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Geographies of Evasion
The Development Industry and Property Rights Interventions
in early 21st Century Cambodia
Robin Biddulph
Göteborg, 2010
Institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi
Handelshögskolan vid
Göteborgs Universitet
Vasagatan 1
405 30 Göteborg
Department of Human and Economic Geography
School of Business, Economics and Law
University of Gothenburg
Vasagatan 1
S-405 30 Göteborg
ii
iii
ABSTRACT
Robin Biddulph: Geographies of Evasion. The Development Industry and Property Rights
Interventions in Early 21st Century Cambodia. 2010. Publications edited by the Departments of
Geography, University of Gothenburg, Series B, no. 117. 288 pages. Department of Human and
Economic Geography, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg. ISBN 91-86472-63-1.
This study is an enquiry into the relationship between development industry interventions in rural
areas and the lives and livelihoods of the people they are proposed to benefit.
The study has two main departure points. One is the author‟s own experiences of the development
industry in rural Cambodia, where interventions rarely have more than a marginal impact on people‟s
lives and livelihoods. The other is the way in which landmark studies of rural development projects
featured misrepresentation of rural lives and livelihoods as central to their analysis of the failure of
those projects.
Early 21st Century development policy tends to focus on institutional change rather than project
implementation, and property rights are often to the fore. By focusing on property rights interventions
in Cambodia this study enables reflection on whether the patterns of misrepresentation evident three
decades ago in project style interventions persist in contemporary institutionally oriented interventions.
The study is framed as a critical geography of development intervention. In that respect it first attends
to the spatial distribution of interventions in relation to the spatial distribution of key political
economy phenomena they seek to address; it secondly employs contextualised studies of place in order
to subject the generalising claims of theory and policy to critical analysis; thirdly, it employs a
conceptualisation of development interventions as journeys, opening to scrutiny the interests and
discourses that channel and filter them en route to implementation.
The thesis includes three cases. A national case study of Cambodia examines the spatial distribution
and causes of tenure insecurity and maps onto this the spatial distributions of systematic land titling
and community forestry interventions. Two village case studies, one in a rice-field landscape and the
other in a forest landscape, examine villagers‟ livelihoods, the political economies that shape them,
and the effects of systematic land titling and community forestry interventions in the villages.
Misrepresentation was still found to be central to development practice: the livelihoods depicted in
policy rhetoric and project documentation bore little resemblance to the livelihoods in the case study
villages. Interventions were, furthermore, located away from the main problems which they were
stated to address. Community forestry was implemented in places where the forest could no longer
sustain livelihoods because it had been logged; land titling was implemented in places where tenure
was already secure. These findings are explained as a „geography of evasion‟ and discussed as a form
of development industry overreach. It is concluded that there may be little point in the development
industry trying to extend rights to places where national governments are not prepared to enforce those
rights. The implications of this finding for future policymaking and research are discussed.
Keywords: Development geography; property rights interventions; land titling; community
forestry; development industry; Cambodia
ISSN 0346-6663
ISBN 91-86472-63-1
Robin Biddulph
Printed by Geson
Göteborg 2010
Distribution:
Department of Human and Economic Geography
School of Business, Economics and Law
University of Gothenburg
Vasagatan 1
S-405 30 Göteborg
iv
Acknowledgements
I haven‟t finished yet! I have more thinking and learning to do about the issues raised in this
thesis. Creating a complete text from my incomplete thought processes has tested my abilities, not
least my time management skills. As a consequence the drafts that I have circulated for comment
have not generally been as near completion as I would have wished. Many people have helped
generously with the production of this thesis. The limitations of the final product, however, are
entirely my responsibility. To all who have contributed, please rest assured that I will continue to
listen to criticism and advice and to try to continue learning.
Thank you to all who read and commented on chapter drafts: Jonas Lindberg; Shaun Williams;
Jerry Olsson; Claes Alvstam; Bertil Vilhelmson; Alix Kent; Lotta Frandberg; Fia Espling; Pelle
Amberntsson; Peter Swift; Daniel Adler; an anonymous reader in Phnom Penh. Thanks also to
Anders Larsson for the case study villages map and to Cheryl Cordeira for help with editing the
pictures.
Thank you for their generosity to the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography who
funded two of the field trips for this thesis and to Geografiska föreningen i Göteborg and the
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation who funded one field trip each.
The thesis would have been much poorer, and the research would not have been such a joy to
conduct without the contributions of Ton Saroth, Sang Dina, Phon Chanreth, Ouen Sokra. Thank
you to all of you for your assistance and ideas and sense of humour. You are all friendly, open,
respectful people, which is why villagers in Bey and Buon were happy to speak so freely with you
and why you were such an outstanding research team. Thanks also to Te Phally and Hun Chaom
who each participated in one research trip. And a special thanks to Nyik Nai who was a very
special guest researcher on our final trip to Bey.
At the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), thanks go to Rector Mr Lav Chhiv Eav, and to
Acting Head of the Department of Geography Mr Bun Serey, both for facilitating my work and
for taking an interest in it. Thanks also for the help of Luise Ahrens and Alastair Curry at RUPP
and to all at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute and at the CBNRM Learning Institute
for allowing me to present and for discussing ideas and findings with me.
In the villages we were received with great friendliness and warmth. Thank you to the provincial,
district, commune and village authorities who facilitated our work, to the families in Bey and
Buon who hosted us, and to everyone who gave us their time. I hope to return often in the future
and I hope to witness these villages going through happy times in the years ahead.
Particular thanks and respect to Mr Sar Sovan at the Ministry of Land Management. It was always
an inspiration to arrive at the Ministry and find you giving extra tuition to students from the
university during your lunch breaks, and still finding time to talk to me. I do not think there are
many senior bureaucrats anywhere who behave in that way. Many other women and men involved
in Systematic Land Titling and Community Forestry made time to talk to me and to share
information and ideas. You have my sincere thanks for your assistance and my respect for the
work that you do. I hope that my often critical stance toward the development industry in general,
and the particular conclusions drawn in this thesis do not make you feel that I have repaid your
cooperation badly. I hope for further discussions and look forward to the spotlight being turned
back on my assumptions and approach, as indeed it should be. Thanks in this regard to His
Excellency Ty Sokhun, Mr Lao Sethephal, Franz Volker Mueller, Bodo Richter, Jouni Antonnen,
v
George Cooper, James Bampton, Khieng Sochivy, Koen Everaert, Try Horng, and to many others
too numerous to mention.
Thanks (and admiration) to Peter Swift, Daniel Adler, So Sovannarith, Amanda Bradley and
Megan MacInnes all of whom engaged me in discussions in Cambodia. Thank you for your ideas
and criticisms and I hope that this thesis will be of service. An older Phnom Penh debt is to Shaun
Williams who was a wonderful colleague and friend ten years ago on the Cambodia Land Study
Project. Every conversation we have reminds me of what a novice I am in matters related to land
and land rights. I hope we meet again soon.
In Gothenburg I have had wonderful support from colleagues at the Department of Human and
Economic Geography. Associate Professor Inge Ivarsson has been the most professional and
engaged supervisor anybody could possibly wish for. You were also brilliant in the villages Inge:
Yahtsee and Frisbee were surely the right technology to transfer! Thank you for all your
encouragement and hospitality. The development geography research group at the Department has
been a great source of support and constructive criticism. Thank you Fia for constantly pushing us
to read and discuss and broaden our horizons, and to Pelle and Jonas for your critical engagement.
Professor Joakim Öjendal generously provided me with a thorough and critical reading of my
draft at a review seminar in February, while Professors Claes Alvstam and Sten Lorentzon have
both at different stages „opposed‟ drafts of this thesis in presentations at the department and
provided valuable advice. Professor Bertil Vilhelmson, provided particularly helpful comments at
times when I found myself in difficulty with the writing.
The department has been a friendly and supportive work environment. Thank you all for the
company. Especially to my neighbour Eva Bang, and my frequent lunch companions Katarina
Gustafsson and Göran Olsson. In addition to friendliness there has been friendship. Many of us
have experienced twists and turns in our lives these past four or so years. There have been times
when I have been very grateful to have had friends at work. Special thanks in that respect to Lotta
and Jonas for your patience and for being there when I needed you.
Beyond the department David Craig at the Univeristy of Auckland was my deputy supervisor and
also managed to make it out to Bey village with me on one occasion. Thanks, David, for all of the
enthusiasm and advice, which helped maintain my energy in the final stages when I started to flag.
Doug Porter, who taught me in Canberra a decade ago and introduced me to David continues to
both inspire and disrupt my thinking. Thanks for that Doug, and also for hosting Peci and I those
couple of idyllic days in Mullumbimby.
The Internet enables us to access people who might otherwise be beyond our reach. I have been
constantly surprised by the willingness of leading academics to field questions from a complete
stranger and to provide information and guidance. In that respect, thanks to Jonathan Rigg, Chris
Dixon, Stuart Rutherford and Tania Murray Li for your generous help and advice.
Thanks for support and friendship from Szilard Nemes and Alix Kent. Also for occasional but
always stimulating discussions with Bent Jörgensen. And to colleagues and former colleagues at
Slättadam, Björkbacken and Focali who have made me feel welcome during my Sweden years.
Being back in Europe has given me the opportunity to be closer to family and friends. I am
grateful for the love and support I have received first and foremost from my Mum and my Dad,
but also from my sisters Janice and Alison and my good friends Dominic Evans and Paul Toal.
Finally, thank you to Saskia, Molly and Beatrice for being such wonderful daughters and for
making me feel happy and proud every time I see you.
Gothenburg, May 2010
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This thesis is dedicated to Peci Lyons,
with thanks and love.
viii
Table of Contents in Summary
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................ iv
Table of Contents in Summary .......................................................................................................................... viii
Table of Contents in Detail .................................................................................................................................. x
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................................... xv
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................................... xvi
List of Acronyms .............................................................................................................................................. xvii
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Failure, Misrepresentation and Rural Development Intervention.............................................................. 1
1.2 Was it Ever Thus? Misrepresentation and Failure 25 years ago ............................................................... 4
1.3 Introducing the Case: Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia .......................................................... 13
1.4 Thesis Aim and Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 15
1.5 Other Contributions of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 16
1.6 Structure .................................................................................................................................................. 17
2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention ............................................................................... 19
2.1 Introduction – Normative Beginnings/Assumptions ................................................................................ 19
2.2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention ................................................................................. 21
2.3 Fraught Journeys: from Western Origins to Southeast Asian Landscapes ............................................... 26
2.4 Property Rights Theory and Interventions ............................................................................................... 40
2.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 55
3 Investigating Intervention at National and Local Scales ........................................................................ 57
3.1 Justification of Overall Approach and Scales ........................................................................................... 57
3.2 Evolution of Research Design and Selection of Cases .............................................................................. 58
3.3 Conduct of the Village Studies ................................................................................................................. 61
3.4 Conduct of National Study ....................................................................................................................... 69
3.5 Ethics and Anonymity ............................................................................................................................... 70
3.6 Limitations ............................................................................................................................................... 71
3.7 Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 72
4. The National Case Study ........................................................................................................................ 73
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 73
4.2 Historical Background .............................................................................................................................. 73
4.3 Immanent Development: A Geography of Tenure Insecurity in Cambodia .............................................. 83
4.4 Intentional Development: A Geography of Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia.......................... 95
ix
4.5 The Relationship between the Two Geographies ...................................................................................104
4.6 Summary ................................................................................................................................................108
5. Community Forestry in Bey village ...................................................................................................... 111
5.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................111
5.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Bey ..........................................................................112
5.3 Intentional Development: Community Forestry in Bey ..........................................................................147
5.4 Conclusions and Implications .................................................................................................................162
5.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................................165
6. Systematic Land Titling in Buon Village ............................................................................................... 167
6.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................167
6.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Buon ........................................................................168
6.3 The Systematic Land Titling Intervention in Buon ..................................................................................186
6.4 Conclusions and Implications .................................................................................................................202
6.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................................205
7. Conclusions and Implications. ............................................................................................................. 209
7.1 Thesis Aim and Research Questions Revisited .......................................................................................209
7.2 Findings: Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia ..................................210
7.3 Explaining Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia ...............................213
7.4 Broader Relevance of this Thesis for the Development Industry ............................................................222
7.5 Implications of Geographies of Evasion for Development Industry Policies ..........................................224
7.6 Implications for Research .......................................................................................................................226
Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 230
References ................................................................................................................................................... 234
Appendices................................................................................................................................................... 249
Appendix 1. List of Interviews Cited .................................................................................................................249
Appendix 2. Village Census Form .....................................................................................................................254
Appendix 3. 25% Livelihood Survey. ................................................................................................................255
Appendix 4. Case Study Households in Bey and Buon: Incomes and Expenditures 2006-7. ............................258
Appendix 5. Question List for Land and Livelihood Survey I (Bey village version) ...........................................259
Appendix 6. Sample Structured Interview Questions: Spring 2008 (Bey version) ............................................262
Appendix 7. Land and livelihood Survey (II) in Bey, October 2008 ...................................................................262
Appendix 8. Survey of Land Transactions in Buon 2009. Summary Data ........................................................263
Appendix 9. LMAP Written Questions and Response, April 2010 ....................................................................267
Meddelanden från Göteborgs Universitets Geografiska Institutioner, Serie B................................................269
x
Table of Contents in Detail
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................ iv
Table of Contents in Summary .......................................................................................................................... viii
Table of Contents in Detail .................................................................................................................................. x
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................................... xv
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................................... xvi
List of Acronyms .............................................................................................................................................. xvii
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Failure, Misrepresentation and Rural Development Intervention.............................................................. 1 1.1.1 Rural Development Outcomes: Author’s Experiences ..................................................................... 1 1.1.2 Impacts of Development Assistance: Academic Literature .............................................................. 3
1.2 Was it Ever Thus? Misrepresentation and Failure 25 years ago ............................................................... 4 1.2.1 The Anti-Politics Machine: the Thaba-Tseka Project ........................................................................ 5 1.2.2 Paved with Good Intentions: The Magarini Project ......................................................................... 8 1.2.3 The Object of Development: America’s Egypt................................................................................ 10 1.2.4 Reflections on the 1990s Studies ................................................................................................... 12
1.3 Introducing the Case: Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia .......................................................... 13
1.4 Thesis Aim and Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 15
1.5 Other Contributions of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 16
1.6 Structure .................................................................................................................................................. 17
2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention ............................................................................... 19
2.1 Introduction – Normative Beginnings/Assumptions ................................................................................ 19
2.2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention ................................................................................. 21 2.2.1 Place-based studies and policy simplifications ............................................................................... 21 2.2.2 Spatial Distribution: Mapping Development Interventions ........................................................... 22 2.2.3 Development Interventions as Travel ............................................................................................ 25 2.2.4 Critical Geography of Development Intervention Recapitulated ................................................... 26
2.3 Fraught Journeys: from Western Origins to Southeast Asian Landscapes ............................................... 26 2.3.1 The Western Development Industry .............................................................................................. 27
2.3.1.1 Policy Trajectories and Industry Trajectories ........................................................................ 27 2.3.1.2 Incentives in the Development Industry ............................................................................... 29
2.3.2 The Nation State – Gatekeeper and Development Partner ........................................................... 31 2.3.2.1 The Development Partner Problematic ................................................................................ 31 2.3.2.2 Neo-patrimonialism .............................................................................................................. 31 2.3.2.3 Shadow state ........................................................................................................................ 33 2.3.2.4 The Developmental State and Asian Values ......................................................................... 35
2.3.3 Uneven Landscapes of Rural Southeast Asia .................................................................................. 35 2.3.3.1 Conceptualising Livelihoods .................................................................................................. 35 2.3.3.2 Agriculture and Agrarian Transitions .................................................................................... 36 2.3.3.3 Decoupling and Deagrarianisation in Southeast Asian Landscapes ...................................... 37 2.3.3.4 Agrarian Change and Resistance........................................................................................... 39
2.3.4 Fraught Journeys Recapitulated ..................................................................................................... 40
2.4 Property Rights Theory and Interventions ............................................................................................... 40 2.4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 40 2.4.2 Property Rights Definitions ............................................................................................................ 41 2.4.3 Theoretical Justifications for Land Titling ....................................................................................... 42
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2.4.4 Theoretical Critiques of Land Titling ............................................................................................... 44 2.4.4.1 The De Soto Factor................................................................................................................ 44 2.4.4.2 Markets are not benevolent ................................................................................................. 44 2.4.4.3 Tenure is not always reducible to simple formal ownership ................................................ 45 2.4.4.4 Formalisation is biased against women ................................................................................ 46
2.4.5 Empirical Evidence on Land Titling ................................................................................................. 46 2.4.5.1 Impact on Security and Investment ...................................................................................... 46 2.4.5.2 Impact on Access to Credit ................................................................................................... 47 2.4.5.3 Impact on Land Markets ....................................................................................................... 47 2.4.5.4 Impact on revenue raising and other secondary impacts ..................................................... 48 2.4.5.5 Implementation issues .......................................................................................................... 48 2.4.5.6 Spatial distribution of titling ................................................................................................. 49 2.4.5.7 Discursive claims: why land-titling travels well as policy ...................................................... 50
