Hill tribes are cultures that frequent the periphery of empires and large nation states. They are named hill tribes because hills and mountains have for centuries provided a natural refuge from the reach of armies, but hill tribes can be found in other geographies as well. Peoples living on boats, such as the Tanka people of south-east Asia, or nomadic people, such as Sinti and Roma or the Tuareg.
As empires have encroached the lifestyles of these peoples in an attempt to count, name and tax them, cultures have formed around evading this control, including their own languages, customs, diets, measuring units, and even religious practices.
Barbarians
These customs, often branded as “barbarian,” protected these groups from assimilation, control and taxation. Examples include not recording a child’s parents or birth date, not keeping a permanent home, lack of schooling or writing systems or requiring absurd religious practices to protect the local industries.
With the advancement of technologies, states have been able to successfully assimilate many of the world’s hill tribes and capture their production. Tunnel digging machines, rail roads, helicopters, schooling, television, measurements, road names and signs, building codes, birth certificates or maps are just a few of the many ways technology sped up this process.
Today, geography no longer protects those at the fringes of civilization from being harmonized into it. With an increased ability to govern through technology however also comes dependency. The modern state has difficulties dealing with individuals and tribes that go the extra mile to evade it.
The modern barbarian
Today, evading the state no longer means packing your things and moving into the mountains. The modern state will find you there, demolish your hut, confiscate the roots you carefully collected and fine you for making a fire.
Instead, being ungovernable means carefully choosing and rejecting technologies based on their potential to control and surveil you. The modern barbarians often do not own a home, in fact do not have a permanent address at all, and if they do, then to farm their own produce. There are no bank accounts or “fintech” apps registered in their names, no phone number and frequently changing email addresses.
The modern barbarians still appear backwards to those enjoying the convenience of the surveillance state. They walk or bike instead of getting a ride share or electric scooter, and when they order take out, they call ahead and pick it up themselves. The most popular example of modern barbarians, the Amish, are easily recognizable, but other such tribes may opt to blend in optically.
Technology, when carefully chosen, can be a tool of liberation, rather than solely an exchange between convenience and control. While street markets have almost entirely disappeared, informal markets continue to flourish online, even inside gated social media communities.
The biggest challenge of the modern barbarians is the development and cultivation of a unique culture that helps protect and enhance their way of life, become welcoming to newcomers while suspicious of outsiders.
How can we form our own customs that protect us from assimilation, while also allowing for a meaningful identity, liquid enough to pass for stubbornness or ignorance where active resistance is the goal?
Further reading: Paul Kingsworth - We must become barbarians and James C Scott - The art of not being governed