“Now the Forest Is Over”: Transforming the Commons and Remaking Gender in Cambodia's Uplands

Abstract

Communal lands and natural resources in rural Cambodia have transformed over the past 30 years as the country attempts to transition from conflict to liberal democracy and integrates into global agricultural value chains. We find that gender relations are changing as a result of land privatization and the ensuing social and ecological crises of production and reproduction. The forest has become a space for the articulation of new masculinities modulated through class and racialised power, while women are increasingly relegated to the private space of the home and village, negotiating expectations that they perform care, farming and food provisioning work while juggling household debt. We ground our argument in a large sample of qualitative interviews conducted between 2016 and 2020 in the upland provinces of Kampong Thom, Kratie and Ratanakiri that provide narrative accounts of the transformation of common forest and grazing lands, logging livelihoods and food provisioning practices. Using a feminist political ecology perspective, we highlight the contradictory processes of enclosure of the commons, which operate simultaneously as sites of violence, resistance, adaptation and continuity.

The emotional life of rupture at Cambodia's Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam

“…We noted earlier that emotions are embodied in differentiated and intersectional ways. Gendered subjectivities were important in Kbal Romeas Chas, where women were prominent in resistance to resettlement, and then took on leadership roles within the community (see also Beban and Bourke Martignoni, 2021). Ethnicity was also significant given that the diverse population surrounding LS2 includes people who identify as Bunong (an officially recognized Indigenous community), ethnic Lao (recognized as an ethnic minority rather than Indigenous), Cham (a minority Muslim community that moved to the area during and after dam construction), and Khmer (the dominant Cambodian population whose numbers have boomed after the dam).…”

“…However, the initial claim of around 7000 hectares was whittled back to 400 hectares by the provincial government. Then in September 2020, a leader in Kbal Romeas Chas reported to Chann that the provincial government was pushing the villagers to accept a much smaller area under communal title—a common state tactic in the negotiation of communal land titles (Milne, 2013; Beban and Bourke Martignoni, 2021). The Provincial Land and Planning Office threated legal action if they did not accept the reduced area, as the land proposed for communal title was part of the Siv Geuk ELC.…”