2.4.6 Theories of Common Property Rights ............................................................................................ 50 2.4.7 Critiques of Common Property Rights Approaches ........................................................................ 53
2.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 55
3 Investigating Intervention at National and Local Scales ........................................................................ 57
3.1 Justification of Overall Approach and Scales ........................................................................................... 57
3.2 Evolution of Research Design and Selection of Cases .............................................................................. 58
3.3 Conduct of the Village Studies ................................................................................................................. 61 3.3.1 Research Team Composition .......................................................................................................... 61 3.3.2 The Profile of the Research Team in the Villages ........................................................................... 62 3.3.3 Conduct of Interviews .................................................................................................................... 64 3.3.4 Village Census and Developing Analytical Categories .................................................................... 65 3.3.5 Case study households ................................................................................................................... 65 3.3.6 Iterative Research Process ............................................................................................................. 66
3.3.6.1 Inventory of Research activities ............................................................................................ 66 3.3.6.2 Field Visit 1 July and November 2006 ................................................................................... 68 3.3.6.3 Field Visit 2, Spring 2007 ....................................................................................................... 68 3.3.6.4 Field Visit 3 September 2007 ................................................................................................ 68 3.3.6.5 Field Visit 4, January 2008 .................................................................................................... 68 3.3.6.6 Field Visit 5, October 2008 .................................................................................................... 69 3.3.6.7 Field Visit 6, March 2009 ...................................................................................................... 69
3.4 Conduct of National Study ....................................................................................................................... 69 3.4.1 Approach: Adopting and Adapting Bebbington ............................................................................. 69 3.4.2 Database Access for National Case Study ...................................................................................... 70
3.5 Ethics and Anonymity ............................................................................................................................... 70
3.6 Limitations ............................................................................................................................................... 71
3.7 Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 72
4. The National Case Study ........................................................................................................................ 73
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 73
4.2 Historical Background .............................................................................................................................. 73 4.2.1 Rural Inertia in Cambodian History ................................................................................................ 73 4.2.2 Colonial Influences ......................................................................................................................... 74 4.2.3 Post-Independence ........................................................................................................................ 75 4.2.4 UNTAC and Cambodia’s Second Transition to Democracy ............................................................. 77 4.2.5 Cambodia Today ............................................................................................................................. 79 4.2.6 The Myth of Dependency in Contemporary Cambodia .................................................................. 81
4.3 Immanent Development: A Geography of Tenure Insecurity in Cambodia .............................................. 83 4.3.1 The Emergence of Tenure Insecurity as a Political Problem .......................................................... 83 4.3.2 Landlessness was not a Tenure Security Issue ............................................................................... 86
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4.3.3 Regional Distribution of Tenure Insecurity ..................................................................................... 87 4.3.4 Explanation ..................................................................................................................................... 91
4.3.4.1 Rice Farming Landscapes and the Transition to Market. ...................................................... 91 4.3.4.2 State Land and the Transition to Market. ............................................................................. 93 4.3.4.3 The Transition to Peace. ....................................................................................................... 93
4.3.5 Immanent Development and Tenure Insecurity in Summary ........................................................ 94
4.4 Intentional Development: A Geography of Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia.......................... 95 4.4.1 Systematic Land Titling ................................................................................................................... 95
4.4.1.1 Geographical Distribution ..................................................................................................... 97 4.4.1.2 Explaining the Geography of Systematic Land Titling ........................................................... 98
4.4.2 Community Forestry ....................................................................................................................... 99 4.4.2.1 Geographical Distribution ...................................................................................................100 4.4.2.2 Explanation of the Geographical Spread of Community Forestry ......................................102
4.5 The Relationship between the Two Geographies ...................................................................................104 4.5.1 Geographies of Evasion, and the Beginnings of Theory ...............................................................104 4.5.2 Applying a Geographies of Evasion Hypothesis............................................................................106
4.6 Summary ................................................................................................................................................108
5. Community Forestry in Bey village ...................................................................................................... 111
5.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................111
5.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Bey ..........................................................................112 5.2.1 Modern history of a Village in Forest ...........................................................................................112
5.2.1.1 Location ..............................................................................................................................112 5.2.1.2 1950-1970 Pre-War Lives and Livelihoods ..........................................................................112 5.2.1.3 1970-1994 Conflict and Its Aftermath: A local history ........................................................114 5.2.1.4 1994-2006 Peace and Development ...................................................................................116
5.2.2 Livelihoods Shaped by Deforestation ...........................................................................................116 5.2.2.1 Loggers and Rent-seekers Transform the Landscape .........................................................116 5.2.2.2 2004-2008: Demographic Transformation – a trickle becomes a flood .............................118 5.2.2.3 Livelihood Activities During the Research Period ...............................................................121
5.2.2.3.1 Timber-related Livelihood Activities ..............................................................................122 5.2.2.3.2 Farming own land ..........................................................................................................126 5.2.2.3.3 Hiring Out Agricultural Labour .......................................................................................129 5.2.2.3.4 Gathering and Trading Non-Timber Forest Products .....................................................131 5.2.2.3.5 Trading land ...................................................................................................................133
5.2.2.4 Livelihood Activities in a Deforestation Trajectory .............................................................134 5.2.3 Prospects Explained: The Competition for Land ..........................................................................136
5.2.3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................136 5.2.3.2 The Vietnamese Company ..................................................................................................136 5.2.3.3 The Casotim Company and the Okhnyaa ............................................................................139 5.2.3.4 The Head-Teacher ... and The South Korean Company? ....................................................140 5.2.3.5 Cham Settlers ......................................................................................................................142 5.2.3.6 The Case of Khang Cheung..................................................................................................143
5.2.4 Reflections: Mediating Actors and Factors in the Competition for Land and Livelihoods ...........144 5.2.4.1 The Role of the Forest Administration ................................................................................144 5.2.4.2 Indigenous and Forest-dependent, but not Ethnically Different ........................................144 5.2.4.3 ‘Community’ and how it mediates change .........................................................................145
5.2.5 Immanent Development and Livelihoods in Bey in Summary......................................................146
5.3 Intentional Development: Community Forestry in Bey ..........................................................................147 5.3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................147 5.3.2 View from the Village: The Story of Community Forestry as Experienced in Bey ........................147 5.3.3 Community Forestry in Bey: Meanings and Interpretation ..........................................................150 5.3.4 Community Forestry Actors from Beyond the Village ..................................................................152
5.3.4.1 The Cambodian NGO Based in the Provincial Town ...........................................................152 5.3.4.2 The Cambodian NGO/donor: Footloose and Flexible .........................................................155
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5.3.4.3 The International NGO Sub-contracting and Co-financing 2005-9 .....................................157 5.3.4.4 The Donor: Control Orientation Revisited ..........................................................................159 5.3.4.5 Encountering the Concessionaire – Or Not.........................................................................161
5.4 Conclusions and Implications .................................................................................................................162 5.4.1 Bey and Cambodian Community Forestry ....................................................................................162 5.4.2 Bey and Geographies of Evasiveness ...........................................................................................164
5.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................................165
6. Systematic Land Titling in Buon Village ............................................................................................... 167
6.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................167
6.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Buon ........................................................................168 6.2.1 Setting the Scene ..........................................................................................................................168
6.2.1.1 Modern History of Buon .....................................................................................................168 6.2.1.2 Location ..............................................................................................................................170 6.2.1.3 Site ......................................................................................................................................171 6.2.1.4 Population ...........................................................................................................................172 6.2.1.4 Social Organisation .............................................................................................................172 6.2.1.5 Credit ..................................................................................................................................174 6.2.1.6 Village leadership and safety nets for the poorest .............................................................175
6.2.2 How villagers from Buon make a living ........................................................................................176 6.2.2.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................176 6.2.2.2 Work in Phnom Penh ..........................................................................................................179 6.2.2.3 Small Businesses in the Village ...........................................................................................181 6.2.2.4 Making and Trading String/Rope Tethers ...........................................................................182 6.2.2.5 Rice Farming .......................................................................................................................183
6.2.3 Conclusions: Immanent Development and Livelihoods in Buon ..................................................186
6.3 The Systematic Land Titling Intervention in Buon ..................................................................................186 6.2.4 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................186 6.2.5 Titling in Buon: Inclusion and Exclusion from the Process ...........................................................188 6.2.6 Impact of Titling on Security and Investment ..............................................................................193 6.2.7 Impact of Titling on Access to Credit ............................................................................................195 6.2.8 Impacts on the Land Market ........................................................................................................196 6.2.9 Impacts of Titling on the Social Costs of Land Conflicts ...............................................................199
6.4 Conclusions and Implications .................................................................................................................202 6.4.1 Relation of the Case of Buon to other Research on Titling Impacts in Cambodia ........................202 6.2.10 Buon and Geographies of Evasion ...........................................................................................204
6.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................................205
7. Conclusions and Implications. ............................................................................................................. 209
7.1 Thesis Aim and Research Questions Revisited .......................................................................................209
7.2 Findings: Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia ..................................210
7.3 Explaining Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia ...............................213 7.3.1 Development Industry Overreach and Geographies of Evasion ..................................................213 7.3.2 Bigging Up and Dumbing Down: Are Misrepresentation and Simplification Necessary? ............215 7.3.3 Unintended Effects and Space for Creative Agency? ...................................................................217 7.3.4 Implications for Systematic Land Titling .......................................................................................219 7.3.5 Implications for Community Forestry ...........................................................................................221
7.4 Broader Relevance of this Thesis for the Development Industry ............................................................222
7.5 Implications of Geographies of Evasion for Development Industry Policies ..........................................224
7.6 Implications for Research .......................................................................................................................226 7.6.1 A Research Agenda Shaped by Geographies of Evasion ..............................................................226 7.6.2 A Simpler Question (with No Easy Answers) ................................................................................228
xiv
Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 230
References ................................................................................................................................................... 234
Appendices................................................................................................................................................... 249
Appendix 1. List of Interviews Cited .................................................................................................................249
Appendix 2. Village Census Form .....................................................................................................................254
Appendix 3. 25% Livelihood Survey. ................................................................................................................255
Appendix 4. Case Study Households in Bey and Buon: Incomes and Expenditures 2006-7. ............................258
Appendix 5. Question List for Land and Livelihood Survey I (Bey village version) ...........................................259
Appendix 6. Sample Structured Interview Questions: Spring 2008 (Bey version) ............................................262
Appendix 7. Land and livelihood Survey (II) in Bey, October 2008 ...................................................................262
Appendix 8. Survey of Land Transactions in Buon 2009. Summary Data ........................................................263
Appendix 9. LMAP Written Questions and Response, April 2010 ....................................................................267
Meddelanden från Göteborgs Universitets Geografiska Institutioner, Serie B................................................269
xv
List of Figures FIGURE 3-1: RESEARCH TEAM IN PHNOM PENH, 2008. SAROTH, CHANRETH, DINA, ROBIN .................................... 62
FIGURE 4-1: LAND DISPUTES IN CAMBODIA MONITORED BY HUMAN RIGHTS NGO LICADHO 2003-2008. ........ 88
FIGURE 4-2: LAND DISPUTES IN CAMBODIA REPORTED IN THE CAMBODIAN MEDIA 2008 ..................................... 89
FIGURE 4-3: LOCATION OF LAND DISPUTES REPORTED IN THE CAMBODIAN MEDIA 2008 ..................................... 90
FIGURE 4-4: DISTRICTS IN CAMBODIA WITH SYSTEMATIC LAND TITLING AS AT JULY 2009 (SOURCE: LMAP) ..... 98
FIGURE 4-5: COMMUNITY FORESTRY AREAS, CAMBODIA, JUNE 2009 (SOURCE: FORESTRY ADMINISTRATION) .. 101
FIGURE 5-1. MAP OF CAMBODIA SHOWING DISTRICTS WHERE THE CASE STUDY VILLAGES ARE LOCATED ........ 113
FIGURE 5-2: ORIGINS OF HOUSEHOLDS IN BEY IN 2004, 2006, 2008 BY BIRTHPLACE OF ADULTS. ....................... 119
FIGURE 5-3: VILLAGER WITH AN OXCART LOAD OF WOOD IN BEY, JANUARY 2008 (PHOTO: ROBIN BIDDULPH). . 123
FIGURE 5-4: CASSAVA READY FOR PLANTING IN BEY, 2008 (PHOTOGRAPH: ROBIN BIDDULPH). ......................... 127
FIGURE 5-5: HOUSE WORTH 7000 USD IN BEY VILLAGE, NOVEMBER 2008 (PHOTO: ROBIN BIDDULPH) ............. 134
FIGURE 5-6: FORESTRY OFFICIAL HOLDS UP THE SOCIAL LAND CONCESSION SUB-DECREE AT THE
27TH
JULY 2006 MEETING IN BEY VILLAGE. (PHOTOPGRAPH: ROBIN BIDDULPH) ......................................... 138
FIGURE 6-1: LAND TITLE IN BUON, PHOTOGRAPHED 2008. FRONT. (PHOTOGRAPH: ROBIN BIDDULPH) ............... 190
FIGURE 6-2: LAND TITLE IN BUON,. PHOTOGRAPHED 2008. REVERSE. (PHOTOGRAPH: ROBIN BIDDULPH). ......... 191
xvi
List of Tables TABLE 2-1: HIERARCHY OF RIGHTS IN COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES ................................................................... 51
TABLE 2-2 BUNDLES OF PROPERTY RIGHTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT TYPES OF RIGHTS-HOLDER ................ 51
TABLE 2-3: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK AND AGRAWAL'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE LITERATURE ........................... 52
TABLE 3-1: SUMMARY OF VILLAGE RESEARCH METHODS USED IN BEY AND BUON CASE STUDIES 2006-2009 ...... 67
TABLE 3-2: DATABASE AND MAP ACCESS FOR NATIONAL CASE STUDY. ............................................................... 70
TABLE 5-1: LOCATION OF ADULT RESIDENTS OF BEY, 1-3 AUGUST 2006 ............................................................ 120
TABLE 5-2: MAIN SOURCE OF INCOME REPORTED BY HOUSEHOLD IN BEY VILLAGE, OCTOBER 2008 ................. 121
TABLE 5-3: CALCULATIONS OF PROFITABILITY FOR A CHAINSAW OWNER-OPERATOR IN BEY 2007 .................... 123
TABLE 5-4: TIMBER INCOMES IN 8 CASE STUDY HOUSEHOLDS, BEY VILLAGE 2006-7 ......................................... 124
TABLE 5-5: HOUSEHOLDS REPORTING TIMBER AS MAIN INCOME SOURCE IN BEY VILLAGE, CAMBODIA, 2008 ... 125
TABLE 5-6: REPORTED AGRICULTURAL LAND HOLDINGS IN BEY VILLAGE, JANUARY 2008. ................................. 126
TABLE 5-7: CASE STUDY HOUSEHOLDS IN BEY VILLAGE LAND HOLDING AND FARMING, 2007 AND 2008. ......... 128
TABLE 5-8: DEFORESTATION LIVELIHOOD TRAJECTORY SUGGESTED BY EXPERIENCE IN BEY 1960S – 2000S ...... 135
TABLE 5-9: BETTER LIVES ORGANISATION‟S COMMUNITY FORESTRY FUNDING 2004-8 ..................................... 154
TABLE 6-1: OUTSTANDING DEBTS IN BUON BY TYPE OF CREDITOR (NOVEMBER 2006) ........................................ 174
TABLE 6-2: REASONS GIVEN FOR INDEBTEDNESS IN BUON (NOVEMBER 2006) ..................................................... 175
TABLE 6-3: MAIN REPORTED SOURCE OF INCOME IN BUON, 2007 ........................................................................ 176
TABLE 6-4: BREAKDOWN OF BUON CASE STUDY HOUSEHOLD (HH) INCOMES APRIL 2006-MARCH 2007 .......... 177
TABLE 6-5: NUMBER OF BUON HOUSEHOLD (HH) MEMBERS WORKING IN PHNOM PENH IN 2007 ...................... 179
TABLE 6-6: LAND HOLDINGS BY HOUSEHOLD IN BUON JANUARY 2008 (N=64) ................................................... 183
TABLE 6-7: REPORTED YIELDS BY HOUSEHOLD IN BUON 2007 GROWING SEASON (N=62) .................................. 183
TABLE 6-8: RICE PRODUCTION IN BUON VILLAGE, CAMBODIA. 2006 AND 2008. .................................................. 184
TABLE 6-9: LMAP PROJECT DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE AND OUTCOME/IMPACT INDICATORS ............................ 187
TABLE 6-10: LMAP SYSTEMATIC LAND TITLING COMPONENT: OUTPUTS AND INDICATORS. .............................. 188
TABLE 6-11: TENURE SECURITY BEFORE AND AFTER TITLING IN BUON - AGGREGATE RESPONSES ..................... 193
TABLE 6-12: TENURE SECURITY AFTER TITLING IN BUON SURVEYED IN OCTOBER 2008 ..................................... 194
TABLE 6-13: IMPACTS OF TITLING IN BUON SURVEYED IN OCTOBER 2008, RESPONSE BY TYPE ......................... 195
TABLE 7-1: RESEARCH AGENDA SUGGESTED BY THE GEOGRAHIES OF EVASION THESIS ...................................... 227
xvii
List of Acronyms
AC Active Communities (pseudonym)
BLDP Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party
BLO Better Lives Organisation (pseudonym)
CBNRM Community Based Natural Resource Management
CDRI Cambodia Development Resource Institute
CF Community Forestry
CHRAC Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee
COHRE Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
CPP Cambodian People‟s Party
CPR Common Property Rights
FA Forestry Administration
HALO Hazardous Areas Life-support Organisation
HH Household
LA-SSP Land Administration Sub Sector Support Program
LIC Land Information Centre
LICADHO Cambodian League for the Defence of Human Rights
LMAP Land Management and Administration Project
MLMUPC Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning & Constructrion
MOPS Moving Out of Poverty Study
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NPA Norwegian People‟s Aid
NTFP Non-Timber Forestry Products
PADEK Partnership for Development in Kampuchea
PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal
PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
RECOFTC Regional Community Forestry Training Centre
UNOHCHR United Nations Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights
UNTAC United Nations‟ Transitional Authority in Cambodia
USAID United State Agency for International Development
xviii
1
1 Introduction
1.1 Failure, Misrepresentation and Rural Development Intervention
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the
lessons of history." Aldous Huxley
1.1.1 Rural Development Outcomes: Author’s Experiences
This thesis is a critical geography of development intervention. It examines the spread and the
effects of two property rights interventions, in community forestry and systematic land titling,
in rural Cambodia, and draws conclusions with regard to both the operation of the
development industry in the early 21st century and the potential of geography to theoretically
interrogate it.
