11 Cambodia's Highlanders

1 1 CAMBODIA’S HIGHLANDERS Land, Livelihoods, and the Politics of Indigeneity

Jonathan Padwe

Throughout Southeast Asia, a distinction can be made between the inhabitants of lowland “state” societies and those of remote upland areas. This divide between hill and valley is one of the enduring social arrangements in the region—one that organizes much research on Southeast Asian society (Scott 2009). In Cambodia, highland people number some 200,000 individuals, or about 1.4 percent of the national population of approximately 15 million (IWGIA 2010). Located in the foothills of the Annamite Mountains in Cambodia’s northeast highlands, in the Cardamom Mountains to the southwest and in several other small enclaves throughout the country, Cambodia’s highland groups include, among others, the Tampuan, Brao, Jarai, Bunong, Kuy, and Poar. These groups share in common a distinction from lowland Khmer society based on language, religious practices, livelihood practices, forms of social organization, and shared histories of marginalization. This chapter provides an overview of research and writing about key issues concerning Cambodia’s highlanders. The focus is on research undertaken since the 1992–1993 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), when an improved security situation allowed for a resumption of research with and about highland people. Important areas of concern for research on the highlands have included questions about highlanders’ experience of war and genocide, environmental knowledge, access to land and natural resources and problems of “indigeneity” within the politics of identity and ethnicity in Cambodia.

Early ethnography of the highlands The earliest written records of highland people in the region are ninth- to twelfth-century inscriptions from the Po Nagar temple near present-day Phan Rang, in Vietnam, which describe the conquests of Cham rulers “against the Radé, the Madas [Jarai], and other barbarians” (Schweyer 2004, 124). Early European explorers documented the presence of upland ethnic minorities beginning with the travel narrative of Cristoforo Borri (1633), a Jesuit missionary who refers to the inhabitants of the present-day Annamite mountains as kemoi , a local term signifying “savages.” Over the course of the following centuries, French explorers, administra- Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright tors and orientalist scholars likewise referred to highlanders using locally prevalent terms meaning “savage” and “slave’” in the dominant languages of the lowland states— moï in present-day Vietnam, kha in Laos, and pnong in Cambodia (e.g. Leclère 1881; Maître 1912; see also Jonsson

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2001, 53). French attitudes towards the highlanders built on or in many cases coincided with those held by lowland populations. In Cambodia, deeply held traditional understandings of the moral order have long turned on the distinction between srok , a term for settled and cultivated land (and for an administrative district), and prei , the wilderness or forest, such as that of the uplands. The former is considered orderly and civilized, while the latter is a zone of wildness, lawlessness, and barbarism (Chandler 1982; Zucker 2013, 114–115). Like the nature–culture divide in Western thought to which it corresponds, the distinction between srok and prei places highlanders at the opposite end of the civilizational continuum from Khmers, an ordering of the civilized and the savage is common to the region (Turton 2000). Oscar Salemink’s (2003) history of the ethnography of Vietnam’s Central Highlanders describes in detail the historical evolution of missionary, military, and administrative ethnography of the highlands within French Indochina and recounts the processes through which this scholarship brought into existence reified ethnic categories that had previously been far more fluid. Because much of Cambodia’s highlands were under Lao and Thai control through the nineteenth century and because Cambodia was administered as part of French Indochina until the middle of the twentieth, Salemink’s discussion provides a useful guide to the early ethnography of Cambodia’s highlanders as well. Also relevant to this story is the emerging body of research on highlanders’ experience of colonialism in lands that are today part of present-day Cambodia. Mathieu Guérin (2008), for instance, has documented the history of the French pacification of the highlands and of highlander resistance to French rule, basing his analysis on meticulous archival research as well as oral history. Other authors (see Baird 2009; Guérin and Padwe 2011) document colonial history episodically and have provided insight into the actions of individuals who shaped the colonial encounter in the highlands. A professionalized ethnography of highlanders specifically within the Cambodian context emerged in full only during the second Indochina War (mid-1950s–1975). Whereas Pierre Bitard’s (1952) research on the Brao conformed to the earlier model of “administrative ethnography” proposed by Salemink (2003, 16), the work of Jacqueline Matras represented a new mode of ethnographic practice oriented towards academic research. From 1966 to 1968 Matras conducted fieldwork in Ratanakiri Province on Brao social and religious life, farming systems and material culture, and analyzed the gendered dimensions of the ritual cycle (Matras-Troubetzkoy 1983). Matras-Troubetzkoy (1983, 51) also described highlanders’ incensed response to the establishment of the Lebansiek rubber plantation on Brao and Tampuen lands in Ratanakiri Province in 1959. The effort was one of several heavy-handed measures taken by the Sangkum regime to establish control over the remote northeast, a campaign which also included internal colonization by military families sent to the northeast to assure the Khmerization of the remote region. Sihanouk re-named the highlanders Khmer Loeu, or “upper Khmer,” and sought to portray them as inherently part of a Khmer-centric Cambodian nation state. But the campaign, and especially the establishment of the plantation on highlander territory, provided a recruitment tool for communist rebels operating in the region (Baird 2008a, 230–231; see also Meyer 1979). One of Matras’s research collaborators was the ethnobotanist and anthropologist Marie Alexandrine Martin, with whom she worked to produce a detailed study of Brao ethnobotany (Matras and Martin 1972). Martin herself conducted research on environmental knowledge, agricultural practices and forms of social organization among Pearic-speaking groups of the Cardamom Mountains, culminating in an ethnography of the Khmer Daeum of the Phnom Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright Aural area (Martin 1997). Along with Matras, Martin’s field-based research became impossible as the security situation worsened. By 1970, as the Vietnam War finally overwhelmed the country, research in Cambodia’s highlands ground to a halt. With the exception of work

