7. Land and Maps
Why was the state opposed to communal land
tenure? (page 39)
What does the example of Russian land reform
show us? (pages 39-44)
What brought about the proper map? (page 45)
8. How Does the Social Scientist See?
Are there links between the historical conditions
that Scott looks at and the origins of sociology
and anthropology?
What systems are our social scientific
measures rooted in? Does it matter?
What about the citizen and social science?
