A story of “communities”: boundaries, geographical composition and social coherence in a forest conservation project, Northern Cambodia

Abstract

Explicit notions of “communities”, as key actors in conservation and development projects across the Global South, are common. Narratives about “indigenous people” or “forest-dependent communities” in forest conservation programmes prevail, portraying a picture of “communities” as homogeneous and harmonious entities. In this study, we unfold “communities” as a construct with an empirical example of a community-based forest protection project, Northern Cambodia. Based on qualitative interviews, field observations and document analysis, we examine the “community” construct in terms of establishment of boundaries, geographical composition and social coherence. We not only find that the establishment of forest “community” boundaries are dominated by powerful external actors rather than the “community members” themselves, but that the spatial composition of “communities” is complex, and affects the ability of local people to benefit from the project. We also find that the studied “communities” show low levels of social coherence and mainly consist of migrant farmers, as opposed to common policy narratives. Taking these inconsistencies into account, we discuss implications of constructing “communities” for the success of forest conservation projects, and argue in favour of more discursive and political analyses to better understand, acknowledge and adapt to existing and changing conditions in present and prospective project locations.

Keywords:

• Integrated conservation and development projects
• REDD+
• community-based natural resource management
• discursive construct
• equity
• actors

Acknowledgements

We thank the residents of the study sites for their help in participating in interviews. We would also like to thank our research assistants, Lily and Khema, for their valuable support and company during the fieldwork in Oddar Meanchey. A special thank you goes to the Community Forestry Program staff of Pact Cambodia, in particular to former director Amanda Bradley for her collaboration and constructive feedback, to Channa Net for support with maps, and to Mark Poffenberger and Pheakkdey Nguon for sharing their knowledge and experiences with us.