During the decade before this PhD project began I participated in research studies and
evaluations of numerous development projects in rural Cambodia (e.g. Biddulph, 1996, 1998,
2000a, 2000b; 2000d, 2001a, 2003b; Charya et al., 2001). Spending up to forty nights a year
in a total of over fifty different rural villages, including stays in all except one of the country‟s
rural provinces, I only ever encountered one project which I believed had significantly
impacted on the lives and livelihoods of the villagers. Even that might be considered to be the
exception that proved the rule, as it was the personal development project of the Prime
Minister and therefore the only intervention that was not financed by the international
development industry1.
I had arrived in Cambodia in 1991 having read the work of rural development practice‟s
leading academic guru, Robert Chambers (Chambers, 1983)2. I had been convinced by his
arguments that an effective development professional needed to be prepared to put the “farmer
first”, or to “put the last first”. This meant learning the local language in order to be able to
listen properly; to spend time with people not just in the dry season when the roads are easy
and there is no malaria threat, but all year round; to speak not only with the better-connected,
wealthier villagers who live in the centre of the village near the chief‟s house, but also those at
the social and geographical margins of the village whose voice is not usually heard. All of this
I did consistently and repeatedly, but with what result?
During my apprenticeship as a development worker in Cambodia I first worked as a volunteer
language teacher at the University of Phnom Penh (1991-3) and then as a humanitarian mine-
1 “The Development Industry” in this thesis is a collective noun describing all individuals and organizations
receiving public or private finance with the purpose of reducing poverty or promoting economic growth in the
former Second or Third worlds. It is not a term of opprobrium, but is rather used within a tradition of authors
such as Gardner and Lewis (2003) and de Haan (2009) who use it while trying to understand the institutional
context for intervention rather than being distracted by the normative aura that the word development can attract
when less specifically defined (Rist, 1997).
2 And subsequently (Chambers, 1997; Chambers & Conway, 1992)
2
clearance officer with the British non-governmental organisation (NGO) The HALO Trust
(1993-96). At that stage I could see some tangible and, at the local and individual scales,
somewhat significant, impacts from my work. However, once I entered the development
mainstream, where I expected to witness more substantial and widespread change, I instead
found impact increasingly difficult to discern. Fourteen years after my first arrival in the
country, and despite the very best of intentions, the tangible differences that I could see from
my work in the development industry were shelves of reports that I had authored or co-
authored and a dramatic increase in my own earning power. My work had (for the most part)
been well-received: many of my analyses had been accepted and many of the
recommendations I had made had been implemented. Yet, reviewing my working life, there
was not a single rural person or rural place that I could confidently say had benefited
significantly from my intervention.
Neither was this lack of impact confined to my personal contributions. When I looked at the
results of the work of the agencies which had contracted me I again saw precious little impact.
This did not seem to be a result of personal deficiencies on the part of people working in the
development industry. I may have been somewhat exceptional (though not quite unique) in
the amount of time I spent staying in villages, but my colleagues in the industry were no
“Lords of Poverty” (Hancock, 1989). They were, overwhelmingly, committed people who
were open to learn and receptive to criticism. They were often, furthermore, vastly more
experienced, technically qualified and well-read than me. A commitment to combating
poverty and injustice, and to improving performance, was apparent not only at individual
level but also organisationally. Projects and organisations were managed in ways that
incorporated a commitment to reflection, to listening to rural people and their representatives,
and to learning from mistakes and improving. Yet in terms of effectiveness, there seemed
little prospect of any of the organisations, any of the projects making any significant
difference to the livelihoods of the people in the villages3. Partly, of course, this is a question
of focus: my experiences were, for example, usually focused on projects broadly aiming at
rural development, rather than at those working on specific sectors such as health or
education. Some of these interventions improved governance as their priority rather than
immediate economic impact. Nevertheless, whatever I was researching or evaluating, the
biggest challenge to my limited diplomatic skills was almost always reconciling the rather
high expectations of donors and development managers regarding their achievements, with
the limited results that I found in the villages.
In terms of my own personal trajectory, therefore, this thesis represented an opportunity to
take a couple of large steps back from working as a development researcher directly employed
by donors, projects or host government managers, and to take a more reflective look at the
role and impacts of development interventions. With the benefits of both more time in the
field in Cambodia, and more time to survey wider literature on development intervention
elsewhere, I hoped that the research would either suggest worthwhile ways in which to re-
engage with the development industry, or worthwhile alternatives to such an engagement.
This chapter introduces the research as an enquiry into the relationship between rural
development interventions and the lives and livelihoods of the people they are intended to
benefit. Having established my personal motivations for this project, I will demonstrate how
experiences of disappointment and failure have also been strongly characteristic of interaction
3 This is not to suggest that all interventions in rural Cambodia have failed. My own working experience did not
involve much contact with, for example, major programmes in the health or education sectors. There were
likewise some examples of investments that did make a clear and tangible difference, particularly road
improvements, and in some cases well construction.
3
between academic development studies and development practice. One of the features of
academic disappointment is the sense that lessons do not get learned: development
interventions do not just fail, but they do so in ways that are entirely predictable. In order to
place current debates in a recent historical context I will include in this introduction reviews
of three landmark studies of development interventions in the 1990s. These will provide a
departure point for discussions throughout the thesis, and will enable a sense of whether the
debate between academic development studies and development practice is moving forward
from the analyses and conclusions presented 15 years ago, or simply retracing well-worn
paths. I will then introduce rural Cambodia and explain its particular value for a study of this
sort, and likewise present the cases of property rights interventions in the form of systematic
land titling and community forestry and explain why they are particularly representative of
current trends in development industry policy and practice. The research aim and research
questions at respectively national and local level will then be presented, the potential value of
the thesis explained and the thesis structure described.
1.1.2 Impacts of Development Assistance: Academic Literature
Literature which discusses both the overall of official development assistance (ODA) tends
either to look at the relationship of aid to growth or to attempt to aggregate the results of
evaluations of different interventions (Bigsten, Gunning, & Tarp, 2006; Riddell, 2009). Both
of these literatures struggle with problems of data and method: in particular they struggle to
say anything about cause and effect or to produce meaningful counterfactuals4. Dealing with
„aid‟ as a single undifferentiated „black box‟ concept means that the quantitative literature can
only make the broadest statements in relation to the broad questions – Does aid work? Does
aid help promote growth? Does aid reduce poverty? – that it sets itself (Bigsten et al., 2006,
pp. 8, 29). With better data that disaggregated types of aid in different situations there might
be potential for this literature to make a significant contribution to understandings of
development industry performance. However, the current data and methodological problems
mean that findings tend to be both uncertain and controversial. Burnside and Dollar‟s (2000)
influential finding that aid was only effective in situations were governance was good could
not be repeated with larger data sets or over a longer time period (Easterly, Levine, &
Roodman, 2004). On the other hand, Hansen and Tarp (2000) reviewing three generations of
literature on the macroeconomic impact of aid on growth found that there was a robust and
positive relationship between aid and growth, but that this generated little in terms of policy
applicability as “real-world dilemmas remain unresolved” (Hansen & Tarp, 2000, p. 22).
Sachs , meanwhile, has concluded that „geography‟ rather than institutions determines growth
(J. Sachs, 2003) and that aid does work (J. Sachs, 2005). Again, the science has been
questioned (Rodrik, Subramainan, & Trebbi, 2002), and the policy implications have been
heavily criticised (see Easterly, 2005 for a succinct critique).
The literature that looks at development effectiveness attempts to aggregate evaluations of
different programmes. This attempt is hampered by the widely different methodologies and
standards employed by different agencies and different evaluation teams. When it is most
comparable (e.g. when reduced to a single figure by a cost-benefit analysis) it is least
informative, whilst even the more rigorous and detailed evaluations tend to evaluate outputs
rather than impacts/outcomes (Bigsten et al., 2006, p. 6) and therefore be extremely limited in
what they can say about the difference that is made by development interventions.
4 The counterfactual for aid would be what happened had aid not been provided. The historical and geographical
specificity of each situation means that there is no readily available counterfactual for aid.
4
Large scale, quantitative assessments of the aid industry as a whole are therefore some
distance short of achieving their goals of developing a convincing overview and explanation
of the effectiveness or otherwise of aid. Academic insights into the effectiveness and the
effects of development intervention therefore remain heavily dependent on contextualised
case study work. It is this body of literature, whose conclusions have been far more sobering,
to which we turn now and to which this thesis seeks to contribute.
Some researchers have carried out contextualised case studies and analyses of particular
successful development interventions (Bebbington & McCourt, 2007; Korten, 1982; Uphoff,
Esman, & Krishna, 1998). However, as those authors would acknowledge, these cases were
exceptions. Amongst scholars who pay attention to specific contexts and study the places and
people intended to benefit from development interventions the overwhelming sense is that
failure is the norm. Canadian geographer Jonathan Crush, introducing his landmark
anthology, The Power of Development, stated that ―As most of us are aware, development
rarely seems to ‗work‘ – or at least with the consequences intended or the outcomes
predicted‖ (Crush, 1995, p. 4). Porter et al.(1991) began their case study of the Australian
intervention in Magarini in eastern Kenya with an anecdote from an Australian government
enquiry into development assistance, as a board of enquiry member questioned a development
worker:
‗When you go home and talk to your wife about what you think you do, what do you say you
are doing?‘ Without hesitation, he replied, ‗We talk about our disillusionment. Seriously, that
is what we talk about. We talk about whether we are throwing our lives away in a futile
exercise.‘ (Porter et al., 1991, p. 1).
And having charted the failure of Magarini (a project that had not only failed but had resulted
in a worsening in the conditions of the supposed beneficiaries) they suggested that this was
symptomatic of an industry-wide tendency:
Try buying a beer for the next hard-bitten professional practitioner you meet, and settle back
to listen to the woes of Magarini echoing from all corners of the Third World (Porter et al.,
1991, p. 201).
Ferguson in his case study of the Thaba-Tseka project in Lesotho reported not only that all
observers of the development industry in Lesotho had found unremitting failure there, but that
this was symptomatic of the situation with interventions throughout the African continent:
―By any criteria, successful projects have been the exception rather than the rule‖ (G.
Williams, 1981, p. 17 cited in Ferguson 1990, p. 9).
In more recent times, Mosse and Lewis (2006, p. 8), introduced their edited ethnography of
aid agencies by drawing attention to the “striking incongruence” between the pragmatism,
moral authority and technical confidence of development documents and the “striking lack of
progress” of interventions in relation to development indicators. Of particular relevance to this
thesis and its study of the case of community forestry was Blaikie‟s critique of Community
Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), which he argued was characterised by
“failure” to provide the benefits to local people but “success” as a policy which continued to
be adopted widely (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1952). The apparent paradox of development
interventions persistently failing while the development industry thrives has been a major
theme in studies of development practice.
1.2 Was it Ever Thus? Misrepresentation and Failure 25 years ago
Part of my interest is in the ways and the extent to which the development industry is able to
learn from experience. Crush, again, was pessimistic as he wrote:
5
Development discourse has a remarkable capacity for forgiving its own mistakes and
reinventing itself as the remedy for the ills it causes (Crush, 1995, p. 16).
The Anti-Politics Machine by James Ferguson (1994) was in many ways the academic
departure point for this thesis: when I first read it in the late 1990s it seemed to me to have
authoritatively identified systematic problems within the development industry, especially
regarding the way in which it misrepresents the context in which it operates. I was interested
to see whether what I saw as the „lessons‟ from that work, which remains a standard reference
point for leading scholars in the field of development intervention (e.g.Corbridge, 2007; Li,
2007), had influenced the industry. Ferguson‟s analysis was not, however, the only available
case study of development intervention in the 1990s: its analysis emphasised processes which
occurred „behind the backs‟ of actors meaning that interests and agency were in some respects
under-analysed. In order to capture key analyses from the time I complement the
consideration of The Anti-Politics Machine with that of two other studies: a book-length case
study which emphasises the agency and interests of development practitioners (Porter et al.,
1991) and a book chapter emphasising international interests and how they are concealed
within (or rather without) development industry discourse (T. Mitchell, 1995).
1.2.1 The Anti-Politics Machine: the Thaba-Tseka Project
Ferguson‟s (1994) study of a World Bank/Canada project in Lesotho, which was described by
contemporary critic Göran Hydén (1995) as ―a mirror in which all development analysts –
past, present and prospective – should view themselves better to understand what they are all
about‖, and is currently one of the most frequently cited case studies of development
intervention5.
James Ferguson, heavily influenced by Foucault‟s (1979) Discipline and Punish, and his
general archaeological/genealogical approach to discourse, framings and critique of action,
examined the implementation of what was fundamentally an agricultural improvement project
with a central focus on ranching, but which also had strong infrastructure development
components and incorporated a phase of supporting decentralisation reforms.
This was a project of Canadian assistance to the government of Lesotho, with a project
memorandum signed in May 1975. The project ran until its premature closure in 1984, though
as early as 1979 it was acknowledged that it had had no impact on agricultural production and
was beginning to be regarded as a failure and a costly mistake (Ferguson, 1994, p. 251).
The departure point for Ferguson‟s study was the contrast between the way in which Lesotho
was represented in academic and “development” discourses. As an example of development
literature about Lesotho, he cited the World Bank‟s 1975 country report which described
Lesotho at independence in 1966 thus:
In spite of the fact that Lesotho is an enclave within highly industrialized South Africa and
belongs with that country, Botswana, and Swaziland to the rand monetary area and the
Southern African Customs Union, it was then virtually untouched by modern economic
development. It was and still is, basically, a traditional subsistence peasant society. But rapid
population growth resulting in extreme pressure on the land, deteriorating soil, and declining
agricultural yields led to a situation in which the country was no longer able to produce
enough food for its people. Many able-bodied men were forced from the land in search of
5 I myself read James Ferguson‟s Anti-Politics Machine after I returned to Cambodia in 1997, so it influenced my
view of development practice during my latter years there. Of the other two texts foregrounded here, America‘s
Egypyt I have read more recently whilst Paved with Good Intentions was the only text that I read during my
Masters research in 1996.
6
means to support their families, but the only employment opportunities were in neighboring
South Africa. At present, an estimated 60 per cent of the male labor force is away as migrant
workers in South Africa (Ferguson, 1994, p. 25).
This, Ferguson demonstrated, was not only false, but would have been recognised as false by
anyone with even a passing knowledge of Lesotho. The suggestion that Lesotho‟s population
was essentially economically isolated and agricultural and had only recently („At present‟)
resorted to labour migration in response to population pressure and deteriorating soils was
refuted by reference to the 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica entry for the country which showed
that already at the beginning of the twentieth century, Basutoland (as it was then called) had
been a producer of cash crops for the South African market rather than a “traditional peasant
society”, and that already, at that time of agricultural surplus, it supplied roughly the same
proportion of its population as migrant labourers to the South African economy as it did in
1975. With a cash economy, a domestic market for Western commodities, plough agriculture,
a capital city and a modern central administration and infrastructure (roads, schools, airport,
hospitals, churches), Ferguson showed that:
Lesotho was not ―untouched by modern economic development‖ but radically and completely
transformed by it, and this not in 1966 or 1975 but in 1910 (Ferguson, 1994, p. 27).