135 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Jonathan Padwe

done in Vietnam by social scientists affiliated with the American war effort, scholarly engage- ments with highland culture and society would not resume in earnest until after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1991.

Research in the post-war moment Documenting Cambodian highlanders’ experience of the Second Indochina War and the Cambodian genocide became one of the primary research concerns of the immediate post-war moment, one first addressed by historians of the Cambodian genocide. Beginning in the 1950s, the northeast had become a stronghold of revolutionary activity and the time spent by Ieng Sary and Pol Pot in the jungles of Ratanakiri Province contributed to Khmer Rouge understandings of highlanders and provided an origin story for the revolution (Kiernan 1996, 302–3). The repressive policies of the Sihanouk and Lon Nol regimes, in tandem with the American-led bombing of northeast Cambodia, were instrumental in pushing the highlanders into the arms of communist revolutionaries (Kiernan 1985, 269; see also Meyer 1979). As David Chandler (1992, 80) has noted, the revolutionaries expressed an appreciation for highland “traditions of autonomy, solidarity and mutual aid.” Khmer Rouge leaders believed the highlanders to be uncorrupted by money and capitalism, and this perceived primitive communism was “ideolog- ically significant” in their eyes. Yet Kiernan (1996, 305) argues that while the highlanders were originally embraced as anti-capitalist supporters of the revolution, in the later stages of the regime highlander cadres were “increasingly swept up in purges” as Khmer Rouge policies became more chauvinist. As armed conflict wound down, some of the first reports on the situation of highland people based on new research were produced under the auspices of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). The linguist Gerard Diffloth (1993) undertook an important survey of the indigenous minorities at that time, which provided approximate population figures and mapped locations of each group, its linguistic affiliation and level of Khmer literacy and identified issues of concern relating to the upcoming UN-sponsored election. The report documented very low levels of Khmer-speaking ability among highlanders, especially among women, a fact that provides some insight into the continued isolation of highlanders from Cambodian society well into the latter part of the twentieth century. Some reports have suggested that the Khmer Rouge prohibited highlanders from speaking their own languages in the agricultural collectives (Minority Rights Group 1995, 13); Diffloth’s Khmer literacy figures demonstrate that such policies, if they existed, could not have been widely enforced. Another UNTAC observer was Patrick Hughes, a human rights officer in Ratanakiri. Hughes (1993) identified a series of emerging challenges for highlanders in the northeast, among them in-migration of non-indigenous populations, pressure on land and resources, racial and ethnic discrimination, and threats to the position of women within highlander society. Hughes proposed a number of interventions be taken in defense of highlander livelihoods and helped to form one of the first associations of highland peoples to advocate for the rights of indigenous minorities, the “Association for the Progress and Development of the Highlander Nations of Ratanakiri Province.” While subsequent associations and organizations have promoted the measures he advocated for in his report, many of the threats he identified have indeed come to pass in the intervening years. As researchers began to spend more time in highland areas, both in the northeast and else- Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright where in Cambodia, a more detailed picture emerged of highland minorities’ experiences of Democratic Kampuchea, and the challenges they faced as a result. Colm’s (1996) account of this period, based on numerous interviews, remains one of the most complete depictions of the

136 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Cambodia’s Highlanders

northeast under the Khmer Rouge. In an initial take on these issues, historian Henri Locard (1994) had noted that while killings, population relocations, collectivization of agriculture, and repression of religion and culture characterized the regime in the northeast, the collectives there had also enjoyed greater food sufficiency, better medical care and even schooling. Colm’s research generally supports this view. Colm (1996, 3–8) attributes the less harsh treatment of highlanders in the Northeast Zone to two factors: first, the ideological fit between the commu- nists and the highlanders; and second, the relative latitude with which local leaders interpreted the commands of the Party Center, opting to use re-education and other corrective measures to discipline the population. Even so, there was great variation from site to site, and the situation became increasingly repressive over time. The stringent impositions, especially prohibi- tions on religious practices, dismayed highlanders, and thousands of them fled to Vietnam and Laos (Colm 1996, 69). In Mondulkiri Province, home of the Bunong ethnic minority, most residents of the dispersed villages and hamlets of the region were relocated to Koh Nhek, a large agricultural settlement dedicated to padi rice agriculture. Colm and Sim Sorya (2007) present a detailed depiction of the situation in Mondulkiri, and of the relentless purges of Khmer Rouge cadres and of suspected Vietnamese spies there during the later years of the revolution.

