University of Bath PHD Living with landmines: mine action, development and wellbeing in post-conflict societies – a case study in Cambodia Davies, Gabrielle Award date: 2015 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Living with landmines: mine action, development and wellbeing in post- conflict societies – a case study in Cambodia Gabrielle Mary Davies A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Department of Social and Policy Sciences July 2015 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation with effect from...................(date) Signed on behalf of the Faculty/School of................................... Abstract It is widely recognized that landmines pose a significant threat to the development and recovery of post-conflict societies. What is less well understood is the impact that these weapons have on the everyday lives and wellbeing of affected people and the environments in which they live. This thesis therefore seeks to deepen this understanding by presenting the findings from community-level qualitative research undertaken in Cambodia, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. I argue that it is essential to consider the effect that landmines have on people, the environments in which they live, and the relationships between people and environment. In order to explore this, I build on the notion of ‘wellbeing ecology’ introduced by White & Jha (2014). Wellbeing ecology is a place-sensitive approach that considers the inter-connected and dynamic social, economic, emotional, physical and spiritual relationships that people have with each other and their environments over time. By their very presence, landmines represent a threat to both social and natural systems. They also reconstitute people’s experience of place. I explore this in particular through the notion of contaminated landscapes, which draws on and takes forward work on therapeutic landscapes in health geography. My data reveals that local people and mine action actors understand the effects of landmines differently. While mine action actors focus predominantly on material impact, local people conceptualise landmine impact in a more holistic way, referring to its social, emotional, spiritual, psychological and physical meanings. Data from the village highlights the importance of place for wellbeing, revealing that living in a contaminated landscape negatively affects people’s quality of life materially, relationally and subjectively. This demonstrates how a wellbeing ecology approach can usefully add to the understanding of the experience of living with landmines and the effect this has on quality of life. TABLE OF CONTENTS: ABSTRACT I LIST OF TABLES IX LIST OF FIGURES IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XI ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS: XIII 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 15 1.1 PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTION: 15 1.2 SUB-RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 16 1.3 OVERVIEW AND JUSTIFICATION: 16 1.4 DEFINING MINE ACTION: 16 1.5 THE HISTORY OF MINE ACTION: 17 1.6 THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-LANDMINE MOVEMENT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: 21 1.7 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS: 22 2 CHAPTER TWO: HUMANITARIANISM AND MINE ACTION 24 2.1 MORALITIES AND MOTIVATIONS: 25 2.1.1 MORALITIES AND MOTIVATIONS: MINE ACTION 28 2.2 POLITICIZATION AND PROFESSIONALIZATION: 30 2.2.1 POLITICIZATION AND PROFESSIONALIZATION: MINE ACTION 32 2.3 ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT: 33 2.3.1 ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT: MINE ACTION LITERATURE 36 2.4 HUMANITARIANISM AND DEVELOPMENT: 38 2.4.1 MINE ACTION AND DEVELOPMENT: 39 2.5 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 42 3 CHAPTER THREE: THE CAMBODIAN CONTEXT 45 3.1 THE GEOGRAPHY OF CAMBODIA: 46 3.2 THE HISTORY OF CAMBODIA: 48 3.3 PRESENT DAY CAMBODIAN SOCIETY: 52 iii 3.4 POLITICS IN CAMBODIA: 52 3.5 KHMER CULTURE AND SOCIETY: 55 3.6 SPIRITUALITY IN KHMER SOCIETY: 57 3.7 RURAL LIFE AND SOCIOECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS: 59 3.8 LANDMINES AND MINE ACTION IN CAMBODIA: 63 3.9 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 72 4 CHAPTER FOUR: LOCATING WELLBEING IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE 75 4.1 ASSESSING WELLBEING: 76 4.2 PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT: POTENTIAL WAYS OF CONCEPTUALIZING SOCIOECOLOGICAL RELATIONS 80 4.2.1 POLITICAL ECOLOGY: PUTTING THE POLITICS INTO PEOPLE-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS 81 4.2.2 ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY: CULTURE, PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT 82 4.2.3 HUMAN ECOLOGY: USING NATURAL SCIENCES TO UNDERSTAND PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOUR 83 4.2.4 LIVELIHOOD APPROACHES: RURAL AGRARIAN PEOPLE-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS 84 4.3 GEOGRAPHIES OF WELLBEING: MICRO LEVEL 86 4.4 GEOGRAPHIES OF WELLBEING: MACRO LEVEL 89 4.5 PEOPLE AND PLACE: 92 4.6 PLACE AS LANDSCAPE: 94 4.7 THERAPEUTIC LANDSCAPES: 94 4.8 FROM THERAPEUTIC TO CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: 97 4.8.1 HAZARDS, RISK AND VULNERABILITY 98 4.8.2 CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: CRISIS AS CONTEXT 104 4.9 RETHINKING THE CONCEPTUALISATION OF LANDMINES: 106 4.10 WELLBEING ECOLOGY: 109 4.11 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 111 5 CHAPTER FIVE: METHODOLOGY 113 5.