Continuity and change: Transformations in the urban history of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

In simple terms, transformation is the process that occurs when something changes from one state to another. Irrespective of the definitional nuances in urban and rural research, there is consensus that such events are complex and ongoing. To disentangle the factors and drivers from the outcomes and features, this paper's conceptual approach differentiates between the transitional process, or the "flow", and the "status", which refers to the existing state of affairs at a specific time in the past. My historical analysis, however, in the guise of snapshots, presents several in-between stages in Phnom Penh's urban development status with particular reference to its urban morphology. This angle prioritizes long-term historical and slowly evolving structures as longue durée over a big leap forward into Modernity. This priority also seeks to counter the identification of continuity rather than change − a widespread occupational hazard to which historians are prone. Empirical evidence mostly points to persistency and resilience; consequently, if changes do occur, they do not necessarily reflect progress but modifications at best. Implicitly, however, "transformation" is still associated with progress (development, growth, evolution, improvement or forward-movement), which is the paradigm of modernization as a model of an advancing transition from "pre-modern" or traditional to "modern societies" (Knöbl, 2003). The path Phnom Penh − Cambodia's current capital − took to modernity, understood here as our contemporary (hyper)modern times, was neither a history of progress nor straight forward (Eisenstadt, 2003; Chandler, 2000). Events, whose scope was unprecedented, triggered profound changes, altering both the urban landscape (the physical side) and the urbanity (the urban life) of the Lower Mekong metropole. Not only the vicissitudes of Phnom Penh's relatively short 150-year history, but also Cambodia's general settlement history raises the question: What is rural and what is urban? This question is especially relevant for one of this collective volume's guidelines, namely providing a regional framework. "Western" scholarly concepts of "the city," particularly the sharp contrast between urban and rural areas, are often not appropriate for Southeast Asia.Historically, this academic binarity is used in terms of rural transitions, which