The result of this determination to characterize the population of Lesotho as essentially
isolated and agricultural is seen in the nature of the intervention that followed. A project was
designed which would strengthen the livelihoods of the people by linking them to market and
improving first and foremost their livestock farming, and secondarily their crop production.
Labour migration was treated as a temporary aberrance rather than a permanent feature, and
effectively ignored.
The centrepiece of the Thaba-Tseka project was an attempt to improve livestock production.
Increased sales of cattle were interpreted as an indicator of successful agricultural production.
However, the local economy was driven by remitted incomes from migrant labour in South
Africa. Young men worked there from early adulthood until their bodies could take no more,
at which point they returned to their households. Cattle served as a form of savings, insurance
and pension, and incidentally as a demonstrator of economic, and thence social status. They
enabled the smoothing of incomes between the times when a household had one or more
young adults earning well and those times when it did not have such earnings. In this
situation, of course, the last thing that a household wishes to do is sell its cattle6. Selling cattle
indicated that households were enduring economic difficulties, not that they were successful
and productive: so where the project saw success in terms of increased ranching productivity,
it was actually witnessing immiseration (Ferguson, 1994, p. 182).
By the time of its closure in 1984 the Thaba-Tseka project was regarded as a failure in terms
of its own objectives. Infrastructure had been constructed, but agricultural improvement and
livelihood improvement had proved beyond it. For Ferguson, however, whilst intended
objectives had not been achieved, he saw unintended objectives which were at work „behind
the backs‟ of the actors involved. This was effectively an application of the thinking in
Foucault‟s “Discipline and Punish” to development discourse; for „prison‟ and „crime‟ we
might read „development‟ and „poverty‟:
6 As Ferguson makes clear, the characterisation of a „household‟ here is problematic. Decisions about sale of
cattle were also questions about control of incomes from South Africa and often divided households on gender
lines, with men reluctant to sell and women much more open to the idea. Thus the „bovine mystique‟ of a
supposed cultural attachment to cattle, far from being „traditional‟ was actually embedded in contemporary
struggles within the household of redistribution of incomes from migrant labour.
7
For the observation that the prison fails to eliminate crime, one should perhaps substitute the
hypothesis that prison has succeeded extremely well in producing delinquency, a specific type,
a politically or economically less dangerous – and on occasion, usable, form of illegality; in
producing delinquents, in an apparently marginal, but in fact centrally supervised milieu; in
producing the delinquent as a pathologized subject (Foucault, 1979, p. 277).
And especially:
So successful has the prison been that, after a century and a half of ‗failures‘, the prison still
exists, producing the same results, and there is the greatest reluctance to dispense with it
(Foucault, 1979, p. 277).
In other words, Ferguson‟s argument was that even as development projects “failed” in their
own terms, they did succeed in achieving certain results. In particular, he argued that the
consequence of attempts to develop was that issues that were deeply political became
depoliticised, and at the same time, that the reach of the bureaucratic state increased.
Following Foucault, Ferguson interpreted this as the work of a „subjectless‟ discourse; one
that had its own regularities and purposes which occurred independent of the interests and
intentions of any particular actor. Like Foucault, he concluded that the extension of
bureaucratic state power (Ferguson, 1994, p. 255), despite serving certain interests was not
being deliberately driven or steered by them.
Whilst such an analysis seems to imply that development and its consequences are somehow
structurally determined independently of the interests of those who benefit from them,
Ferguson‟s presentation of the discourse highlighted the way in which the discourse was
shaped by the needs of the development industry. His argument was that the industry
represented Lesotho in a certain way because it needed to portray it as susceptible to
intervention. He pointed to four particular requirements: that Lesotho needed to be presented
as aboriginal/isolated, as agricultural, as a national economy and as governable (Ferguson,
1994, pp. 71-72).
He argued that the misrepresentation of the context of Lesotho was a direct consequence of
the requirements of development discourse:
For an analysis to meet the needs of ‗development‘ institutions it must do what academic
discourse inevitably fails to do; it must make Lesotho out to be an enormously promising
candidate for the only sort of intervention a ‗development‘ agency is capable of launching: the
apolitical, technical ‗development‘ intervention (1994, p. 67).
There is therefore a duality to Ferguson‟s analysis. On the one hand he suggested that there
was an impersonal, subjectless force at work, but on the other hand he suggested that the
discourse was shaped by the distorting needs of the development industry and its employees.
This paradox directs our attention towards the other two contemporary case studies. Porter et
al. (1991) were strong where Ferguson was weak, namely on analysing the actual motives and
behaviours of the development practitioners, whilst Mitchell (1995) examined a case (the
United States in Egypt) where geopolitical economic and security interests of the development
partner were engaged, which was hardly the case for Canada in Lesotho.
Ferguson suggested that the Lesotho case provided a particularly vivid example of how
distorting development discourse could be on the grounds that it was exceptional in the degree
to which it differed from the characterisation that the industry „needed‟. It was not isolated or
agricultural, and its economic life was determined from beyond its borders. However, he
suggested that the schism between academic discourse and development discourse would be
present in all less developed countries. As we will see, the other two studies tended to support
that argument.
8
1.2.2 Paved with Good Intentions: The Magarini Project
Development in Practice: Paved with Good Intentions by Doug Porter, Bryant Allen and
Gaye Thompson was, as one contemporary review (Gasper, 1994, p. 908) put it, ―a still too
rare genre, a detailed case-study of planning and implementation that is informed by hands-
on experience and yet constantly refers to wider theory, comparing theory and case.‖7 The
book was a case study of an Australian project at Magarini in Coast province, Kenya. The
project intended to settle about 4,000 households onto 12-hectare plots (Kanyinga, 2000, p.
72), and to provide them with: land titles; groundwater; agricultural extension, marketing and
credit services; soil conservation technical assistance and infrastructure; transport
infrastructure. However, this was another case where the agricultural improvement visions of
the designers did not come close to being realised in practice: water supplies were not
identified, land was not cleared at anticipated rates, issue of agricultural plots and land titles
was a fraction of that anticipated. Implementation began in 1978, but by 1982 the Australian
donor was reporting that the project would not succeed. Ultimately, an NGO community
development project in the area was deployed as (amongst other things) a means by which the
donor could discreetly withdraw with dignity.
The misrepresentation of the context of the Magarini Settlement Project was essentially an
erasure of context. A “people without a past” were to be settled onto an area of “empty land”
(Porter et al., 1991, pp. 43-45)8. On this geographical and historical equivalent of a blank
sheet of paper was sketched a characterisation of the beneficiary Giriama people as
―landless‖, ―squatters‖, ―poor and illiterate‖ and a ―national environmental risk‖. They
were furthermore held to constitute a ―squatter problem‖ in a strip of land near the coast
where their presence was contributing to tenure insecurity which was said to be constraining
incentives to farm and also ability to use land as collateral. The project would therefore move
them from the coastal strip to the “empty land”, and having thus placed them, would develop
them. With more local historical awareness the project designers would have understood that
the Giriama already considered themselves, with some justification, the owners of the “empty
land”, and furthermore that many of them had chosen to locate away from it because of its
inability to support them. In return for being allocated plots on this land that they already
considered theirs the Giriama were required to pay a fee equivalent to two years of income.
The authors suggested that rather than bringing order to chaos, the project was doing the
reverse:
Through the mechanism of compensation they were relieved of their rights of occupation and
for all intents and purposes, became squatters. The project fostered the antithesis of its
primary aims of settlement, and contributed in no small measure to people‘s overall
uncertainty about their future (Porter et al., 1991, p. 176).
Without conducting any substantial study of the strengths and limitations of existing
agricultural practice, and ignorant of the failures of agricultural interventions during colonial
times, the project introduced a completely new system of sedentary farming. The book‟s
narrative makes it clear how unlikely any of the components was to succeed. However, only
by all of them succeeding to produce a hugely improved agricultural system would the
Giriama households have stood a chance of repaying their debts:
7 The genre remains rare, (see also Li, 2007; Mosse, 2005 discussed in Chapter 3).
8 There is painful irony in an Australian project seeking to rebuild relationships with the non-white world,
beginning with a characterisation of an area as terra nullius.
9
(T)he activities promoted by the project were not sustainable in economic or environmental
terms. The high-cost water supply system, for example, was beyond the financial and technical
resources available to either the Kenyan government or the community to operate and
maintain. Moreover, simply to maintain agricultural productivity, the broader strategy of
sedentary farming demanded a guarantee of water that was not available, labour that was in
short supply, and agricultural inputs that were beyond most farmers‘ financial means (Porter
et al., 1991, p. 4).
The authors explained how the Giriami project represented a meeting of diverse actors with
often conflicting interests. At government level, Australian interest was in demonstrating its
prowess and also its good will in order ultimately to improve (trading) relations with non-
white countries. The Kenyan government representatives were chiefly interested in a
settlement project which would include opportunities for politicians to reward their local
clients, who were overwhelmingly Kikuyu9. The local Giriami people were interested in
preserving their links with the land and also their cultural identity (Porter et al., 1991, p. 142).
Regarding the project they were interested in the 400 casual jobs which the project provided,
but these were gradually allocated away from them and to Kikuyu people instead (Porter et
al., 1991, pp. 178-179). The authors were scathing about the way in which the project
documents managed to suggest, in the face of the facts, that all actors had shared interests and
objectives:
Available information about Magarini does not suggest a single credible or coherent picture
of the problems that would yield common objectives. A seething mass of contending
perceptions, divergent personal and institutional strategies, and polarized interests, yes. But a
common medium- to long-term statement of objectives of targets that could make sense outside
the confines of a project document, no (Porter et al., 1991, pp. 197-198).
Partly in response to the fact that the Giriama were “being shafted by the government” (Porter
et al., 1991, p. 136) an NGO project was introduced by the Australians in order to ―strengthen
their hand‖. However, notwithstanding the attempts of the NGO to find room for manoeuvre
between the various actors, the authors‟ conclusion was that when it came to a matter of
facilitating and supporting the Giriama in a struggle where their interests were directly
challenging those of the government, the NGO did not succeed and indeed could not have
succeeded (Porter et al., 1991, p. 184).
At every stage, before and during implementation, there were conflicts of interest between the
government “partners” and the Giriama “beneficiaries”. And at every stage, the development
industry actors, with more or less awareness of what they were doing, concealed these
differences in order to be allowed to operate. Furthermore, to the extent that they were
prepared to support the local poor in conflicts with the nationally powerful, those attempts
were futile.
Why, in the view of Porter et al. did the development industry misrepresent its context? What
was the source of the “reluctance of development practitioners to appreciate the significance
of history”? The principle explanation provided by the book was “control orientation” within
development practice. By control orientation they meant the attempt to envisage a project
intervention as a system, where inputs can be turned into outputs by controlling and
understanding all of the variables in the process. This type of planning, they argued, was
appropriate in certain branches of engineering: it enabled men to be put on the moon.
9 In the course of the project allegations were made in the national parliament that senior politicians had
forwarded to project staff a list of 53 people, not local Giriama, who were to be allocated good land on the
settlement area.(Kanyinga, 2000, p. 72).
10
However, the social contexts into which development projects were inserted are simply too
complex and variable to control:
Our conclusions are that in this period development practice has become increasingly control-
oriented in a futile effort to reduce the level of uncertainty which accompanies any rural
development intervention. Futile because increased control-orientation leads inevitably to a
denial of reality and greater not less uncertainty (Porter et al., 1991, p. 212).
Other themes familiar from Ferguson‟s account of Lesotho weave through the book, not least
the blindness of the development industry to non-agricultural livelihoods – illustrated by a
project staff member ironically introducing the researchers to „my best farmer‟ a project
„settler‟ who was also a barman in the local town (Porter et al., 1991, p. 69). Likewise the
completely unrealistic assumptions required to make the idea of agricultural development on
this land plausible, which the authors found ―beyond our comprehension‖ (1991, p. 110).
A final postscript from the Magarini project relates to its spatial travels10
. The authors note
that the failure in Kenya would have been rendered much less surprising if one had tracked
back to Australian experiences of dryland farming improvement interventions in its own
territory, which had also been characterised by failure (1991, p. 84). They also highlighted
was the gatekeeper role played by the Kenyan government. Other proposals had preceded the
settlement project idea. An earlier Australian mission had suggested a small-scale pilot to trial
„catchment communities‟ whereby people farming a catchment would be given assistance to
build and maintain soil and water conservation structures that they themselves participated in
the design of.
Before Kenyan government comments on this report had been received in Canberra, the
Nairobi AHC informed AIDAB that this approach would not be acceptable to the Kenyan
government, because it would jeopardise the way in which many Kenyan public servants and
politicians held pieces of land around the country but did not farm them, or farm them
properly. The local community, under these recommendations would be able to insist that this
land was properly farmed and protected. The AHC predicted the report would be rejected ...
These predictions proved correct (Porter et al., 1991, pp. 34-35).
In that particular case, a blanket approach which would have enabled local farmers to develop
entitlements that challenged elite interests across the country was barred from entry to Kenyan
territory. On the other hand, a settlement project which legitimised removal of Giriami from
coastal land and enabled encroachment on Giriami land by settlers from the dominant Kikuyu
clan was ushered in. This diversion, of development intervention away from places where it
might challenge elite interests will be one theme of this dissertation, likewise the dilution of
attempts to create entitlements.
1.2.3 The Object of Development: America’s Egypt
The Object of Development: America‘s Egypt by Timothy Mitchell (1995) is an essay focused
on how international development agencies described Egypt. He quotes from a USAID report
typifying “almost any study of Egypt produced by an American or international development
agency” as follows:
Egypt depends upon the fruits of the narrow ribbon of cultivated land adjacent to the Nile and
that river‘s rich fan-shaped delta. For more than 5,000 years agriculture has sustained Egypt.
During the first half of this century, however….The growth of agriculture failed to keep up
10
In contrast to Ferguson and Mitchell, the authors of the other two studies reviewed here, two of the Magarini
authors, Porter and Bryant, were geographers.
11
with the needs of a population which doubled, then nearly tripled. It is a matter of simple
arithmetic (Johnson et al. 1983, p1 cited in Mitchell 1995, p. 130).
Mitchell emphasised the “visual simplicity of the image, spread out like a map before the
reader‘s eye, combines with the arithmetical certainty of population figures, surface areas
and growth rates to lay down the logic of the analysis to follow”. However, the “simple
arithmetic” that the stylised geography suggested was in fact wrong. Mitchell demonstrated
that while Egypt‟s agricultural population was very dense in relation to other countries (about
the same as Bangladesh and about double Indonesia), its agriculture was far more productive.
Not only that, but agricultural production had, in fact, been increasing more rapidly than
population growth.
By looking into the discrepancy between relatively high food production and relatively low
nutrition levels, Mitchell was further able to show that the key issue was not population
increase, but unequal distribution of income within the population. A wealthy segment of the
population – upper and middle urban classes and foreign residents and tourists – ate large
amounts of meat and animal products compared with the rural population. The consequence
of this demand was the reorientation of domestic cash crop agriculture towards the more
lucrative market of animal fodder. This in turn led to a severe deficit in cereals for human
consumption with Egypt rapidly becoming the world‟s third largest importer (after Japan and
China) of grain. That demand was partly met by subsidised American wheat provided by the
United States Agency for International Development „to help the poor‟, overlooking the fact
that the deficit here was not caused by low productivity, but by the preference of the wealthy
for meat.
Mitchell applied the same logic to the question of land holdings. He argued that if Egypt had
adopted the same land reform measures as South Korea and Taiwan in the 1950s, every
household in the country would have had the means to produce enough to feed itself. Political
issues highlighted by Mitchell – inequalities of income and asset distribution – were absent
from the development discourse. He saw representation as key in this:
Thanks to the powerful image of millions of Egyptian peasants squeezed into a narrow river
valley, it seems natural to assume that land holdings are already smaller than is practicable
and that other sorts of solutions are required (T. Mitchell, 1995, pp. 138-139).
In this context, the question of whether fifty million people in the Nile Delta constituted
„overpopulation‟ or not became far more contentious11
. And this was Mitchell‟s point:
development discourse operates in such a way as to frame all problems as having “natural”
rather than political or social causes. This framing thus suggests that interventions should be
technical or managerial, rather than political attempts to challenge existing power relations
and interests.
It is the discussion of interests that principally distinguishes Mitchell‟s study from Ferguson‟s.