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: 113 5.2 SAMPLING: 115 5.3 THE METHODS: 115 5.4 PHASE ONE: INTERVIEW IN THE UK AND MAPPING EXERCISE: 116 5.5 PHASE TWO: 11TH MSP, INTERVIEWS WITH MINE ACTION ACTORS & STRATEGIC NETWORKING: 117 5.6 PHASE THREE: LIVING IN A MINE-AFFECTED COMMUNITY: 120 5.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: 136 iv 5.8 ETHICAL CHALLENGES: 139 5.9 REFLEXIVITY AND MY ROLE AS A RESEARCHER: 141 5.10 REFLECTIONS ON FIELDWORK: MY WELLBEING IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: 142 5.11 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 146 6 CHAPTER SIX: MINE ACTION PERSPECTIVE 147 6.1 THE MINE ACTION ENVIRONMENT: 147 6.1.1 THE INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE: 148 6.1.1.1 International Law and National Government Mine Action Strategy 149 6.1.1.2 National environment: 151 6.1.1.3 Donors 153 6.1.1.4 Development Organisations 156 6.1.1.5 The Media 162 6.1.2 THE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE: 163 6.1.2.1 Organisational mandates 163 6.1.2.2 The professional background of mine action personnel 164 6.1.2.3 Motivations for working in mine action: 165 6.1.2.3.1 Tangible Results: 165 6.1.2.3.2 Mine action as a straightforward sector: 166 6.1.2.3.3 Military structure of the sector: 167 6.1.2.4 Competing agendas 168 6.2 CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF LANDMINE IMPACT: 171 6.2.1 IMPACT OF LANDMINE ACCIDENTS: 172 6.2.2 LIVING WITH LANDMINES: 174 6.3 CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF MINE-AFFECTED PEOPLE: 177 6.4 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 180 6.5 POSTSCRIPT TO CHAPTER SIX: DFID MINE ACTION EVALUATIONS 181 6.5.1 META EVALUATION OF MINE ACTION AND DEVELOPMENT 2012: 181 6.5.2 MINE ACTION EVALUATION 2013 182 7 CHAPTER SEVEN: LIVING IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: VILLAGER PERSPECTIVE 184 THE VILLAGE ENVIRONMENT: 185 PART ONE: VILLAGER CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF WELLBEING: 187 PART TWO: LIVING IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: 199 7.1 LANDMINE ACCIDENTS: 199 v 7.2 LIVING IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: 205 7.2.1 LIVING IN FEAR 206 7.2.1.1 Fear of mines: 206 7.2.1.2 Fear of the forest: 209 7.2.2 STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE: 211 7.3 ADAPTATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIOECOLOGICAL RELATIONS: 214 7.4 SOCIAL RELATIONS IN A CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: 216 PART THREE: WELLBEING IN A PARTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE: 221 7.4.1 LAND DISPUTES: 223 7.4.2 LAND GRABBING: 224 7.4.3 FORECLOSURE ON LOANS: 226 7.5 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 227 8 CHAPTER EIGHT: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 230 8.1 CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF MINE CONTAMINATION AND THE EFFECT ON WELLBEING 230 8.2 THE UTILITY OF WELLBEING ECOLOGY: CONTRIBUTION TO THEORY 232 8.3 KEY CONTRIBUTIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE: 236 8.3.1 THE MISSING ENVIRONMENT 236 8.3.2 MINE ACTION AS A POLITICAL PROCESS 238 8.3.3 INTEGRATED MINE ACTION AND DEVELOPMENT 243 8.4 WELLBEING DILEMMAS AND TRADE-OFFS IN A CONTAMINATED AND PARTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPE 247 8.5 STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH: 248 8.6 CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE: 249 8.7 FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS: 251 8.8 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: 251 APPENDICES 255 APPENDIX 1: DETAILS OF INDICATORS USED TO IDENTIFY POOR HOUSEHOLDS IN CAMBODIA 255 APPENDIX 2: TYPE AND EXTENT OF LANDMINE CONTAMINATION IN CAMBODIA 256 APPENDIX 3: MAP OF REPORTED LANDMINE AND ERW ACCIDENTS IN 2011 257 APPENDIX 4: MAP OF LANDMINE ACCIDENTS BY PROVINCE 2005-2007 258 APPENDIX 5: REPORTED LANDMINE AND ERW CASUALTY DATA BY DEVICE 2009-2013 259 APPENDIX 6: FUNDING FOR MINE ACTION IN CAMBODIA 2012 260 APPENDIX 7: FUNDING FOR MINE ACTION IN CAMBODIA 2008-2012 261 vi APPENDIX 8: MINE ACTION ACTORS IN CAMBODIA IN 2014 262 APPENDIX 9: PROCESS FOR ANNUAL MINE ACTION PLAN IN CAMBODIA: 263 APPENDIX 10: LANDMINE AND BATTLE CLEARANCE IN 2013 264 APPENDIX 11: DETAILS OF THE VILLAGERS INTERVIEWED 265 LIST OF REFERENCES 269 vii List of tables Table 1: Data collection timetable ............................................................................................