6 There is No Means by Which I Live: Livelihood and Power at the Margins of the State

Abstract

The social and political power of marginal highland dwellers is examined through comparison of historical and archaeological data in early Sweden and modern Lesotho, southern Africa. Upland dwellers negotiated political and environmental challenges while struggling to establish community in the face of high taxation, uprooting, and violence. Current understandings of the medical and psychosocial impacts of such challenges indicate that individuals experience severe stress, but also intense attachment to their environment, even when living in highly marginal places with tenuous livelihoods. This nexus may help clarify similar archaeological cases.

Reversals of fortune: Shared governance, “democracy,” and reiterated problem-solving

“…Yet, they controlled many commodities (iron, wood, tar, charcoal) that were key to the state, especially to military supply (Cederholm, 2007;Thurston and Pettersson, 2022). In line with many ethnographic studies of people in such rugged regions, they relied on informal and formal mutual aid systems, and were fiercely protective of their rights (Cederholm, 2007;Thurston, 2018).…”