Mitchell argued that a “proper analysis” of American aid to Egypt would set it in the context
of international relationships, and here he looked specifically at the broader range of
relationships between the US and Egypt, and at US interests within those relationships. This
meant, not least, acknowledging the importance of the military in the Egyptian economy and
the fact that half of US assistance to Egypt was military aid, most of which Egypt then spent
purchasing US military equipment (T. Mitchell, 1995, p. 155). This military assistance was
not recorded in development documents. For Mitchell, these development industry
representations did not constitute “proper analysis”. A “proper analysis” of Egypt as an object
11
Mitchell recalls Susan George‟s warning that when you hear the word overpopulation “you should reach, if not
for your revolver, at least for your calculator”.
12
of development would have included an analysis of the economy and power of the Egyptian
military, its relations to US military and to the systems of US state subsidies for its military
industries. Likewise, an analysis of the Egyptian agricultural system would have included
setting the shift to meat production and the consequent food shortages and national
indebtedness in the context of the crisis in US farming and the deployment of subsidized food
exports as a remedy to that problem (T. Mitchell, 1995, p. 156). He concluded by relocating
the stylised geographical image of „overcrowded‟ Egypt within his own argument:
Development discourse wishes to present itself as a detached centre of rationality and
intelligence. The relationship between West and non-West will be constructed in these terms.
The West possesses the expertise, technology and management skills that the non-West is
lacking. This lack is what has caused the problems of the non-West. Questions of power and
inequality, whether on the global level of international grain markets, state subsidies and the
arms trade, or the more local level of landholding, food supplies and income distribution, will
nowhere be discussed. To remain silent on such questions, in which its own existence is
involved, development discourse needs an object that appears to stand outside itself. What
more natural object could there be, for such a purpose, than the image of a narrow river
valley, hemmed in by the desert, crowded with rapidly multiplying millions of inhabitants?
1.2.4 Reflections on the 1990s Studies
The common ground between these three studies is the systematic misrepresentation by the
development industry of the rural context in which it sought to operate. In each case the rural
was (mis)represented as:
Essentially agricultural (usually a form of subsistence agriculture disconnected from
wider cash economies);
Isolated, traditional, primitive;
Removed from local, national and international politics and conflicts of interest.
One clear, implicit question for the current research, then, is whether early twenty-first
century rural development interventions have continued these trends, or whether the industry
has learned to represent rural contexts without repeating the caricatures of the 1990s?
Idealised (mis)representations of the rural have a long tradition in literature and philosophy.
There is a sense of this untouched, unsullied world in the 1990s misrepresentations, although
the explanations provided by the respective authors are distinctly less romantic. Porter et al. in
their study keep the characters and motivations of the development practitioners in focus.
Here one has the sense that there is a degree of cynicism at play: that experienced fixers and
brokers, who knew what was required in order to sell a development project and keep the
funds flowing, deployed the misrepresentations at key strategic moments so that highly
conflicted, near-impossible situations were described as amenable to intervention. To this end,
the underplaying of manifest physical difficulties, ignoring the relations between Gikuya and
Giriami and the production of cost-benefit analyses with extremely optimistic internal rates of
return, were all key in enabling the Australians to embark on a project whose only realistic
prospect was failure.
Whilst Porter et al. framed their explanations in terms of the interests of the actors concerned:
Kenyan conflicts that were not amenable to outside intervention, and Australian interests in
making the project happen regardless, Ferguson and Mitchell, by contrast, laid more stress on
discursive explanations. Both of them stressed the way in which politics was systematically
screened out of representations of the rural context. Mitchell laid more weight on geopolitical
interests. While not actually making the case that American interests deliberately shaped the
discourse, he drew attention to the way in which it served those interests for military relations,
13
class differences, international trade and agricultural subsidies to be absent from development
discussions. For Ferguson the self-interested „needs‟ of the development industry to represent
reality as de-politicised such that its interventions (framed as non-political) can be of
relevance is part of a larger unconscious unfolding of a process which extends the reach of the
bureaucratic State. He is quite explicit in suggesting that the processes at work are not directly
driven by the self-interest of actors whose interests are engaged, but rather that these
processes work themselves out “behind the backs” of the actors.
We thus have a repertoire of explanations for misrepresentation – relating development
practitioner techniques and interests, to geopolitical interests, to anti-politics and
bureaucratisation. If the misrepresentation of the rural endures in twenty-first century practice
these competing explanations can be revisited and sources of resistance to learning or change
may be sought.
The three cases do not provide any direct links regarding the relationship between the failure
of intervention and the misrepresentation of context. While the misrepresentation appears to
be central to the failure of the two interventions in question, there is no easy counterfactual
which suggests that if reality could be truthfully represented interventions would then
succeed12
. On the contrary, a reading of the case studies suggests that better representations of
the situations in Thaba-Tseka and Magarini would have resulted in the projects not being
started rather than in them being completed successfully in anything resembling the form they
actually took. While truth may be the holy grail of the academic world, there may of course be
good strategic reasons in the world of development intervention to deploy partial truths and
untruths in order to achieve objectives. To conclude, these rural development interventions
failed strikingly, and they also misrepresented context strikingly. However, while the
misrepresentation of context contributed to the setting of unrealistic objectives, it did not
provide a conclusive explanation of failure.
1.3 Introducing the Case: Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia
This thesis is broadly concerned with the relationship between development interventions and
the lives and livelihoods of the people who are intended to benefit from them. It takes as its
departure points on the one hand my personal experiences of development interventions
failing to make a substantial difference in rural Cambodia, and on the other hand the trio of
academic studies of development practice and discourse in the 1990s which, taken together,
constituted a powerful argument for the importance of the relationship between development
failure and systematic mis-representation of context. In the light of these departure points, the
broader research interest can be expressed as an inquiry into whether rural development
interventions in the early twenty-first century fail, and if so, whether they fail in the same
ways and for the same reasons as interventions in the 1970s and 1980s. With regard to the
context which contemporary projects describe, do they (contra Thaba-Tseka, Magarini and
America‟s Egypt) recognise that rural people‟s livelihoods are: diverse and multiply-
integrated into wider economies and ecologies; partly conditioned by a dynamic history which
includes centuries of engagement with wider (global) economies; characterised by mobility
12
The recommendations provided by the authors suggest that no such easy counterfactual is available. Mitchell‟s
implicit call for „proper analysis‟ is not a recommendation for practitioners. Porter et al. recommend a less
control oriented practice that is more flexible and attuned to local circumstances, but warn that even with best
practice that problems embedded in conflicts of interest will not be readily amenable to outside intervention.
Ferguson recommended that practitioners engage politically, but his practitioners were academics rather than
development industry practitioners and he anticipated any difference made being made outside the realms of the
industry.
14
and uncertainty; embedded in (more or less explicit) political struggles where their interests
are often in conflict with those of the State?
Bringing the question up to date also involves acknowledging that rural development
interventions in the early twenty-first century are set in a quite different policy context.
Whether or not development practice has developed, it has certainly changed. The earlier
studies I have referenced were focused on development interventions that exemplified
approaches in the 1970s and 1980s – mostly large area-based integrated rural development
projects. During the two decades between the closure of Thaba-Tseka and Magarini and the
commencement of work on this thesis in 2005 the pendulum of development policy had
swung dramatically both ways (see Chapter 2). Approaches intending to address basic needs
through State supported interventions were eschewed in favour of rolling back the State in a
process of structural adjustment intended to let markets do the work of development
unfettered by State interference. This turn to market, however, was superseded by an
institutional turn, which held that the State did have a key role in ensuring that the institutions
required for markets to do their work were in place (Fukuyama, 2004).
The mainstream in development policy during the 1990s was dominated by the so-called
Washington Consensus, within which legal property rights stood as the tenth of the ten points,
formulated as follows: “The legal system should provide secure property rights without
excessive costs, and make these available to the informal sector”, and were regarded by
Williamson (1993, p. 1333) as uncontroversial compared with some of the other points in the
„consensus‟. The harsher structural adjustment policies of downsized government,
deregulation, privatisation and liberation of trade attracted widespread criticism and failed to
demonstrate economic success (Jomo, 2005), and were succeeded in the mainstream by a
poverty reduction emphasis which arguably amounted to superficial rather than substantive
change (Craig & Porter, 2006; Porter & Craig, 2004). The project of „getting the institutions
right‟ survived the Washington consensus, and property rights continued to be key. According
to Chang (2006, p. 5) ―In the orthodox literature on institutions and development, property
rights are accorded the most important role‖. In this respect, then, to focus on property rights
interventions is to focus on a central and characteristic feature of the dominant thinking in
development policy in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the
twenty-first.
The focus on systematic land titling and community forestry in this thesis enables
consideration of examples of the two major types of property right intervention: supporting,
on the one hand, individualised property rights as land-titling emphasises the individual as an
economic actor and supports their integration into the formal economy as small capitalists,
prepared to borrow against and/or trade their assets. On the other hand are common property
rights, as community forestry, emphasises „community‟ as a source of local regulation and
moral values in the spaces evacuated by the rolled back state13
. Systematic land titling in
Cambodia is a government programme that has received financial and technical support from
the World Bank, the governments of Finland and Germany, and latterly the government of
Canada. It is anticipated that registering all land property in Cambodia will involve issuing
title to twelve million parcels of land. The project began in 2004 and by 2009 over a million
titles had been issued. Community forestry by contrast, has constituted a diverse collection of
projects and initiatives initially supported by international donors and NGOs in Cambodia. By
the time the government began to recognise the concept of community forestry in the 2002
Forestry Law, and then to pass a Community Forestry sub-decree in 2003, there were already
13
The process by which I arrived at property rights interventions in general and systematic land titling and
community forestry in particular will be described and explained in Chapter 3.
15
over 200 community forestry projects in existence. By the completion of field work for this
project in early 2009, 18 of those projects had received recognition from the government and
had been authorised to proceed with a management plan.
The choice of Cambodia as a case study country rests first and foremost on my comparative
advantage in conducting research there, having lived there for ten years, and carried out two
or three research and evaluation consultancies per year there during the years from 2001,
when I left, and 2005 when I began the employment for this research. Cambodia presents a
particularly interesting case for students of development intervention. Prior to the fall of the
Berlin wall, most interventions in Cambodia had been motivated by geopolitical security
interests. This included the political isolation of the country during the 1980s, during which
time the United Nations continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge - responsible for the (auto-)
genocide of the 1975-9 period – as the rightful representatives of the Cambodian government.
The collapse of communism set in motion a process whereby elections were held and the
international actors who had been supporting an insurgency against the Cambodian
government could now redefine their role of one supporting development and democracy in
the country. This process was routinely described as a „peace process‟, although the
withdrawal of the Khmer Rouge from the elections meant that the United Nations‟
intervention during 1992-4 did not produce peace, but that rather guerrilla warfare continued
until the ruling elite in the Cambodian government finally completed deals with all of the
remaining Khmer Rouge leadership such that they defected and allied themselves to the
government.
The years of international isolation, meanwhile, meant that Cambodia had avoided the worse
consequences of debt and the ravages of structural adjustment which many of the world‟s
other poorest countries had undergone in their encounters with the development industry. This
meant that in some respects when Cambodia emerged as a host for development intervention
in the early 1990s the development industry arrived with a relatively clean slate. In another
respect, however, the development industry slate was far from clean. The first international
intervention was the United Nations‟ Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
Expensive, time-bound and with objectives that involved nothing less than taking temporary
control of the country, it proved itself capable only of completing tasks which did not involve
confronting elite power. The general population was educated in the principles and practice of
electoral democracy, the refugees were returned from the Thai border. However, UNTAC was
powerless first to either discipline the Khmer Rouge when they withdrew from the elections,
and second to ensure that the winners of the election could form a government. The beginning
of full-scale development assistance in Cambodia was therefore marked by this huge parable
which showed that whilst the high-spending international actors made much noise in the
public space, they could safely be waited out or ignored whilst the real political decisions and
negotiations occurred elsewhere (see Chapter 4 below).
1.4 Thesis Aim and Research Questions
As explained above, the broad area of interest for this study is the relationship between
development interventions and the livelihoods of poor people. Among the understandings that
inform the enquiry are a documented tendency for the development industry to systematically
misrepresent rural areas, and scepticism regarding the capacity of the industry to effectively
learn from experience. This interest and these understandings are applied to the case of
property rights interventions in Cambodia, yielding the following aim:
To describe and explain the relationship between property rights interventions and the
livelihoods of the rural poor in Cambodia.
16
The property rights interventions selected were community forestry and systematic land titling
(see Chapter 3). Broadly, the approach to studying intervention has been to begin with rural
livelihoods, to set those livelihoods in the context of political economy, and finally to
investigate the impacts of implementation on livelihoods in the context of the political
economy. This three-step process was applied at both village and national scales. The
advantage of village level research was that it enabled a detailed, contextualised analysis of
real people‟s livelihoods. The advantage of national level research was that it enabled broader
trends to emerge, not least in terms of the geographical distribution of phenomena. The
relative advantages of the different scales for the research meant that the process led to
slightly different research questions for the respective scales:
Local Cases:
1. How do people in the village earn a living?
2. What factors constrain and enable villagers’ livelihoods, and what is the importance
of tenure security/insecurity in those livelihoods?
3. To what extent do tenure security interventions make a difference to rural tenure
security/insecurity and rural livelihoods? Why/why not?
National Case:
1. Where in rural Cambodia is tenure insecurity a problem? Why?
2. Where in Cambodia have tenure rights interventions been implemented? Why?
3. What is the relationship between the geography of tenure insecurity and the
geography of tenure security intervention?
A pair of analytical questions then connect these findings back to respectively the thesis aim
and the broader research interest:
1. What do these local and national cases contribute to understandings of the
relationship between rural livelihoods and property rights interventions in
Cambodia in the 2000s?
2. What does the case of property rights interventions in Cambodia in the 2000s
contribute to understandings of development industry interventions in rural areas of
the global South?
1.5 Other Contributions of the Thesis
This introduction has explained the ambition of the thesis to contribute to the general
literature on development studies and development practice, as well as the specific literature
on property rights interventions. Complementary to these contributions the thesis will also
contribute to literatures on Southeast Asian rural development, development geography and
livelihoods.
Within Southeast Asia studies Cambodia often remains as a geographical gap. Anthologies
frequently include chapters on all countries except Cambodia, and authors such as Rigg (e.g.
1997, 2001) who rely predominantly on detailed local case studies to build up a picture of
trends within the region, generally do so without the benefit of studies from Cambodia. The
only sustained studies of livelihoods in rural Cambodia have been based on fieldwork carried
out in the early 1960s (Ebihara, 1968)14
. Recent detailed case study work has either focused
on cultural issues (Zucker, 2007) or has been written up in ways that obscure rather than
14
New and forthcoming work by Katherine Brickell (e.g. 2008) may also contribute to understandings of
livelihoods in rural Cambodia, see http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/Brickell/publications.html
17
highlight the specifics of place. This particularly applies to the study Moving out of Poverty?
(Fitzgerald & Sovannarith, 2007) conducted at the Cambodian policy research institute CDRI
as part of a multi-country World Bank research project under the leadership of Deepa
Narayan15
. The two village studies presented here will therefore contribute to filling that gap.
This thesis by applying an explicitly spatial analysis to development industry interventions
also makes a contribution to development geography as a sub-discipline. Currently,
development geographers are often prominent in development studies or, increasingly, in
political ecology. On the other hand, it is rare to find that something explicitly identified or
identifiable as development geography is being practiced. Building on work by Bebbington
(2001, 2003, 2004) this thesis will show that an opportunity is being missed. A critical
geography of development intervention geography can be a corrective to analyses which, by
avoiding crucial questions about where activities do and do not happen, facilitate depoliticised
framings of obviously political questions.
Finally, „livelihoods‟ have been a prominent object of enquiry within development studies
over the past couple of decades. This has often been as part of an attempt to ensure that the
situations of the poor are adequately apprehended in development analyses, and partly an
attempt to ensure that poor people‟s agency is acknowledged and they are not simply
portrayed as helpless victims of structural processes. In order to indicate that a balance
between structure and agency is at work livelihoods literature has used metaphors such as
pathways or trajectories to imply a process of limited agency. While instructive as metaphors,
the literature has not made progress in identifying what a particular pathway or trajectory
might look like and how different situations might structure (constrain and enable) agency. In
the process of researching chapter 5 of this thesis a trajectory of livelihoods shaped by
deforestation became apparent. Given that many interventions that respond to deforestation
tend to operate as though deforestation had never occurred, this could be a useful contribution.
1.6 Structure
Chapter 2 is organised into three sections each with a distinct purpose. Firstly a research
framework – termed a critical geography of development intervention – is defined featuring
concerns of place, space and travel. The spatial element of this framework is central as it
provides a theoretical perspective within which this thesis intends to make its principle
theoretical contribution. Secondly, in order to introduce theoretical positions that will inform
arguments in the thesis, the next section traces – very selectively – a development journey
from origins in the western development industry, via the host government development
partner/gatekeeper, to the livelihoods of the people who are intended to benefit from
intervention: in this case with Southeast Asia to the fore. Thirdly, and finally, the chapter
presents the theories which inform the property rights interventions – both common property
and individualised, private property – and discusses both their ideological underpinnings and
what is known about the conditions required for them to translate into effective policy
interventions.