Livelihoods, environmental knowledge, and environmental change The flourishing of international agencies and non-governmental organizations that took place in Cambodia beginning in the 1990s also extended to highland regions and several organizations worked in highland areas beginning in this moment. The “opening” of the area to these organizations coincided with an intensified focus on “sustainable development” internationally. The reports and studies undertaken by NGOs during this period emphasized issues of highlanders’ livelihoods, their natural resource use systems and environmental knowledge. Other development-related topics included work on those elements of the social welfare system that the Cambodian state was unable or unwilling to attend to, such as the culturally specific health and educational needs of highland people (White 1995; Jonsson 1992; Escott 2000). The sparsely populated uplands have traditionally served as a vast forest reserve in the region, and this is one reason that issues of highlanders’ relation to the environment have been of particular concern to scholars. Highland people had long specialized in the extraction and use of forest products like resins, honey, beeswax, fruit, dammars, and rattans, as well as wildlife products including ivory, skins, and various animal products used in traditional medicine. Addition- ally, their practices of long-fallow swidden agriculture—in essence the cutting of forest plots to plant rice and other crops for a few seasons before fallowing the land and allowing it to return to forest—depended on the existence of standing forest. Yet forest resources served as one of the main revenue sources for the many factions in Cambodia’s complicated political struggles and as political infighting continued in the post-UNTAC period, pressure on these resources intensified (Le Billon 2000). Logging concessionaires and illegal loggers operated throughout the zones where Cambodia’s highland people lived, presenting a major threat to the highlanders’ systems of land and resource use. Studies of land cover and land-use change based on remote sensing provide an understanding of the rapid nature of the social and ecological transformations taking place in recent decades and their probable implications for inhabitants of these areas. While the extent of forest cover had remained relatively stable for the latter half of the twentieth century, according to Jefferson Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright Fox (2002) forest fragmentation was increasingly a problem by the mid-1990s. Fox identified a series of trends, such as the commericalization of forest resources and a rise in the production of industrial agricultural crops including palm oil, cassava, rubber, and kapok, that would, over

137 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Jonathan Padwe

time, result in “a major change in land use practices from swidden agriculture to commercial crops, and a change in land cover from secondary vegetation to monocultural agriculture” (Jef- ferson Fox 2002, 113). As the logging of Cambodia’s forests emerged as an important environmental problem in the post-UNTAC period, changing land-use patterns and contestations over forests had significant repercussions for highland communities (Bottomley 2002). In the early 1990s a number of advocacy groups working from Banlung, Ratanakiri, began to focus their efforts on highlanders’ access to resources and their experience of the rapid economic transformations then beginning to take shape. Organizations like NTFP, CIDSE and Health Unlimited sought to engage policymakers where possible and produced a series of reports that detailed highlander livelihood practices and sought to demonstrate the important transformations taking place in the highlands at the time (Colm 1997; NTFP 1997; Paterson 1997). Researchers working with these groups produced ethnographic studies of highlander life and culture that took up where Matras, Martin and others had left off in the 1970s and this task was soon expanded upon by researchers working with highland groups for extended periods. Ian Baird’s early research on the livelihoods and resource-use practices of Brao language speak- ers (Brao, Kavet and Kreung) included detailed studies of Brao ethnoecology and classification of habitat types (Baird 2000; Baird, Tubtim and Baird 1996). Frederic Bourdier’s research addressed a broad range of subjects, including highlander environmental knowledge and management of natural resources, inter-ethnic relations in the highlands, and the cultural ecology of highlander belief systems (Bourdier 1998, 2006). Vogel (2011) documented Bunong traditional material culture, agricultural, and ecological practices. The Bunong have historically played a special role in the capture and sale of elephants in the region and Vogel’s work is notable for bringing the practices and knowledge of Bunong elephant culture to life. Other studies looked at agro-ecology, resin-tapping and resource tenure and the relationship between changing human ecologies and changing belief systems (Ironside and Baird 2003; Baird and Dearden 2003; Evans et al . 2003; Baird 2005; Zweers and Sok Mary 2002).

Development, marginalization, and struggles over land Research on customary tenure regimes and traditional resource-use practices quickly led to questions of power and the politics of access to land and resources. While resource use in the highlands has long been a political question, the forms that this politicization has taken have changed. With the exception of the imposition of rubber plantations in the colonial era, land scarcity had not previously posed a problem in the highlands. During the post-conflict moment, however, and especially as Cambodia entered a period of rapid economic transition beginning around the turn of the century (see Hughes and Un 2011), the question of access to land became newly important. The rapid transformations taking place under the sign of “development” have been experienced by highlanders not only in the form of rapid land loss, but also as processes of political and economic marginalization. Some of the most visible transformations of highland areas have involved the construction of infrastructure on a large scale. Regional integration planning processes including the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) and the Cambodia–Laos–Vietnam Development Triangle have spurred on and helped to guide a construction boom in highland areas (Ishida 2013). Hydro- electric dams built or under development in Cambodia, and upstream in Vietnam and Laos, have contributed to the extension of the regional electrical grid, while at the same time causing Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright major environmental and social impacts along Cambodia’s Mekong tributaries, affecting fisher- ies and displacing communities (Lacombe et al. 2010). The creation of the Southern Economic Corridor within the GMS has seen surfaced roads linking provincial capitals in highland

