About Staff

How have the state, society, and local communities of Cambodia declined and rebuilt since the 1970s? This has been my major research interest during the past several years. It has long been thought that the country suffered a dramatic destruction of almost all aspects of people’s life under the totalitarian state rule of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. Undoubtedly, the continued international isolation and warfare during the almost following 10 years accelerated the diffusion of this stereotypical understanding of Cambodian society and culture. My research, based on fieldwork in a rural community of the eastern Tonle Sap Lake region since around 1999, explores local people’s present lives in their specific ecological and socio-cultural settings, as well as the reality of changes within their lives, not only during and after the DK era, but since the early 20th century. These efforts have resulted in several ethnographic analyses of socio-cultural changes. I have recently started research on institutional reconstruction after the DK for the purpose of reviewing the meaning and significance of the modern nation-state in the local inhabitants’ life-world as well as the interwoven relationship of socio-political institutions and historical inherited features in the locality.