15
Globally, MOPS uses nationally representative panel data sets supplemented by qualitative methods in order to
try and provide a picture of change, specifically, the „movement‟ of households either upwards or downwards
over the poverty line. Such a panel data set was not found to be readily available in Cambodia. However, CDRI
had conducted detailed empirical research in nine different villages intended to represent the so-called agro-
ecological zones of Cambodia. An attempt was therefore made to conduct a hybrid study which combined the
benefits of longtitudinal place-based study with the benefits of panel data. While there is some valuable material
in these studies, they tend generally to have failed to achieve either convincing representative statistics or
contextualised, grounded accounts of cause and effect to explain findings.
18
Chapter 3 will explain and justify the methods chosen for the study. This includes the choice
to focus on national and village scales, and also the sequencing of the research whereby each
case study first concentrates on apprehending the context for interventions – livelihoods in
their political economy context (immanent development) - and after that on interventions
themselves (intentional development). The iterative process for selecting the case study
villages and interventions is described and the particular methods used in conducting the
national and village studies are also described and explained.
Chapter 4 is a national level case study of property rights interventions in Cambodia, which
is fundamentally spatial. It presents a geography of tenure insecurity explaining where tenure
insecurity is found in Cambodia, and what factors have caused it. It overlays this with a
geography of systematic land titling and community forestry in Cambodia which describes
and explains the location of these purported solutions to tenure security issues in relation to
the location of the problem. The chapters that follow are then accounts of how intervention
has unfolded in two detailed, place-based case studies.
Chapter 5 is a case study of a village I call Bey. It charts the factors which have determined
the livelihood trajectories of villagers, and explains them in terms of the ongoing deforestation
in the region. It then describes the way that community forestry travelled to Bey, and what
impact it had on the lives and livelihoods of villagers there. Chapter 6 is likewise a study of
village livelihoods, this time in a village I call Buon, a far more tranquil village both because
there was not the contestation and uncertainty that was experienced in Bey during the study
period, and also because so much of Buon‟s economic activity was located away from the
village. The development intervention in Buon was the national programme of systematic
land titling. Again, its journey to the village and its impacts on local lives and livelihoods are
described and explained, and compared with the representations put forward in project
literature.
Chapter 7 summarises the findings of the thesis and discusses their implications for property
rights interventions in Cambodia, and more broadly for development industry interventions in
general. The main finding of the thesis is the way in which the development interventions in
these cases tend to be located away from the problems they are scheduled to address. Land
tenure is located away from tenure insecurity, whilst community forestry is located in places
where the forest has already been degraded. These geographies of evasion are theorised as
being a consequence of overreach by the development industry and resistance by the host
nation government. The thesis concludes with some general points on the policy implications
of the study, as well as deriving a research framework based on the geographies of evasion
hypothesis, and some more specific ideas on future research projects within that framework.
19
2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention
2.1 Introduction – Normative Beginnings/Assumptions
Gillian Hart (2001, 2010) has used a dichotomised view of the development concept, which
she contracts to D/development.
―Big D‖ Development I define as the multiply scaled projects of intervention in the ―Third
World‖ that emerged in the context of decolonization struggles and the Cold War. ―Little d‖
development refers to the development of capitalism as geographically uneven but spatially
interconnected processes of creation and destruction, dialectically interconnected with
discourses and practices of Development (Hart, 2010, p. 119).
There are, as we shall shortly see, other dichotomised views of development as a concept
which have some similarities to this one, as well as some significant differences. From the
point of view of this thesis, what appears to be missing in the D/development description is
something of the moral impulse for justice that is for many the first engagement with, and the
ultimate reference point for discussions of Development, or (in the more concrete term which
I have preferred in this thesis) the development industry.
The first chapter of this thesis framed a concern with development industry failure in terms of
case studies which have anatomised and attempted to explain failure. This was complemented
with my own personal encounters with rural development initiatives in Cambodia which have,
at the level of the household and the village, been almost without exception, of peripheral
significance to the lives and livelihoods of villagers. In the introduction to this chapter, which
concerns, in various ways, the theoretical departure points for the thesis, I will go a little
further back in my personal history in order again to supplement the points I am making in
relation to the literature.
As a youth in the late 1970s and early 1980s I became aware, mainly via television news, of
people dying of hunger and hunger-related diseases. As I tried to make sense of the world and
of what moral rules there were or should be, these avoidable deaths became a key reference
point. One possibility, I felt, was that remoteness made understanding difficult. We were all
morally complicit in those deaths, but that perhaps the imaginative feat required to understand
them was too great. In which case the project that was required in order to prevent people
dying in this way, and therefore to restore some sort of decent moral order to the world, was
one of communication. If people in Britain could more fully understand, could imagine, what
it meant to starve, or to watch your children starve, these deaths would be stopped. We, the
decent people of England would not allow them. At other times I felt the opposite was the
case: even if the people in the next town or village were starving, we would find a way of
rationalising it as being unavoidable or their fault and would not lend a hand.
While I tried to learn more and to think about what could and should be done, and to decide
how I should live my life, there was also the short term imperative. What could I do now?
How could I demonstrate to someone who had watched their children or parents starve, whilst
I lived a life of comfort, that I had at least done something; had displayed some shred of
20
humanity in the face of horror and injustice. And that was where I encountered „development‟
for the first time.
The people who offered a means to help were organisations like Oxfam, which were called
development agencies. The part of government that took a portion of the taxes that my parents
paid in order to respond to these injustices was the Overseas Development Administration.
Development was, in the beginning, in my first encounter with it, a response to poverty and
injustice. It was, to my mind, the organisational response to the impulse from people like me
dotted around the cities, towns and countryside of Britain to do something about people dying
unnecessarily.
Serving this demand, a part of what Tania Murray Li (2007) refers to as “the will to improve”,
is still to my mind the ultimate rationalisation and the legitimate mandate for the development
industry. On the other hand, as Hart‟s conceptualisation makes clear, D/development is much
more and much different to the impulse for altruism or justice, much more and different to a
simple will to improve. How the development industry should fulfil its mandate is of course a
highly contested question. However, the normative underpinning for this thesis is that the
development industry should deliver improvement, or at least contribute convincingly to the
possibility of improvement.
My expectations of what development might do were perhaps not wholly unrealistic. A
teenager wanting to support Oxfam soon heard (or read in the newspapers) that the people
who work in the Oxfam shops took the best clothes for themselves, or that half of the money
that was supposed to go to the poor went towards salaries and administration. My response
was that if the only way that I could send ten pence to someone in miserable circumstances
was to pay a pound to a development agency, then that was good value for money.
The normative concern of this thesis is with the conservation or rehabilitation of the will to
improve within D/development. Within this, the assumption is that if there is to be a
development industry, then it should provide a credible organisational mechanism for people
prepared to spend a pound of money to give ten pence worth of support to people in desperate
circumstances.
There is, of course, nothing remarkable about these positions. After the “nothing can be done”
turn of the 1990s, and an abundance of calls for development to be abandoned as a concept
and a project (Escobar, 1995; W. Sachs, 1992), much academic literature seems to be
returning to a “something should be done” position. A general repositioning and convergence
„beyond impasse‟ has been reviewed by Simon (2007) and argued through by Corbridge
(2007) who noted that the development industry was not going anywhere, and that whilst a
perfect world may not be realised, improvement was worth striving for. While normative
questions of what the development industry should do, motivate this study, much of its
concern will relate to what the industry can (and cannot) do. Murray Li, who is possibly
askance the current convergence, argues thus:
Transnational agencies are not in a position to trigger revolutions or change regimes. If they
tried to do these things, they would be expelled. They would also alienate the social
movements and political parties who see such struggles as their affair. This is a crucial
paradox: the goal of transnational development agencies is poverty reduction, yet major
processes of poverty production escape their grasp (Li, 2010, pp. 233-234).
This chapter is organised into three sections, each of which fulfils distinct purposes in the
scheme of the thesis. Section 2.2 presents a framework, which I term „critical geography of
development intervention‟ which is partly an extension of proposals that have been made by
Bebbington for a theoretical framework for development geographers. Section 2.3 takes a
21
conceptualisation of development as a journey from 2.2 and uses this to introduce
perspectives from existing theoretical and empirical literature that inform the arguments made
in the course of the thesis. Section 2.4 focuses on property rights interventions by describing
the theoretical foundations for the policy interventions introduced in this study, discussing the
critical literature in relation to those theoretical foundations, and establishing from a policy
point of view what is known about the conditions and prospects for successful interventions
based on such theories.
2.2 A Critical Geography of Development Intervention
This thesis is concerned with the relationship between development industry interventions and
the livelihoods of the people whom they are intended to serve. As I have just explained, this is
not a neutral, detached concern, but is rather grounded in the proposition that the development
industry should serve as a bridge between the altruistic impulses of people who have more
than enough to support their material needs, and other people in other places who do not.
My approach to apprehending this relationship I will call “critical geography of development
intervention”. Critical here is to indicate scepticism in relation to development. So whilst I
start from the position that the development industry should be an organisational response to
altruistic impulses for justice, I do not take it for granted that the development industry is such
a response. Rather, I assume that the sorts of failure documented in the 1990s case studies in
Chapter 1 should alert us to the ways in which the development industry might not be what it
should be.
Three components comprise this critical geography of development intervention. First,
contextualised understandings of place provide an analytical lens through which to view the
general claims of development theory and policy. Second, studies of the spatial distribution of
development interventions provide understandings about the locations and circumstances in
which the development industry might or might not engage with poverty. Third, the idea of
development interventions as journeys is used to unpack the contingencies and choices that
shape those spatial distributions.
2.2.1 Place-based studies and policy simplifications
The reason I value The Anti-Politics Machine discussed in Chapter One is not primarily its
theoretical discussions or its contribution to “Anti-development” or “Post-development” (cf.
Simon, 2007, p. 205), but rather for the powerful empirical case that it presents. The project in
Lesotho managed to represent and engage the population as though they were essentially rural
livestock farmers. Migrant labour dominated the local economy, and was arguably the
dominant fact in what constituted Lesotho as a country, yet the project pushed this to the side
of its vision. As a result, the project managed to utterly misapprehend local realities: increased
selling livestock was not indicative of improved production, but was rather indicative of
economic crisis as the savings and status accumulated in the animals were liquidated to meet
short-term needs. And the enigma at the heart of the case was that the people working on the
project were highly-educated, intelligent and principled. Yet somehow the dynamics of
development practice had led them to design and implement a project so misconceived that it
could only fail.
Part of what Ferguson‟s case convincingly showed was the way that the development industry
in that case was so committed to a particular way of interpreting situations that rather than
engage with reality, it engaged with a simplified and distorted version of reality. The idea of
policy as simplification and distortion will be a theme encountered in relation to the work of
various leading development thinkers in this chapter (e.g. Li, 2002; Mosse, 2005; Ostrom,
22
1990). Piers Blaikie (2006), writing on community based natural resource management
(CBNRM) as it is practiced globally, reflected on epistemological tensions when studying
development policies and practice. On the one hand there is a sense that development theory
and development policy can and should be taken at face value:
Better theory will then appeal to rational policy makers, who change or adapt the existing
policy in directions suggested by the theory (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1947).
On the other hand, that policy should not be taken seriously in its own terms, but rather that it
is rhetoric deployed in a context of competing ideas and interests and therefore should be
subject to “a more discursive and political approach” (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1947).
Analyses of discourse and of competing interests will indeed be of service when attempting to
analyse why an intervention misrepresents its context. However, in order to understand
whether and how situations might be misrepresented, contextualised understandings of place
are key.
A good empirical case study of development practice, such as those encountered in Chapter 1
(Ferguson, 1994; Porter et al., 1991), might demonstrate how a development intervention
(mis)represents its context, and how that contributes to intended and unintended effects. A
good theory of development practice, meanwhile, will provide an explanation of why the
policy is failing to engage the situation it claims to address. Many of the methods for
understanding failure will include the “more discursive and political approach” (Blaikie,
2006, p. 1947), but the ultimate intention is to contribute theory that can be of service to
“rational policy makers who change or adapt the existing policy in directions suggested by
the theory” (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1947).
The strengths and limitations of case studies as research methods, and how I have conducted
contextualised studies of place in this thesis is described in Chapter 3. Using contextualised
understandings of local reality in order to critique the generalised abstractions of theory and
policy, whilst not untypical of work by geographers, is certainly not unique to geography
either. Studying the spatial distribution of interventions, on the other hand, is very much at the
heart of the discipline; in this thesis it will be the analysis of the distribution of interventions
that will enable discussions to go beyond the specific local cases and to make a theoretical
contribution to discussions of development industry practice and effects.
2.2.2 Spatial Distribution: Mapping Development Interventions
Reviewing work by development geographers at the outset of this project, I found it difficult
to identify a sub-discipline of development geography. Some authors do not recognise the
term at all. There is, for example, no entry for „development geography‟ in the 907 pages of
the Dictionary of Human Geography (R J Johnston, Gregory, Pratt, & Watts, 2000), nor is
there even any mention of „development geography‟ in the standard textbook „Geographies of
Development‟ (Potter, Binns, Elliott, & Smith, 1999).
Amongst the authors who would recognise a distinct sub-discipline called „development
geography‟ various definitions fit into two categories. The first defines a sub-discipline which
focuses on the uneven spread of capitalism across physical space, as for example Johnston
(1997, pp. 231-237) reviewed within Anglo-American geography. The second defines a field
which studies the people and places of „the developing world‟ (e.g. Hodder, 2000, p. 5) and
therefore as a successor to or descendent of „tropical geography‟ (Power & Sidaway, 2004).
When geographers have addressed the subject of development, and especially development
23
intervention, their contributions have barely been distinguishable from those of non-
geographers.16
The article by Simon cited above is a case in point. He mentions in passing the association of
the discipline of geography with “nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperial exploitation”
(Simon, 2007, p. 208) and goes on to suggest that if geography has been able to rehabilitate
itself, then development studies should too (Simon, 2007, p. 215). Geography does not seem
to be the lens through which he sees development; rather it seems to exist as a separate field
with which comparisons may be drawn. Other development geographers clearly tackled issues
that were directly relevant to my themes (Corbridge, 2007; Hart, 2001; Kumar & Corbridge,
2002 for example), but it was difficult to discern geography in these contributions.
Bebbington made some similar observations in an article (Bebbington, 2003) where he argued
that development geographers had – more or less deliberately – become invisible in
development studies, but that the core concerns of geography “in its simple concern for
variation across space, and linkages among places” should be more central in the analytical
concerns of development studies (Bebbington, 2003, p. 298). That article was one of a series
of three where Bebbington proposed a theoretical framework for “a geography of
development” (Bebbington, 2000) or a “geography of development intervention”(Bebbington,
2004). He suggested that development geography‟s particular role might involve
dichotomising development and „mapping‟ the two separate parts onto each other:
Cowen and Shenton (1996) have argued that one of the ―confusions, common throughout
the development literature, is between development as an immanent and unintentional
process, as in, for example, the ‗development of capitalism‘ and development as an
intentional activity‖. The suggestion here is that mapping the latter onto the former, and
tracing the mutually constitutive interactions between the two, is critical to a geography of
development (Bebbington, 2000, p. 515).
This suggestion – mapping intentional development onto immanent and analysing the
interactions between the two17
, forms the framework for the spatial component of my critical
geography of development intervention. However, the „confusions‟ about immanent and
intentional require some attention.
Bebbington oscillates between the concept of intentional/immanent development (Cowen &
Shenton, 1996) and Hart‟s (2001) D/development. Hart sees the value of a third dichotomy,
namely that of Karl Polanyi. For Polanyi, though, capitalist development was far from
immanent or unintentional. Rather, the project to dis-embed the market from social relations
and to commodify land, labour and money (i.e. market liberalism) was very much a planned
intervention, whilst the reaction by society to re-embed the market in its social context, was
the more spontaneous element of the double movement which he described as being integral
to capitalist development (Block, 2001, p. 10; Polanyi, 2001, p. 141).
Bebbington‟s compromise was to retain the notion of immanent and intentional development,
but modify Cowen and Shenton‟s concepts by acknowledging that „immanent‟ development
too could be intentional in character18
. I too use the terms immanent and intentional
16
See for example the contributions in Schuurman (1993) This includes contributions from both geographers
and sociologists but little in the content would lead a reader to characterise any particular writer as one or the
other. 17
Unlike Bebbington, I do not assume that the two are „mutually constitutive‟. 18
While Cowen and Shenton‟s conception of historical development as immanent is difficult, it is otherwise
similar to the idea of the uneven contractions and expansions of capitalism that Hart and Bebbington use, with
the stress upon capitalist progress as inherently destructive and disordering, as it generates unemployment, social
24
development in this thesis, but define them slightly differently, and in terms that keep the
struggles and dynamics implicit in Hart‟s and Polanyi‟s concepts in play.