138 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Cambodia’s Highlanders

provinces to regional road networks (Sau 2012). The elaboration of transportation, communi- cation and power grids reflects the dominant role in the regional economy played by Vietnam (Fortunel 2014) and has ushered in the series of rapid changes taking place in the organization of land ownership, rural production, and associated environmental changes. The Cambodian state has played a critical role in the forms development has taken. As Milne et al . (2015) demonstrate, the system of patronage that mediates Cambodian political life is maintained by massive off-budget surpluses generated through the state territorialization of forested land and through the subsequent granting of concessions to extractive industries and to enterprises engaged in the large-scale production of agricultural commodities. As on other indigenous frontiers, in Cambodia the expropriation of highlanders’ land has been made possible by the state’s refusal to acknowledge locally recognized tenure regimes. In place of these systems, powerful interests within the state have placed large areas of supposedly uninhabited land—much of it fallows and forests managed by highlanders—under the control of well- connected private firms, first as logging concessions and later as controversial “Economic Land Concessions” (UNCOHCHR 2004). At the same time, the government has undertaken several initiatives to establish private property in land as the basis of the tenure system throughout the country, an effort that was in part made possible through the World Bank-financed Land Management and Administration Project (Un and So 2011). The transition to private property in land, coupled with massive land concessions, has radically destabilized common-property regimes in the highlands. A communal land-titling measure, designed to head off some of the most egregious problems among indigenous communities, has been largely ineffective. Coopted by powerful interests, the communal titling program reached few communities, allowed for significant fragmentation of land held in common and failed to produce significant benefits for highlanders (Milne 2013). Seeking to improve this situation, non-governmental organizations have undertaken research on social problems relating to land allocation and have sought to outline policy options and advance appropriate alternatives (NGO Forum 2006; McAndrew et al . 2009). A growing liter- ature in the geography, history, and anthropology of the highlands has sought to understand the implications of this “asset-stripping” model of development for highlanders’ lives. Several authors have taken a regional perspective on these issues, seeking to understand the complex transnational character of the changing upland economy and of highland groups who often inhabit both sides of national borders. Guérin et al. (2003) focus on the Central Highlands of Vietnam and northeast Cambodia, looking in particular at the relationship between commodity production, migration, and the question of highlander forms of national belonging within increasingly “multicultural” states. Bourdier (2009) draws together studies from Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to identify commonalities in the impositions of developmentalism, and in highlanders’ responses. And researchers working in both Vietnam’s Central Highlands and northeast Cambodia have explored the social and environmental implications of the extending agricultural frontier (e.g. Fortunel and Gironde 2011). Work within Cambodia, often undertaken at the scale of the village, has produced important insights into the ways that large-scale economic and ecological transformations have been expressed in communities and households. In a series of studies of traditional production systems and tenure regimes, Jeremy Ironside has sought to demonstrate that “learning about how traditional institutions, ownership and governance models function, and could be adapted, can offer options for redefining our key culture-land relationships” (Ironside 2010, see also 2004, 1999). Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright Based on the study of a Jarai community in Ratanakiri Province, Padwe (2011) analyzed small- holder cashew production, a common production strategy adopted by highlanders beginning in the mid-1990s. The adoption of cashew offered numerous advantages. In particular, because

139 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Jonathan Padwe

continuous cultivation makes legible an asserted property right, land under cultivation was deemed less of a risk for seizure by the state. But the adoption of cashew also led to fundamen- tal changes in the swidden system: the elimination of fallowing raised questions about ecological sustainability and the increasing amount of land under cultivation raised the prospect of addi- tional constraints on household labor availability. Resultant alterations of household economies have implications for gendered power relations as well as for intra-village social differentiation associated with the emergence of capitalist social relations. Park and Maffii (2015) also explore the gendered dimensions of the land crisis in Ratanakiri, finding that as women’s roles have been negatively affected by the transition to new land ownership regimes, women “have been at the forefront of mobilization and resistance to land grabbing.”

