# Escape crops in Southeast Asia

Escape crops are a category of crops integral to escape agriculture, a form of agricultural practice whose socio-geographic characteristics and social impacts facilitate the efforts of certain populations to live independently of centralized state control. The term is often used specifically to describe the crops used by populations living in the mountainous regions of mainland Southeast Asia, the most notable example being the Zomian people, although they are also used in communities outside of Southeast Asia.
Crops that fall into this category include, but are not limited to: oats, barley, quick-growing millets, buckwheat, cabbage, turnips, roots and tubers, taro, yams, and the sago palm. They are typically characterized by being adaptive to harsh climates, high in nutrition and caloric value, able to grow at high altitudes, able to blend in with surrounding vegetation, and flexible in terms of planting and harvesting time frames.

## Socio-geographic placement

The term Zomia, popularized by James Scott's book The Art of Not Being Governed, refers to the Southeast Asian Massif and the populations that reside within this region. The zomian region is characterized by its highly mountainous terrain, and its prohibitively high geographic friction.
It is widely understood that the populations residing in these regions intentionally migrated there in an effort to remove themselves from the influence and governance of a centralized state system. It is this effort that is made possible largely through the initial and continued use of escape crops and escape agriculture.
Escape crops function opposite to the Paddy rice system, another significant agricultural trend in Southeast Asia, which encourages population sedentism. This system facilitates state access and exploitation of human and agricultural resources by increasing the level of visibility and accessibility found in these resources and communities.

## Escape crops as a political choice
### Context

There are two main categories under which these crops can be sorted: those that are native to the Southeast Asian region, and those that were brought to Southeast Asia from the new world.
Escape crops native to Southeast Asia include high-altitude grains, cabbage, turnips, tubers, taro, yams and sago palm plants. Escape crops that originated in the ‘new world,’ and were then brought to Southeast Asia include maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, and yams. The ‘new-world’ escape crops greatly increased the viability and effectiveness of escape agriculture.
The use of escape crops is noted to have developed simultaneously alongside the development of states as they are understood today. Their use, however, greatly increased during the various periods of imperial expansion and colonization that occurred within Southeast Asia.
During these periods in Southeast Asia, states strove to create a crisis of dependence -a situation in which individuals become dependent on institutions and functions provided by the state- that facilitates the exploitative principles of dependence theory. A key aspect of this effort was the push to avoid precedential obligations set by previous patron-client ties between communities and the state. These efforts largely focused themselves in creating and controlling regions with padi-rice agriculture, which were characterized by sedentary populations with highly visible and appropriable resources: rice.

### Reaction

In response to this exploitation, populations sought to escape the increasingly exploitative tendencies of states by moving to regions where levels of state control and governance are low to nonexistent.
These escape-focused population shifts consisted of a few key principles; moving to regions with high geographic friction, population fragmentation, population mobility, and population invisibility, which were designed to avoid state detection and appropriation of various peoples and resources. Because many escape crops grow underground, are highly durable, and are capable of growing at high altitudes, they prevent resource visibility and consequently, state appropriation of crops and populations. Escape crops are typically used alongside other state avoidant agricultural techniques that facilitate high levels of population mobility, fragmentation, and concealment, such as swidden agriculture and nomadic pastoralism.

## Introduction and assimilation of escape crops

The introduction and assimilation of escape crops occurred, for the most part, as a three step process: first, initial introduction, second, partial assimilation, and third, complete acceptance. As populations progressed from one stage to the next, population mobility, subsistence practices, social organization, and settlement patterns became increasingly connected to escape crops. Social mobility and fragmentation gradually increased, facilitated by the flexibility of escape crops as tools for subsistence, as populations and communities distanced themselves from state centralization and appropriation.

### Initial introduction

The first stage, initial introduction, was characterized by the introduction and consequent acceptance of using escape crops to supplement pre-existing subsistence methods. The crops were introduced through both global and regional trade networks that had been created and proliferated through colonialism and imperial expansion. They were quickly picked up and spread by a number of communities due to their nutritious value, high caloric yield, and diverse applicability.

### Partial assimilation

The second stage, partial assimilation, occurred through the adaptation of using escape crops to supplement pre existing subsistence methods. As state-based networks increased access to escape crops, they also created higher demand for their use. Using escape crops became increasingly required as populations were faced with increasingly egregious levels of state appropriation and exploitation of local resources. This typically occurred in regions dependent on the rice padi system or other sedentary and highly visible resource systems. Gradually, pre-existing subsistence methods failed to meet basic subsistence demands and communities turned to escape crops to meet these needs.

### Acceptance

Progressing to the third stage, complete acceptance of escape crops, signaled the final shift from sedentary subsistence agricultural practices to escape agriculture.

### Complete assimilation

It is at the third stage that the full implications of escape crops as a method of state avoidance are exhibited. A majority of escape crops develop under ground or are easily concealed among native vegetation, making them significantly less visible and appropriable. Many of them are capable of being left unharvested for significant periods of time, thus preventing the necessity of structures such as granaries, which would make them visible and appropriable alongside necessitating a certain level of population permanence. Escape crops also tend to be highly adaptable to regions with high geographic friction in ways that typical crops are not, which permits the populations growing them to sustain their diets in regions where the state cannot physically extend its presence and control.

## Resistance to escape crops
### Key actors and justifications

The main opponents to the presence and use of escape crops by Southeast Asian communities were states. More specifically, the main opponents were state structures and members of the states’ elite.
States had a vested interest in preventing the use of escape crops stemming from the fact that state centralization and internal state profit, phenomena exemplified by colonial efforts and imperial expansion, depended heavily on the appropriation of communities, agriculture, and labor. These resources were exploited by states to both grow and centralize their power at a state level and at an international level in terms of economy, geography, and politically.
This effort, however, was dependent on the state's ability to appropriate the human bodies and resources required to sustain it as well as incorporate them into state structures and institutions through population entrapment and the crisis of dependence. As a result, state avoidant behavior prevented states from fully realizing their goals, making it an enemy of state construction and expansion.

### Methods of resistance

Most commonly, states attempted to prevent state-evasive behaviors by condemning the lifestyles and morality of those who engage in them. The goal is to minimize the desirability of living beyond state control by demonizing the populations, behaviors, and lifestyles of groups engaging in state-evasive behavior.

## Escape crops in the modern context
### Modern uses

In non-state regions, escape crops continue to provide necessary sustenance for communities disconnected from outside resource networks due to geographic and political barriers that exist between them and their surrounding populations.

### Current geographic presence

While regions may be falling increasingly under state purview, the regions remain environmentally hostile to a great number of traditional crops used by the state, and, as such, escape crops remain vital to supporting communities in these regions.
The use of escape crops has not been limited to Southeast Asia, either, despite Southeast Asia being the focus of this аrticle. There are multiple communities internationally that have taken on similar agricultural practices to avoid state control. Across history and the globe, multiple communities have been formed by escaped African slaves, as well as other populations seeking independence from centralized state control. Key examples include Palmares in Brazil.

### Modern understandings and perceptions

Presently, escape crops can be viewed as both a historical and modern tool of social sustenance and organization. When viewed historically, escape crops are understood as having played an important role in the development of various state avoidant communities across the globe.