How to resist the State when you feel powerless? How to make your voice heard when you have none? Is anarchism a vain utopia as it is often described by its opponents? These are only a few of the questions one could ask political scientist, anthropologist and anarchist thinker James C. Scott. During an exclusive interview with professors Benjamin Ferron and Claire Oger and their students (UPEC, UFR LLSH, Master 2 “Communication politique et publique en France et en Europe”), Professor Scott discusses what so-called “powerless” actors can do and which strategies they use. From hill tribes of the South-East Asia to medieval French peasants or enslaved African-Americans in the Great Dismal Swamp, James C. Scott paints a vast and diverse history of resistance to authoritarian tendencies. Edited excerpts for The Conversation France.