Practices of resistance and the politics of indigeneity Highlanders in Cambodia are today faced with a deepening land crisis, threats to their livelihoods, and increasing marginalization within processes of “development.” They have taken a number of actions in response to these challenges, among them efforts to use the legal system to enforce their land claims, localized protests and organized political opposition, and forging alliances with non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, and transnational social movements. Increasingly, highlanders and their advocates have adopted the language of indigenous rights to frame these practices of resistance. Non-governmental organizations, international agencies, multilateral institutions, and the Cambodian state also engage the discourse of indigeneity to represent highlanders in their relation to Cambodian society. The implication of this emerging indigenous politics for social life in the highlands is a research problem that several authors have taken up. One important question within this subject is the historical production of the identities that are today categorized as “indigenous.” Indigeneity is a very new concept in Cambodia: although the English-language term has circu- lated among international development workers and some policymakers in Cambodia since the early 1990s, a translation of the term “indigenous people” as chunchiet daeum pheak taic did not emerge in Khmer until around 1998 (Baird 2011; Padwe 2013, 285–8). A long history of previous efforts to categorize and define highland people has structured contemporary glosses of indigenous identity in Cambodia today, and state practices including colonial administrative procedures, orientalist scholarship, legal pluralism, and the establishment of national boundaries have all contributed to the social construction of highlanders as certain types of “others” (i.e. Baird 2008b; Padwe 2010; Backstrom et al. 2007). Highland people themselves have exerted agency in these processes. Baird (2010) for instance has looked at the ways that the Brao of northeast Cambodia and southern Laos have crossed national borders, attempting to use differ- ing political conditions to their own advantage, with implications for understandings of Brao national belonging and ethnic identity. Recently, scholars have sought to understand the adoption of indigenous identity as a social and political category within Cambodia and to examine the potential of indigenous politics for promoting a more inclusive, democratic, and multicultural society. Baird (2011, 158) argues that while contested, the concept of indigeneity “has gained considerable credence in identity discourses in the country,” owing in part to NGO efforts and funding, the creation of the 2001 land law, and other factors such as an “easing of Khmer nationalism.” Swift (2013) provides some support for the notion that indigeneity is an increasingly important political framing; he Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright argues that the Kuy people of Preah Vihear province have in recent years “reasserted” their ethnic identity, “driven by the awareness of benefits of identifying as Kuy” at a time when indigeneity is increasingly valorized. Keating (2013) emphasizes the recent origins of Kuy

140 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Cambodia’s Highlanders

identification as indigenous, noting that the Kuy people were formerly more closely identified with lowland states and state-making projects, in the kingdoms of Angkor and Chenla. In the present moment, however, Keating finds that Kuy indigeneity is an “emergent and observable form of sociality” and argues that “a more substantive political engagement with indigenous identity and history offers a pluricultural reframing of aspects of Cambodian politics, perhaps serving to promote more sustainable and equitable social arrangements in the future.” In a recent doctoral thesis based on years of research, Ehrentraut (2013) follows Kymlycka in arguing for the importance of liberal multiculturalism as a desirable governmental norm, one that would be partially realized in Cambodia by meaningful state recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights. Ehrentraut provides numerous reasons why one might expect to find these norms embraced in Cambodia and seeks to explain why the efforts of the international community to promote this norm have failed in Cambodia to date. In his analysis, Ehrentraut makes the interesting suggestion that the relative insignificance of the highland population in relation to the Cambodian majority might actually be a point in favor of the state’s acceptance of claims for indigenous rights. According to this view, because of the “opportune structure of Cambo- dia’s cultural diversity,” ethnic opposition poses little real threat to the state and therefore “the scale of state reorganization that would be required to realize international minority rights norms is comparatively modest” (Ehrentraut 2013, 3). There are, however, numerous reasons why claims made on the basis of indigenous identity have failed to find “traction” in Cambodia to date. Because internationally circulating notions like “indigeneity” are not simply adopted ex nihilo in new settings, but are rather made meaningful within existing structures of meaning, problems of definition and translation of the concept of indigenous identity have shaped the ways that “indigenous” identity has been received and made political within Cambodia (Padwe 2013). Numbers also make a difference. Although trying to make a count of the numbers of highlanders living in Cambodia is partic- ularly difficult, a rough estimate suggests that they make up only 1.4 percent of the national population of Cambodia; this is the smallest ratio of highlanders as a percentage of national population in all of Southeast Asia (IWGIA 2010). The estimated population of 197,000 highlanders living in Cambodia in 2010 is furthermore the second smallest absolute number of “indigenous” people in a Southeast Asian country after Brunei (IWGIA 2010; see discussion in Padwe 2013). In numerical terms, then, Cambodia’s highlanders have little significance as political actors. At the same time, Western donors who have long advocated for social protec- tions for Cambodia’s marginalized populations have seen their influence on the regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen decline in recent years, in part owing to increasing financial support from China and increasing international investments in Cambodia’s mineral resources (Burgos and Ear 2010; Ehrentraut 2013, 227–9). These and other factors help to explain why highlanders’ political marginality is increasingly pronounced, even as the language of indigeneity has been adopted in the political arena. The most recent national election, in 2013, would seem to provide some insight into these dynamics. The elections presented the first occasion in decades that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) faced a significant electoral challenge, which arrived in the form of the newly significant opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party. A key issue in the election was the administration’s land concessions policy, a policy that adversely affects highlanders. Yet in the final result, the strongest support for the CPP was to be found in the provinces of Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Stung Treng, and Pursat, provinces where much of the Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright country’s indigenous population lives. Graham (2013) aptly characterized this outcome as an “inverted Mandala”: the power of the ruling party is concentrated at its rural edges and diffuse in the urban center, an ironic twist on traditional cosmologies of power in the region.

141 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. Jonathan Padwe

Regarding the election, it may be the case that highlanders were more easily coerced by the regime than others. Furthermore, indigenous politics in Cambodia, as elsewhere in Asia, is not merely a question of internal political constituencies, but also involves transnational coalitions engaging in advocacy on behalf of ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, the support for the ruling regime in the highlander heartland suggests that the potential of indigenous mobilizations to enact meaningful political change remains unfulfilled at the national level and demonstrates that significant challenges still stand in the way of advocates’ hopes for a liberatory indigenous politics in Cambodia.