In this thesis intentional and immanent development are defined in terms of the actor which is
carrying out the intervention. Thus, for the intervening agency, its own intervention is an
instance of intentional development. The context into which the intervention is inserted is one
of immanent development in the sense that the context is one with its own pre-existing
dynamics. What that „immanent‟ development consists of is the set of ongoing struggles that
constitute a political economy or a political ecology. This can be conceptualised as a struggle
between Hart‟s Development and development, or, as in Polanyi, between the disembedding
and re-embedding tendencies within capitalism19
.
Cast in a Polanyian frame it is clear of course that the development industry can be found on
both sides of the internal contradictions of capitalism. In some cases the development industry
actors work to liberate capital, whilst in others they seek its re-embedding in society.
Bebbington‟s proposition for a geography of development intervention provides a theoretical
perspective (Bernard, 2002, p. 75): the idea that mapping an intervention in a territory, and
mapping key features of the political economy that the intervention seeks to address onto the
same territory will yield insights into how the intervention and the political economy are
constituted. It does not in itself provide a body of existing theory. Bebbington himself has
used his framework on just one occasion, when looking at the operations of Dutch NGOs in
Peru and Bolivia. Bebbington argued that studies of the geography of intervention should take
into account the geography of aid chains and transnational networks associated with those aid
chains. In this he included factors such as the historical engagements of funders, and donor-
funded activities, especially centralised training courses. The NGOs he studied were oriented
towards reducing poverty. However, when he mapped their activities onto poverty in the two
countries, he found that the NGOs were not active in the poorest regions. This Bebbington
ascribed to the „structuring‟ of their geographies by earlier engagements. To some extent he
found that these older structural factors were being replaced as an indirect result of Dutch
being targeted on poverty grounds towards Africa and South Asia rather than Latin America.
This had led to NGOs increasingly seeking financing by getting contracts from multilaterally
or bilaterally financed government programmes, which had their own thematic and
geographical path dependencies (Bebbington, 2004, p. 737). While these findings both
explain a particular case and might be used to predict and explain other cases they are
certainly nothing that Bebbington claims as worthy of being theory in geographies of
development intervention. The intention in this thesis was that by working inductively within
the theoretical framework of geographies of development intervention it might be possible to
generate some hypotheses or theories that constituted an early contribution towards a body of
theory of geographies of development intervention, which would also respond to the research
interest that motivated the thesis, namely the nature of the relationship between development
interventions and the livelihoods of the people that they are intended to assist.
misery and conflicts, which require some form of ordering, namely „intentional development‟. Intentional
development embodies a range of philosophies and programmes to counter the disordering effects of progress.
Crucially, philosophies of development become doctrines of development for Cowen and Shenton when they are
adopted by states. Cowen and Shenton are dismissive of the claims of contemporary „alternative development‟
theories as doctrines precisely because they are not connected to a state apparatus that might realistically enforce
them.
19 Another similar dichotomy also partly inspired by Polanyi, is Craig and Porter‟s liberal versus territorial
modes of governance (2006, p. 23).
25
2.2.3 Development Interventions as Travel
The final component of my critical geography of development intervention framework is the
conceptualisation of development interventions as travel. The main analytical purpose here is
to unpack the histories of interventions. A journey is, of necessity, through time and space. By
demanding some attention to the question of where an intervention comes from one starts to
attend to the sets of relationships and events that constituted it. In our introduction, for
example, the Magarini project (Porter et al., 1991) was traced back to its Australian origins in
various ways which illuminated the question about why there was an Australian project in
Kenya (because Australia wanted to counter the negative impacts its „white Australia‟
reputation was having on its trade relations in the Pacific), why the project was located where
it was (because suggestions from Australian consultants for a programme which would
generate entitlements for communities nationwide and threaten interests of the clients of the
ruling elite were rejected by the Kenyan government), and why the project failed (similar
projects in similar conditions in Australia had met the same fate).
Two quite different texts in my reading have particularly influenced my understanding of the
implications of development as travel: Korten‟s (1982), discussions of successful projects in
Asia, and Craig‟s (1997) account of the travels of anti-biotic pills to Vietnam.
In the 1970s David Korten had been involved in USAID supported development programmes
in Asia. In 1982 he wrote an article which tried to distil lessons from five successful
programmes. These were not all complete or permanent successes, and they had quite
different scopes of operation (family planning in Thailand, dairy cooperatives in India,
irrigation management in Philippines, community development movements in Bangladesh and
Sri Lanka). What Korten distilled from these cases, however, was a three-phase evolutionary
process. Each phase represented about 5-7 years of learning, leading him to call this a
“learning process approach”. The first phase was “learning to be effective”. During this phase
an intervention was trialled, errors were corrected, resistance was overcome and eventually
interventions became established as effective in their initial locations. The second phase was
“learning to be efficient”, where having become effective, the programme then found ways to
achieve that operate at reduced costs. This included some compromises in terms of
effectiveness. The third phase was “learning to expand”, whereby the programme found ways
to operate at a larger scale, which included some compromises in terms of effectiveness and
efficiency.
Often cited in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Learning Process Approach has not made a
lasting imprint on development thinking. Neither has it been empirically tested and developed
such as to become a more convincing theory for explaining successful dissemination of
improvement projects. The phrase „learning process‟ is encountered often enough, but usually
as code for a form of trial-and-error learning by doing rather than a structured diffusion of a
newly-introduced policy or practice.
What it does offer, however, is a counter to the proposition that organisations and
programmes that make a difference can be introduced according to a detailed pre-determined
plan. It also suggests a form of evolution that originates in one place within the area of
intervention. So an idea for a project may have been tested or developed in Nepalese
mountains, Peruvian slums, or North American universities. However, if it is to work in a new
territory, it might need to be re-establish itself in situ. The managerial implication is first of
all, that interventions should work somewhere in a territory before attempts are made to make
them work everywhere. Secondly, that considerable time and flexibility might be required in
order to enable a successful intervention to spread successfully.
26
While Korten provided some insights into the organisational difficulties of producing
effective, efficient interventions at a large scale, Craig‟s (1997) focus was on the difficulties
inherent in transplanting things and concepts one from context to another. It is well-known
that the promotion of antibiotic use is challenging because the pills only work if they are taken
in the correct doses for the correct period of time. Craig looked at the travels of antibiotics to
Vietnam in terms of travelling rationalities. In other words, the introduction of antibiotics
required that both the pill and the rationale concerning its use needed to travel. What Craig
found, of course, was that the pills travelled rather more easily than the ideas. Often when the
pills arrived somewhere, in a pharmacy or a family home, they were not accompanied by the
rationales that had informed their design. Instead, other ideas about what medicine was and
how it should be used which were already circulating locally attached themselves to the pills
and determined how they were used. This serves as an example and as a metaphor for what
can happen when new ideas are introduced. The place to which they are introduced will never
be „empty‟ and simply waiting to receive new ideas. Rather there will already be ideas and
explanations circulating and competing. Some parts of an intervention may travel as easily
and as successfully as small white pills, but other parts may not travel well at all and be
crowded out by local ideas and local agendas.
In this thesis, there will not be a case study of the journey of a particular idea or person.
Rather the concept of interventions as journeys will be used to inform analysis, for example
showing how an edict from the Prime Minister is transformed en route to the village, or
looking at the role of the national government as gatekeeper.
2.2.4 Critical Geography of Development Intervention Recapitulated
To conclude, the conceptual framework for this thesis is one which adopts a critical, or
sceptical approach to generalising claims of theory and policy that inform intervention. It
seeks evidence of the mechanisms that underpin these general claims by means of an analysis
of processes in particular places. This is seen as vital given the level of misrepresentation
exemplified in the policy narratives of the 1990s case studies which provided the departure
point in the introduction to this thesis. A second component is an attention to the spatial
distribution of interventions. This is conceptualised as mapping the intervention (intentional
development) onto key features of the political economy/ecology (immanent development)
which it seeks to intervene in. Complementary to the notion of spatial distribution is the
notion of development as travel. Thus, rather than seeing an intervention in space as
accomplished fact, it is seen as the result of a series of journeys which are influenced by
interests and discourses in play at their origins, by the various gatekeepers who might obstruct
or facilitate the journey, as well as by the conditions in the final destination. It is this third
conception, of development as journey, which is used to structure the following section which
presents key elements of the literature on development interventions and their contexts which
will inform the analysis of property rights interventions in Cambodia.
2.3 Fraught Journeys: from Western Origins to Southeast Asian Landscapes
If development geography is the nascent theoretical field to which this thesis has ambitions to
contribute theory, other theories and empirical work contribute to understanding the context
for the study. The general research interest motivating this thesis is in Western development
interventions and their relations to the rural people who are intended to benefit from them.
These interventions involve journeys (metaphoric and actual) from western countries to
landscapes in the global South. In this section I will highlight three stages on this journey and
look at particular theoretical perspectives that can inform our understanding of them. These
27
are highly selective samplings from much wider reading, made with particular reference to
their relevance to the case studies and arguments that follow.
I will first consider the origins of the journey in the western development industry, where
attention will be given to the ever-expanding nature of the development policy agenda, and
also to the incentives which structure the development industry. I will then consider a key
moment on the journey, namely the engagement with the host country government
characterised as both gatekeeper and development partner. Here I will briefly discuss host
country governments‟ relationships to formal and informal economies via theories of neo-
patrimonialism, shadow states and the „Asian Values‟ developmentalist state. Thirdly, and
finally, I will look at the idea of livelihoods, and more particularly at attempts to understand
rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia both in terms of more traditional agriculture-centred
agrarian transition debates and alternative de-agrarianisation perspectives which suggest that
agriculture and agricultural land may no longer be the central issues in rural change.
2.3.1 The Western Development Industry
2.3.1.1 Policy Trajectories and Industry Trajectories
Development policy is not drafted in isolation from other policies20
. A global geography of
development intervention (see 2.2.2 above) would show that a spatial distribution of
assistance where Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan went from receiving 2% of all aid in 2000 to
26% of all aid in 2005, while less than half of all aid provided by the main donors is
channelled to the 63 poorest countries in the world where the majority of poor people live
(Riddell, 2009, pp. 66-67). The politics of security and trade agendas clearly have
implications for how development is perceived and engaged21
. Nevertheless, the point I wish
to emphasize here relates to the policies articulated within the development industry and its
tendency to overreach. By overreach here I mean a tendency to set itself tasks which are
beyond it capacity to deliver. What Porter et al. (1991) noted as „control orientation‟ in
Magarini in the introduction to this thesis has remained characteristic of development industry
responses to difficulty and failure at all scales over recent decades. Each failure has led to a
widening of the agenda and an attempt to control more factors. Sectoral project interventions
did not address poverty fully, so multi-sectoral integrated rural development projects were
attempted. It no longer became sufficient to support projects, so programmes were supported
instead. Even where objectives were somewhat narrow, as Mosse has noted, policy has
attempted to control more and more factors:
...aid policy has become more managerial. Its ends – the quantified reduction of poverty or ill
health – have narrowed, but its means have diversified to the management of more and more:
financial and political systems and civil society (Mosse, 2005, p. 237).
20
Craig and Porter put Truman‟s famous “Point 4”, usually taken as heralding the beginning of modern
development assistance in the context of the security agenda which shaped the Truman Doctrine (Craig & Porter,
2006, pp. 46-49). 21
In Cambodia there is currently international criticism of the Cambodian judges at the joint Cambodian-
International court to prosecute senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge for genocide. These judges are held to be
susceptible to political influence. There was, meanwhile, no call for such a trial from the international
community for the first decade after the end of the Khmer Rouge rule. That was because the UN, mainly for
reasons of US-China relations, chose to continue to recognize the Khmer Rouge in exile as the legitimate (sole,
then joint) government of Cambodia. In this context, one might expect some scepticism from Cambodians with
regard to the idea that the international human rights agenda is universal, rather than one that while universal in
name is only deployed as and when other political contingencies suit.
28
Addressing needs was no longer sufficient, so the agenda broadened and development policy
attempted to address people‟s rights and entitlements. As delivery of services did not suffice,
the agenda broadened to include democracy and governance. The advent of Poverty
Reduction Strategy Papers saw the development industry attempting to discipline the whole of
the government‟s policy and budgeting process, with every decision and every plan to be
related to „poverty reduction‟ (Biddulph, 2001b). Merilee Grindle (2004) comparing the scope
of successive World Development Reports from 1997 to 2002 demonstrated how, even in
relation to the emerging governance agenda, the list of items to address (factors to control)
expanded rapidly.
The criticism of control orientation that was central to Porter et al.‟s conclusions at Magarini
was based on the fact that, for a variety of reasons documented in their case, events in and
around the project area were clearly beyond the capacity of the Australians to control. The
attempt to control these factors was “futile because increased control-orientation leads
inevitably to a denial of reality and greater not less uncertainty” (Porter et al., 1991, p. 212)
Tania Murray Li also saw futility in relation to a development industry agenda, particularly
where it was expanded to issues which challenged elite interests (Li, 2007, p. 4), a point
which she has expanded more generally to attempts by international development agencies to
attempt to support substantive political change in host countries (Li, 2010, pp. 233-234 cited
in the introduction to this chapter). While expanded international agendas may have limited
capacity to achieve substantial change, they have developed a track record for achieving
facades of change.
Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) have been written in countries around the world,
supposedly nationally-owned, but often repeating verbatim the guidelines from the World
Bank‟s four-volume Aide Memoire (Biddulph, 2001b; Porter & Craig, 2003). As a result,
documents that pretend to be centre-pieces of national government policy are in fact little
more than side-effects of the insistent need for donors to have the sense that all elements of
budgeting, planning and execution of national development policy are under (their) control.
One can only imagine the scorn that this would provoke from Cowen and Shenton (1996)
given their conclusion that doctrines of development could only be taken seriously to the
extent that they were serious state projects. I return shortly (2.3.2.2 below) to a consideration
of how to apprehend and conceptualise government agendas that are developed behind the
ventriloquised facade of internationally authored „national‟ „policy‟.
One consequence of these expanding agendas has been strands of academic analysis which no
longer take development industry policies seriously (cf. Blaikie 2006, p.1947 cited above).
Pieterse‟s (2009, p. 33) tone is one of sceptical disdain:
The development industry is, in no small measure, a rhetorical industry, an ideological
performance in which discourse production, paradigm maintenance and tweaking the
perception of receding horizons are the actual achievement.
Mosse, on the other hand, while making similar points about development practice
reproducing rather than implementing policy, and referring to policy machinery that
“fabricates its separation from political economy” also finds reasons for optimism in this
apparent failure:
An implication of the privileging of policy over practice and the limited scope for control in
development is the autonomy that subordinates in development‘s chain of organisation
(whether field staff, agency mangers or others) can create for themselves and their fields of
action. In de Certeau‘s terms they consent to development models while making of them
something different, escaping the power of the dominant order without leaving it, using their
29
tactics to contend with the strategies of consultants and donor advisers (1984: xviii). In short,
policy is co-opted from below (Mosse, 2005, p. 239).
The idea that even if the goals inscribed in development policies and project documents are
not realised, that the interventions might nevertheless create space for resourceful agents to
make something worthwhile out of them is an important one, and one which we will return to
reflect on in the light of the cases in this study.
While the western development industry has generated ever broader, more all-encompassing
policy agendas for itself, its position has become questioned, not because of internal
reflections on the problems of overreach, but rather because of the growing awareness that
there are other more important sources of both assistance and investment than the western
development industry. Pieterse (2009, p. 40), has argued that “the development industry is not
as important as it thinks” by noting that, for example, remittances from migrants who have
left countries in the global South and send money back constitute a larger overall financial
transfer than development assistance. This is in the context of an essay where he tries to
discern directions for development in the 21st Century. Here of course the key contextual
factor is the crisis in US capitalism where the policies of deregulation that have been
promoted by the development industry are seen to be the very policies that have propelled the
United States into crisis and debt (Hart, 2010). Whether in the search for sources of
investment, or in the search for policies that might support stability and growth, there is a shift
in progress which Pieterse summarised as “looking east”. The current historical juncture
might, of course be one where the development industry becomes even more thoroughly (and
perhaps more explicitly) re-embedded in donors‟ self-interested security and trade agendas, as
evidenced by Hilary Clinton‟s framings of „smart power‟ with „defense, diplomacy and
development‟ in harness (Hart, 2010, p. 18). However, it might also be one where the
possibility to open development industry eyes to its own limitations, and to coax, goad or
satirise it out of overreach are more promising than they have been for some time.
