Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T22:14:50.670Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Water in the Shaping and Unmaking of Khmer Identity on the Vietnam-Cambodia Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2014

Philip Taylor
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper attempts an explanation for the persistence of Khmer cultural identifications on the Ca Mau Peninsula of Vietnam. This low-lying peninsula is a unique human environment, where Khmer villages, Buddhist temple festivals and livelihood activities are centred on a network of saline-infested rivers. The presence of Khmer communities along these waterways is noteworthy, for much scholarship suggests that the waterways of the multi-ethnic lower Mekong region tend to be dominated by non-Khmer ethnic groups. The vigorous Khmer presence on the peninsula is even more intriguing given that the peninsula is a migratory and trade oriented region, long under Vietnamese administration and subject to military and environmental upheavals that have challenged Khmer tenure.

The paper suggests that mastery of communal water harvesting allowed Khmers to survive the long saline water season and gave them a secure foothold in this region. Additionally, their collaborative water harvesting practices contributed to cohesion and a common identity among Khmers and helped strengthen the Theravada Buddhist wat as one of the key cultural institutions on the peninsula. However, the development of an extensive irrigation network by the Vietnamese state in the last thirty years has had the opposite effect. Canal developments facilitated intensive agriculture, immigration and the introduction of new cultural models into the peninsula, while creating economic and environmental insecurity for Khmers and undercutting the traditional grounds for collaboration. Such changes cast light on the links between ethnic identifications and the system of fresh water provision in the lower Mekong region.

Keywords

KhmersMekong deltaethnicitywatertemple ponds
Type
Articles
Information
TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia , Volume 2 , Special Issue 1: Heritage, History, and Historical Processes , January 2014 , pp. 103 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Institute of East Asian Studies, Sogang University 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Henry. 1978. Hydrogeological Reconnaissance of the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam and Cambodia. Washington: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Aymonier, Etienne. 1900. Le Cambodge (Vol 1). Paris: Ernest Leroux.Google Scholar
Barrault (Capitaine de L'Infanterie Coloniale). 1927. “Les Cambodgiens de Cochinchine” Extreme Asie Revue Indochinoise Illustree August 1927 (Nouvelle serie No. 14) pp. 67–74, 135–146.Google Scholar
Biggs, David. 2010. Quagmire: Nation Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Biggs, David, Fiona Miller, Chu Thai Hoanh and Molle, Francois. 2009. The delta machine: water management in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta in historical and contemporary perspectives. In Francois Molle, Tira Foran and Kakonen, Mira (eds.), Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: Hydropower, livelihoods, and governance, pp. 203–226. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Brocheux, Pierre. 1995. The Mekong Delta: Ecology, Economy and Revolution, 1860–1960. Madison WI: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Chandler, David. 2008. A History of Cambodia (Fourth Edition). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.Google Scholar
Choi, Byung Wook. 2004. Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mang (1820–1841), Ithaca: Cornell SEAP.Google Scholar
Cooke, Nola and Li, Tana. 2004. Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880. Boulder, Col: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Delvert, Jean, 1994 [1961]. Le Paysan Cambodgien. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Engelbert, Thomas. 1994. The Khmer in Southern Vietnam: Cambodians or Vietnamese? In Wessel, Ingrid (ed.), Nationalism and Ethnicity in Southeast Asia, pp. 176–85. Berlin: Humbolt University.Google Scholar
Gourou, Pierre. 1940. L'Utilisation du Sol en Indochine Francaise. Paris: Centre D'Etudes de Politique Etrangere.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund. 1961. Pul Eliya: A Village in Ceylon. A Study of Land Tenure and Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mabbett, Ian and Chandler, David. 1995. The Khmers. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Phoeun, Mak. 1989. La frontier entre le Cambodge et Vietnam du XVIIe siecle a l'instauration du protectorat francais. In Lafont (ed.), Les Frontieres du Vietnam: Histoire des Frontiers de la Peninsule Indochinoise, pp. 136–155. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Malleret, Louis. 1943. Cochinchine, terre inconnue. Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises 18(3), 9–21.Google Scholar
Malleret, Louis. 1946. La minorite Cambodgienne de Cochinchine. Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises 21, 19–34.Google Scholar
McHale, Shawn. 2013. Ethnicity, violence, and Khmer-Vietnamese relations: the significance of the lower Mekong delta, 1757–1954. The Journal of Asian Studies 72(2), 367–90.Google Scholar
Mensvoort, M.E.F. van, Nguyen Van Nhan, Tran Kim Tinh and Quang Tri, Le, 1993. Coarse land evaluation of the acid sulphate soil areas in the Mekong delta based on farmers' experience. In Dent, D.L and van Mensvoort, M.E.F (eds.), Selected papers of the Ho Chi Minh City symposium on acid sulphate soils. Publication 53, pp. 321–329. Ho Chi Min: International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement.Google Scholar
Mosse, David. 1997. Ecological zones and the culture of collective action: the history and social organisation of a south Indian tank irrigation system. South Indian Studies 3, 1–88.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Huu Chiem. 1995. Geo-pedological study of the Mekong delta. Southeast Asian Studies 31(2), 158–186.Google Scholar
Poree-Maspero, Eveline. 1962. Etude Sur Les Rites Agraires Des Cambodgiens. Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
Robequain, Charles. 1944. The Economic Development of French Indo-China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Philip. 2013. Losing the waterways: the displacement of Khmer communities from the freshwater rivers of the Mekong delta, 1945–2010. Modern Asian Studies 47(2), 500–541.Google Scholar
Vo Tong Xuan and Matsui, Shigeo (eds.). 1998. The Development of Farming Systems in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City: HCMC Publishing House.Google Scholar
White, Ian. 2002. Water Management in the Mekong Delta: Changes, Conflicts and Opportunities. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Zhou, Daguan. 1992. The Customs of Cambodia. Bangkok: Siam Society.Google Scholar