References Backstrom , M. , J. Ironside , G. Paterson , J. Padwe , and I. G. Baird . 2007 . Indigenous Traditional Legal Sys- tems and Conflict Resolution in Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri Provinces, Cambodia . Bangkok : United Nations Development Programme . Baird , I. G. 2000 . The Ethnoecology, Land Use, and Livelihoods of the Brao-Kavet Indigenous Peoples in Kok-Lak Commune, Voen Say District, Ratanakiri Province, Northeast Cambodia . Ban Lung, Cambodia: NTFP Project . —— . 2005 . Dipterocarpus Wood Resin Tree Tenure, Tapping and Trade in Teun Commune, Kon Mum District, Ratanakiri Province, Northeast Cambodia . Ban Lung, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia : NTFP Project . —— . 2008a . Various Forms of Colonialism: The Social and Spatial Reorganisation of the Brao in Southern Laos and Northeastern Cambodia . Ph.D. Dissertation. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia . —— . 2008b . The case of the Brao: Revisiting physical borders, ethnic identities and spatial and social organisation in the hinterlands of southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia , in Y. Goudineau and M. Lorrillard (eds.). Recherches Nouvelles sur le Laos, 596–620, Etudes thématiques No. 18. Paris and Vientiane : Ecole Française d’Extrème-Orient . —— . 2009 . From Champasak to Cambodia: Ya Chao Tham (Chao Thammatheva), a wily and influential ethnic Lao leader . Aséanie 23 ( June ): 31–62 . —— . 2010 . Making spaces: The ethnic Brao people and the international border between Laos and Cambodia . Geoforum 41 ( 2 ): 271–81. —— . 2011 . The construction of “indigenous peoples” in Cambodia, in L . Yew (ed.). Alterities in Asia: Reflections on Identity and Regionalism . London : Routledge . Baird , I. G. and P. Dearden . 2003 . Biodiversity conservation and resource tenure regimes: A case study from Northeast Cambodia . Environmental Management 32 ( 5 ): 541–50 . Baird , I. G. , K. Tubtim and M. Baird . 1996 . The Kavet and the Kreung: Observations of Livelihoods and Natural Resources in Two Highlander Villages in the Districts of Veun Say and Ta Veng, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia . Ratanakiri, Cambodia: NTFP Project . Bitard , P. 1952 . Rites agraires des Kha Braou . Bulletin de la Société des Études Indochinoises 27 ( 1 ): 9–17 . Borri , C. 1633 . Cochin-Chine; Containing Many Admirable Rarities and Singularities of that Country. London : Robert Ashley . Bottomley , R. 2002 . Contested forests: An analysis of the highlander response to logging, Ratanakiri Province, Northeast Cambodia . Critical Asian Studies 34 ( 4 ): 587–606 . Bourdier , F. 1998 . La nature apprivoisée: Symbolisme et savoir technique chez les populations indigènes du nord-est combodgien , in G. Rossi , P. Lavigne Delville , and D. Narbeburu (eds.). Sociétés rurales et environnement: Gestion des ressources et dynamiques locales au Sud . Paris : Karthala , 25–41 . —— . 2006 . The Mountain of Precious Stones: Essays in Social Anthropology. Rev. and updated ed. Phnom Penh, Cambodia : Center for Khmer Studies . —— (ed.) . 2009 . Development and Dominion: Indigenous Peoples of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos . Bangkok : White Lotus Press . Burgos , S. and S. Ear . 2010 . China’s strategic interests in Cambodia: Influence and resources. Asian Survey 50 : 615–39 . Chandler , D. P. 1982 . Songs at the edge of the forest: Perception of order in three Cambodian texts, in Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright D. K. Wyatt and A. Woodside (eds.). Moral Order and the Question of Change: Essays on Southeast Asian Thought . New Haven : Yale University Southeast Asian Studies Monograph Series . —— . 1992 . Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot . Boulder, CO : Westview Press .

