‘We are not afraid to die’: gender dynamics of agrarian change in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia

Abstract

Dramatic changes have subverted the socially, culturally and resource-rich systems of indigenous communities living in Ratanakiri province. These changes include the incursion of market-based economy and commodification of land, the alienation of land and natural resources by way of economic land concessions (ELCs) and the inflow of large number of migrants from other regions and countries. Their cumulative impact has affected indigenous communities’ agrarian practices, their livelihoods and their system of beliefs and way of life, with important repercussions on social differentiation and gender relations. Based on fieldwork carried out in Ratanakiri province, this contribution analyses how emerging capitalist relations are shaping shifting gender relations and creating hierarchies of power that risk marginalising indigenous women and girls and eroding spaces of recognition, autonomy and agency they once had.

Keywords:

• Indigenous peoples
• gender
• generation
• agrarian change
• land
• labour
• Cambodia

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the women in indigenous communities who agreed to discuss their experience with us and trusted us to report on them, to the Highlanders Association in Ratanakiri for their support throughout this work, and to Gordon Paderson and Jeremy Ironside for having shared their valuable and in-depth multidisciplinary knowledge of indigenous societies in Cambodia. Part of this research was made possible by funding from the BRICS Initiative for Critical Agrarian Studies, for which we are grateful. We thank the anonymous reviewers who provided critical comments that enabled us to strengthen the paper, and Ben White for his support and advice. All errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The principal sites include 15 villages in Banlung, Andong Meas, Oyadaw, O’chum, Borkeo and Veunsay districts. The names of the villages have been omitted to protect the identity of the women and men we interviewed and consulted.

2 In the country there are 23 indigenous groups, comprising about 1.34 percent of the national population (Indigenous People NGO Network 2010).

3 This prejudice is still alive and constitutes the main justification for intergovernmental plans aimed at ‘modernising’ the areas inhabited by indigenous peoples in a triangle comprising South Laos, Northern Cambodia and Central Vietnam (Ironside 2015).

4 In this section and the following one we use ‘ethnographic present’ to describe activities, practices and relationships that, at least in some communities, have now been replaced and/or dismantled.

5 Elder Kreung woman, O’chum district, 2006.

6 This is a common trait of indigenous ethnic groups in Cambodia and in the whole region (Andaya 2006).

7 Workshop with Jarai and Tampouan women, Leu Khon village, Borkeo district, 2010.

8 The population went from fewer than 100,000 people in 1998 to 150,466 in 2008, though the overall population density is still relatively low at 14 people per km² (NIS 2008).

9 Mixed group discussion, Andong Meas village, 17 March 2014.

10 Women’s group discussion, Andong Meas district, 18 March 2014.

11 Interview with community representative, 2016.

12 Kachak woman, 17 years old, Andong Meas district 2014 (first cited in Park 2015).

13 Interviews with women’s groups, 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clara Mi Young Park

Clara Mi Young Park is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. Her current research focuses on the gendered and ‘generationed’ political economy of climate change and resource grabbing in Myanmar and Cambodia. Clara is the Regional Gender Rural and Social Development Officer with the Asia Pacific Regional Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Bangkok.

Margherita Maffii

Margherita Maffii is a gender and social researcher, with a background in agricultural studies, based in the Mekong Region. Her researches focuses on gender as a variable reflecting and reacting to societal changes and transformation in agrarian systems and early industrialisation. For more than a decade she has been researching the gender aspects of indigenous societies’ transformation in the region, working with development agencies and local indigenous networks and community-based organisations. Email:[email protected]