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Colm , S. 1996 . The Highland Minorities and the Khmer Rouge in Northeastern Cambodia 1968–1979. Phnom Penh : Documentation Center of Cambodia. Unpublished report . —— . 1997 . Options for Land Security among Indigenous Communities, Ratanakiri, Cambodia . Ratanakiri, Cambodia : NTFP Project . Colm , S. and Sim Sorya . 2007 . Winds from the West: Region 105. Khmer Rouge Purges in the Highlands of Mondul Kiri . Phnom Penh, Cambodia : Documentation Center of Cambodia . Diffloth , G. 1993 . The Indigenous Minorities in Cambodia and the Elections: Report for the Electoral Component of UNTAC . Phnom Penh: UNTAC . Ehrentraut , S. 2013 . Challenging Khmer Citizenship: Minorities, the State, and the International Community in Cambodia . Ph.D. Dissertation. Potsdam : Potsdam University . Escott , J. 2000 . Minority education in Cambodia: The case of the Khmer Loeu . Intercultural Education 11 ( 3 ): 239–51 . Evans , T. D. , H. Piseth , P. Phaktra , and H. Mary . 2003 . A study of resin-tapping and livelihoods in southern Mondulkiri, Cambodia, with implications for conservation and forest management . Phnom Penh : Wildlife Conservation Society . Fortunel, F. 2014 . L’intégration régionale en Asie du Sud-Est continentale, domination ou coopération? L’exemple de l’hévéaculture entre Viêt Nam, Laos et Cambodge, in L’or blanc: Petits et grands planteurs face au “boom” de l’hévéaculture (Viêt Nam-Cambodge), Carnet de l’IRASEC No. 24., eds. F. Fortunel and C. Gironde. Bangkok : Institut de Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine . Fortunel, F. and C. Gironde . 2011 . Transition agraire et recompositions sociales en Asie du Sud-Est, in J.-Y. Guibert and M. Guibert (eds.). Dynamiques des espaces ruraux dans le monde: État des lieux. Paris : Armand Coline . Fox , J. M. 2002 . Understanding a dynamic landscape: Land use, land cover, and resource tenure in northeastern Cambodia , in S. J. Walsh and K. A. Crews-Meyer (eds.). Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach . Boston, Dordrecht and London : Springer , 113–30. Graham , C. 2013 . Cambodia’s Inverted Mandala? New Mandala. August 22 , 2013 . http://asiapacific.anu. edu.au/newmandala/2013/08/23/cambodias-inverted-mandala/ . Accessed January 5, 2014 . Guérin , M. 2008 . Paysans de la forêt à l’époque coloniale: La pacification des aborigènes des hautes terres du cambodge, 1863–1940 . Caen, France: Association d’histoire des sociétés rurales . Guérin , M. and J. Padwe . 2011 . Pénétration coloniale et résistance chez les Jarai: Revisiter le rôle des colonisés dans la mise en place des frontières en Indochine . Outre-Mers ( 370–71 ): 245–72 . Guérin , M. , A. Hardy , N. Van Chinh and S. T. Boon Hwee . 2003 . Des Montagnards aux Minorités Ethniques . Paris and Bangkok: L’Harmattan/IRASEC . Hughes , C. and K. Un . 2011 . Cambodia’s economic transformation: Historical and theoretical perspectives, in C. Hughes and K. Un (eds.). Cambodia’s Economic Transformation. Copenhagen : Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press , 1–26 . Hughes , P. 1993 . Report on highlanders of Ratanakiri for the year of indigenous people. UNTAC Human Rights Component. Ironside, J. 1999 . Defending Community Livelihood Rights–Community First/Food First: A Community Resource Management Planning Case Study, Yeak Laom Commune, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia . Phnom Penh : UNDP/CARERE/CBNRM . —— . 2004 . Securing land tenure rights for Cambodia’s indigenous communities . Indigenous Affairs of IWGIA ( 4 ): 14–19 . —— . 2010 . The Outbreak of Peace: Communal Land Management and Traditional Governance in a Remote Cambodian Province . Paper presented at the CAPRi Workshop on Collective Action, Property Rights, and Conflict in Natural Resources Management. June 28 –July 1, 2010 . Siem Reap, Cambodia . Ironside , J. and I. G. Baird . 2003 . Wilderness and Cultural Landscape: Settlement, Agriculture, and Land and Resource Tenure in and adjacent to Virachey National Park, Northeast Cambodia . Ban Lung, Ratana- kiri, Cambodia: Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Project (BPAMP), Ministry of Environment . Ishida , M. 2013 . Five Triangle Areas in the Greater Mekong Subregion . Bangkok : Bangkok Research Center. Institute of Developing Economies/Japan External Trade Organization . IWGIA . 2010 . ASEAN’s Indigenous Peoples. Copenhagen : AIPP, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development . www.iwgia.org/publications/ Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright search-pubs?publication_id=511 . Accessed April 21, 2012 . Jonsson , H. 1992 . Health Issues among Uplanders in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia: Final Report . London and Phnom Penh : Health Unlimited .

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—— . 2001 . French natural in the Vietnamese highlands: Nostalgia and erasure in Montagnard identity, in J. B. Winston and L. C.-P. Ollier (eds.). Of Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue . New York: Palgrave , 52–65 . Keating , N. B. 2013 . Kuy alterities: The struggle to conceptualise and claim Indigenous land rights in neoliberal Cambodia . Asia Pacific Viewpoint 54 ( 3 ): 309–22 . Kiernan , B. 1985 . How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930–1975 . London and New York : Verso . —— . 1996 . The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79 . New Haven and London : Yale University Press . Lacombe, G. , A. Pierret , C. T. Hoanh , O. Sengtaheuanghoung , and A. D. Noble . 2010 . Conflict, migration and land-cover changes in Indochina: A hydrological assessment . Ecohydrology 3 ( 4 ): 382–91 . Le Billon , P. 2000 . The political ecology of transition in Cambodia 1989–1999: War, peace and forest exploitation . Development and Change 31 : 785–805 . Leclère , A. 1881 . Les Pnongs: Peuple Sauvage de l’Indo-Chine . St. Valery en Caux, France : E. Dangu . Locard , H. 1994 . Hunting KR roots among hill tribes . Phnom Penh Post, May 20, 1994 . McAndrew , J. P. , Oeur Il , and J. Perera . 2009 . Access to natural resources: Case studies of Cambodian hill tribes , in J. Perera (ed.). Land and Cultural Survival: The Communal Land Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Asia . Manila : Asian Development Bank . Maître , H. 1912 . Les Jungles Moï . Paris : Emile Larose . Martin , M. A. 1997 . Les Khmers Daeum, “Khmers de l’Origine:” Société Montagnarde et Exploitation de la Forêt. De l’écologie a l’histoire . Paris : Monographies, No. 183. Presses de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient . Matras , J. and M. A. Martin . 1972 . Contribution à l’ethnobotanique des Brou (Cambodge-Province de Ratanakiri) . Journal d’agriculture tropicale et de botanique appliquée 19 ( 1–2, 4–5 ): 1–49, 93–139 . Matras-Troubetzkoy , J. 1983 . Un Village en Foret: L’essartage chez les Brou du Cambodge . Paris : Selaf . Meyer , C. 1979 . Les nouvelles provinces: Ratanakiri – Mondolkiri . Mondes en Développement 28 : 682–90 . Milne , S. 2013 . Under the leopard’s skin: Land commodification and the dilemmas of indigenous communal title in upland Cambodia . Asia Pacific Viewpoint 54 ( 3 ): 323–39 . Milne , S. , K. Pak , and M. Sullivan . 2015 . Shackled to nature? The post-conflict state and its symbiotic relationship with natural resources , in S. Milne and S. Mahanty (eds.). Conservation and Development in Cambodia: Exploring Frontiers of Change in Nature, State and Society . London : Routledge , 28–50. Minority Rights Group . 1995 . Minorities in Cambodia . London : Minority Rights Group . NGO Forum . 2006 . Land Alienation from Indigenous Minority Communities in Ratanakiri: An Update . Phnom Penh : NGO Forum on Cambodia . NTFP . 1997 . Swidden Cultivation in Ratanakiri Province: A Sustainable System for Cambodia? Ban Lung, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia : NTFP Project . Padwe , J. 2010 . Customary law, traditional authority and the ethnicization of rights in highland Cambodia, in F . Bourdier (ed.). Development and Dominion: Indigenous Peoples of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos . Bangkok : White Lotus Press . —— . 2011 . Cashews, cash and capitalism in northeast Cambodia, in C. Hughes and K . Un (eds.). Cambodia’s Economic Transformation . Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press , 123–53 . —— . 2013 . Highlands of history: Indigenous identity and its antecedents in Cambodia . Asia Pacific View- point 54 ( 3 ): 282–95 . Park , C. M. Y. and M. Maffii . 2015 . Landscapes of Control and Appropriation: The Missing Indigenous Woman. Chiang Mai, Thailand . Paterson , G. 1997 . 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All rights reserved. rights All Francis. and Taylor 2016. © Copyright Swift , P. 2013 . Changing ethnic identities among the Kuy in Cambodia: Assimilation, reassertion and the making of Indigenous identity . Asia Pacific Viewpoint 54 ( 3 ): 296–308 . Turton , A. (ed.). 2000 . Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States . London : Routledge .

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Un , K. and S. So . 2011 . Land rights in Cambodia: How neopatrimonial politics restricts land policy reform . Pacific Affairs 84 ( 2 ): 289–308 . UNCOHCHR . 2004 . Land Concessions for Economic Purposes in Cambodia: A Human Rights Perspective . Phnom Penh : United Nations Cambodia Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights . Vogel, S. 2011. Aspects de la Culture Traditionnelle des Bunoong du Mondulkiri . Phnom Penh: Tuk Tuk Editions . White , J. 1995 . Of Spirits and Services: Health and Healing amongst the Hill Tribes of Rattanakiri Province . Phnom Penh : Health Unlimited . Zucker , E. M. 2013 . Forest of Struggle: Moralities of Remembrance in Upland Cambodia . Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press . Zweers , J. and Sok Mary . 2002 . “The Spirits are Leaving”: Changing Beliefs and Attitudes among the Krueng, Jarai and Tompuen regarding their Natural Resources . Phnom Penh: International Development Research

145 Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:35:20. THE HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY CAMBODIA

Brickell, Katherine, and Simon Springer. The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Katherine Brickell, and Simon Springer, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=4684210. Created from uhm on 2017-05-15 12:36:35. First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Katherine Brickell and Simon Springer The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Brickell, Katherine, editor. | Springer, Simon, editor. | Sok Udom Deth. Contemporary geopolitics of Cambodia. Container of (work): Title: The handbook of contemporary Cambodia/edited by Katherine Brickell and Simon Springer. Description: New York: Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016011585 | ISBN 9781138831186 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315736709 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Cambodia–Politics and government–21st century. | Cambodia–Social conditions–21st century. | Cambodia–Economic conditions–21st century. Classification: LCC DS554.8 .H36 2016 | DDC 959.604/3–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016011585

ISBN: 978-1-138-83118-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-73670-9 (ebk)

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