2.3.1.2 Incentives in the Development Industry
More or less explicit (and more or less central to the analyses of failure and misrepresentation)
in the Thaba-Tseka and Magarini case studies in the introduction was the sense that
development industry actors were responding to powerful incentives. The framers of Thaba-
Tseka needed to represent rural Lesotho as isolated, rural and as in control of its own
economic destiny in order to make it amenable to the sort of projects that the Canadians and
the World Bank could provide (Ferguson, 1994). The various missions in Kenya needed to
suggest that water could be found, and that the internal rate of return for the project would be
positive, in order to keep the intervention alive (Porter et al., 1991).
A brief look at work from institutional economics provides insights into the reasons why the
interests of the poor might not always come first even in an industry whose work is explicitly
framed in terms of poverty reduction. This work tends to take the organisational objectives of
development organisations at face value (i.e. does not concern itself with the possible effects
of parallel security and trade agendas, or of the effects of shifting economic trends), but
instead to look at the incentive structures within organisations.
Institutional economics is attentive to issues of information and transaction costs. In the
context of the development industry this orients attention towards the distance between the
people who are supposed to benefit from development interventions and the people who pay
for them:
This geographical and political separation between beneficiaries and taxpayers blocks the
normal performance feedback process: beneficiaries may be able to observe performance but
30
cannot modulate payments (rewards to the agents) in function of performance (Martens,
2002a, p. 14).
The link postulated to repair this „broken feedback loop‟ is project evaluation. However,
evaluation is subject to incentives, and, Martens argues, the conflicting agendas of taxpayers
and suppliers of development which create the climate for the evaluation, which will
invariably be handled by the aid agency, with the consequence that “evaluation will be
manipulated in function of these interests” (Martens, 2002a, p. 27).
Generally, the studies by Martens et al. (2002) tended to find strong incentives for agencies to
concentrate effort on financial reporting and input reporting, rather than the less tangible and
more risky reporting of results or outcomes22
. Interestingly, one of the policy conclusions that
Martens (2002b, p. 187) drew was that sub-contracting to interest groups whose interests
coincided with the beneficiaries and with the project orientation would be a way of avoiding
some of the problems of broken feedback and perverse incentives. He particularly named
NGOs in this regard, though as we will see, the incentive structures facing NGOs and those
facing small private commercial companies might not differ greatly.
Ostrom et al., similarly, conducted „incentive studies‟ which looked at the factors affecting the
behaviour of both staff and consultants employed by the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency, Sida. They found that the relatively rapid rotation of staff, on average
four years per posting, and the lack of relationship between performance of past projects and
future career prospects, meant that staff had few incentives to learn about the sustainability of
projects. With respect to contracting companies, they found that these companies were
strongly motivated by a desire for long-term relationships with Sida. This led them to try and
maximise their efforts towards tasks which they felt would please Sida, which often included
concentrating control in their own hands, rather than taking the more risky option of ceding
more control to intended beneficiaries. (Ostrom, Gibson, Shivakumar, & Andersson, 2002, pp.
xxi-xxvi).
In short, a brief encounter with institutional economics analyses of the development industry
suggests that the structure of incentives in the industry encourages the reporting of success
more than it does the achievement of it. Furthermore, the strong incentive to report success
tends to focus attention on indicators that are both countable and under agency control.
Money out of the door, inputs purchased and direct outputs may be expected to at the
forefront of agency considerations.
To summarise the first of these three steps in the journey, namely its western origins, the
development industry, with demand and supply located in the west, and embedded in western
political interests, is susceptible to policy overreach. Its successes may be imagined as being
in spite of rather than because of the structure of incentives within the industry: attention is
focused on short term, easily measurable indicators with strong incentives to decouple these
from the contingency and complexity of substantive outcomes. Tempering this bleak picture
of an industry in ever-increasing overreach, but with every encouragement to represent
success through the deployment of indicators under its own control are the possibilities that
22
One of my observations from work as a development consultant would be that experienced development
managers and consultants are extremely aware of the importance of defining indicators that will satisfy donor
cravings for success. The ubiquitous logical frameworks that projects are required to generate have a higher end,
where the goals are described in terms of the general conditions that are to be influenced, whilst the lower end of
the framework describes the inputs and outputs which the development agency pretty much controls itself. The
skill, then, is to shift elements of the intervention as high up the hierarchy as possible: dress outputs up as
outcomes; dress inputs up as outputs etc. By this means, simply to implement a project guarantees that it can be
reported as successful.
31
firstly, the time may be ripe for a more realistic look at the capabilities of the industry, and
secondly, that however much the designs and policies of the industry may „fail‟, they may
also generate space for initiatives which make unintended but beneficial use of the
possibilities created by development industry interventions.
2.3.2 The Nation State – Gatekeeper and Development Partner
2.3.2.1 The Development Partner Problematic
The national government of the country hosting interventions has a key role to play for any
development industry activity. Assistance to or via government must be framed up as a
cooperation project and the government must sign up for it. Non-governmental organisations
meanwhile must also register with government and are subject to national regulation. Li
argues that even the more enlightened development industry actors in Indonesia:
...pay astonishingly little to attention to the character of ruling regimes, which they continue
to treat as development partners desiring only the best for their citizens. In Indonesia,
despite the evidence of widespread state-sponsored violence and the trampling of rights,
donors continue to assume that the state apparatus operates, or can be made to operate, in a
coherent and accountable manner in the public interest (Li, 2007, p. 275).
In this respect it seems almost inevitable that there would be a gap between the documentation
of development policy and the understanding of development practitioners. It would hardly
seem feasible to have a government sign up to a project which included phrases such as
“widespread state-sponsored violence and the trampling of rights”23
. Project practitioners are
therefore faced with a range of possibilities:
1. Be aware that some state practices and agendas are systematically excluded from
project documentation for diplomatic reasons, and factor these back in to everyday
and strategic work.
2. Accept uncritically the view of the state as a development partner fully committed to
the project as described in the project document.
3. Delineate between the world of the project (probably as „technical‟) and the world of
politics (whether party politics or the politics of other struggles for resources and
power)
In accordance with the critical perspective adopted in this thesis, I select theories which help
us to understand how and why there may be more to the role and functions of a host country
government than what is implied in the „development partner‟ framings of development
industry documents. Shadow state theory relates to competition over resources and potentially
links to resource curse theory. Neopatrimonialism relates to how networks of power are
managed in terms of recruitment and management of support and possible accountabilities.
These are both concepts that have been developed in African contexts (Erdmann & Engel,
2007; Reno, 2000), but have been applied to Cambodia (Kimchoeun et al., 2007; Le Billon,
2000). These will be complemented by a third, more positive concept, namely that of the
Developmental State.
2.3.2.2 Neo-patrimonialism
The concept of neo-patrimonialism addresses the way in which the motivations and structures
that define the activities of members of government reflect other fields of interest than those
defined by their formal role or the constitution, policies and laws that are associated with
23
Though as we shall see, some quite critical formulations are certainly possible.
32
formal government. Erdman and Engel (Erdmann & Engel, 2006, 2007) reviewed literature on
neo-patrimonialism and attempted to crystallise a definition of the concept. They concluded as
follows:
Neopatrimonialism is a mix of two types of political domination. It involves a conjunction of
patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic domination. The exercise of power in
neopatrimonial regimes is erratic and unpredictable, as opposed to the calculable exercise of
power embedded in universal rules (...). Public norms under neopatrimonialism are formal
and rational, but their social practice is often personal and informal. Finally,
neopatrimonialism corresponds with authoritarian politics, whereas legal-rational domination
relates to democracy (Erdmann & Engel, 2007, p. 114).
Whilst many earlier writers had suggested that western or modern or legal-rational forms of
government had been facades concealing a politics that was essentially personalised and
patrimonial, Erdmann and Engel felt that this was to effectively cast neo-patrimonialism as a
form of patrimonialism. They argued that the literature and the conceptual framework for neo-
patrimonialism needed to pay more attention to the implications of the legal-rational element
of the neo-patrimonial framework. A particular distinction they suggested between
patrimonialism and neo-patrimonialism was that under patrimonialism the big person and the
little person deal directly with each other in the exchange of services for protection. Under
neo-patrimonialism, on the other hand, they suggested that a plethora of brokers mediated
exchanges at the intersections of the two interlinked systems of domination (Erdmann &
Engel, 2007, p. 107) In Cambodia one item on the research agenda, explicitly theorized in
neo-patrimonial terms, has been to investigate the nature and extent of any accountability to
clients within the informal patron-client networks which, for instance, subsidise infrastructure
construction throughout the country as part of political campaigning (Craig & Kimchoeun,
2009).
Blaikie‟s (2006, pp. 1950-1951) discussion of the role of the intersection of the State with
CBNRM (sub-titled “blowing on cold embers?”) uses Malawi during and since the rule of
Hastings Banda as a prime example of a neo-patrimonial state. Referring to pre-existing flows
as patrimony, in contrast with aid money which he calls neo-patrimony he describes the way
in which the neo-patrimonial state manages to keep up sufficient appearances to keep donor
funds flowing, but without disturbing existing informal revenues:
...the waving through of some local NGO projects and some rhetorical gestures in the form of
policy papers may be enough to ensure the continuing flow of the neo-patrimony of aid
without really compromising the flow from the capillaries which draw patrimony from the
local up to the national level. While there were several training and skills development
workshops facilitated by the Department of Forests, foot-dragging over approving regulations
and management plans has meant that many communities have lost interest.
Within the modern development industry, exemplified with Truman‟s Point 4 speech,
capacity building is a card that is almost always played. Whatever problem is to be tackled,
whatever strategy is to be employed to address it, it is almost inevitable that training will be
required. Blaikie‟s example demonstrates how capacity building (“training and skills
development”) can be part of a national government strategy in a neo-patrimonial frame.
Government accepts training programmes, which give the impression of progress and keep
the money flowing, but use them as a means to postpone or substitute for substantive action
along the policy lines envisaged.
The point here, of course, is that metaphors of corruption and decay tend to suggest state
actors who lack competence or capacity. What the neo-patrimonial discourse stresses, on the
other hand, is that the „strong men‟ and „presidential‟ figures at the head of neo-patrimonial
33
systems may need to be highly active and competent, but that their competences are in
managing the two systems, rather than bringing the ideal form of one of them into reality:
Patrons in neo-patrimonial relationships are also required to have special ability to manage
the system. Neo-patrimonial power effectively combines mastery of the formal system with
mastery of the informal as neo-patrons straddle two or more power bases, combining
resources from cultural (traditional), family, economic political and administrative worlds
(Kimchoeun et al., 2007, p. 44).
When the neo-patrimonial theorists begin to discuss control over resources and the
management of violence they begin to share common ground with another theory of state
functioning which comes out of Africa, and which has been applied to Cambodia.
2.3.2.3 Shadow state
Shadow state24
theory is primarily concerned with the relationship between political elites and
informal economies. It implies two broad claims. One is that the erosion of the formal state
and the flourishing of informal markets should not be seen as a form of decay, but rather as an
active project conducted by formal leaders who maintain their political power through the
control of informal markets. Second is that this strategy is facilitated by the involvement of
foreign investors in informal markets. Reno (1995) introduced the idea of the „shadow state‟
in his study of governance in Sierra Leone, which also drew on examples from Zaire and
Liberia. He subsequently made a more generalised, summarised presentation of his shadow
state theory (Reno, 2000). He demonstrated that this was not simply a contemporary
phenomenon, but that colonial rulers had made a conscious choice to support the informal
economy rather than an emerging formal economy. In current times he discusses how the
shadow state is resilient to difficulties, how it has coped with attempts to introduce liberal
policies both in the 1930s and the 1990s by intensifying rather than weakening the link
between political power and informal markets:
Thus ‗entrepreneurs‘ in state offices and informal markets do not respond with political
support for policies that undercut their own political power through control of markets (Reno,
1995, p. 55).
and concludes that the most likely successor to any shadow state with its networks of informal
business links and private armies, is another Shadow state set up by somebody within the
existing arrangements (Reno, 1995, p. 188).
Whilst Reno emphasises that a shadow state is “a matter of degree, rather than an all-or-
nothing proposition” (Reno, 2000, p. 442) the key dimensions of the theory point to an
extremely predatory relationship between the political elite and the people, as rulers are
imagined fomenting chaos in order that people will seek their personal protection in a
situation resembling government-as-protection-racket which undermines any ideas of
reciprocity between ruler and ruled (Reno, 2000, pp. 442-443 & 446). The chaos features the
deployment of gangs of violent youths employed as private armies paid to protect elite
business interests and to intimidate opponents. Such a system is inherently instable, but
stability partly comes through the ability of the elite to use its international legitimacy to
attract international investment (often for activities that would not be allowed in states with a
functioning rule of law).
24
When Reno (1995) coined the term he capitalized it as Shadow State. Other authors are divided. I have opted
not to capitalize (likewise for the discussion of the developmental state below).
34
The absence of a formal state that can enforce property rights or provide political stability will
deter most investors in manufacturing and service sectors. However, enclave natural resource
operations may provide lucrative opportunity:
Diamond, cobalt and gold mining, timber operations and money laundering do not require
extensive protection of assets. Where necessary, firms can manage their local economic
environments, either by renting local military units, or hiring private security guards from
outside the country (Reno, 2000, p. 456).
Cambodia clearly is not an extreme case of a shadow state. The fact that it has hosted a
substantial manufacturing sector during the past decade is one example of this, as are the
presence of largely functioning (if less than perfect) health and education systems.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, Le Billon (2000) has clearly identified elements of the shadow
state in Cambodia‟s governance, especially in relations to how illegal (or „informal‟ or
„clandestine‟ in Reno‟s terms) logging incomes underpinned State power during the 1990s.
The focus of shadow state economics on resource enclaves links to the literature on resource
curses, which suggest that, paradoxically, countries with high value natural resources fare
worse economically than countries without such resources. A two-step argument is suggested:
first that the reorientation of the elite to capturing rent from the resource works to an erosion
of accountability to the wider population and a deterioration of national accountability and
institutions. Secondly, and possibly more contentiously, that the natural resource money is
then frequently used to subsidise other parts of the economy such that they do not become
competitive (Auty, 2001; Ross, 1999, 2001).
Finally, shadow state theory, and its focus on the political economy of resource enclaves links
to theories of Uneven Development (Harvey, 2006; Smith, 2008) which suggest that as capital
moves to and fro in the global landscape that it creates sites of accumulation which are also
sites of dispossession. A particular argument about uneven development was provided by
Ferguson (2005). Reviewing experience in Africa, he made the case that globalisation, far
from smoothing out space and creating homogeneity, is actually characterised by the way in
which capital does not flow evenly across and through spaces but instead “„hops‟ over
„unusable Africa‟, alighting only in mineral-rich enclaves that are starkly disconnected from
their national societies” (Ferguson, 2005, p. 380). This establishes the vision of a form of
„development‟ which is characterised by violent and unfair competition for high value
resources dominated by footloose actors able to avoid systems of either global or national
political accountability. Ferguson‟s vision has a particular resonance when he outlines the
example of the offshore oil in Angola as „the clearest case of extractive enclaving‟ (2005, p.
378), given that prognoses about Cambodia‟s economic future are currently dominated by the
prospects of income from recent discoveries of offshore oil. However, for the purposes of this
thesis, as we will see, it is the timber wealth in Cambodia‟s forests which have turned them
into the more insecure areas on the map as they have attracted the interest of cut-and-run
capitalists and the security apparatuses that they employ (see Chapter 4).
Literature on neo-patrimonialism and shadow states highlights the way in which the informal
agendas of political leaders may bear little relation to the public transcripts to which they
subscribe when conducting their formal business. In extreme form, their interests consist of
undermining the very objectives inscribed in official policy. The literature furthermore
highlights the way in which the informal agenda may be highly focused onto resource rich
areas, and that in cooperation with international capital, national elite interests may become
quite divergent from those of wider populations. These are important correctives to the sort of
uncritical engagements which Li, cited at the beginning of this section, thought she saw in
Indonesia.
35
2.3.2.4 The Developmental State and Asian Values
Neopatrimonialism and shadow state theory, especially the latter, are frequently associated
with corruption and with failing states. These are not theories which are commonly associated
with narratives of success and improvement. Another, much broader, literature looks at
another form of state which also departs from mainstream development industry prescription,
not least in its refusal to prioritise human rights, is that of the developmental state (Chung-In
& Rashemi, 1994; Önis, 1991), and especially the „Asian Values‟ developmental state which
has centred around the arguments made by former Singapore president, Lee Kuan Yew (Barr,
2000; Dalton & Ong, 2005). The debates in this literature centre on the relationship between
politics, the bureaucracy and the economy, with successful economies of East Asia and
Southeast Asia providing the main empirical base for discussion. Debates typically centre
around the relationship between authoritarian, leader-centred politics (which Cambodia has),
well-functioning, dedicated professional bureaucracies (which Cambodia does not have) and
successful economies (which, as we will see in Chapter 4, Cambodia has up to a point). In
contrast to shadow state theory, the enigma at the centre of developmental state theoretical
discussions relates to why the state does not become predatory:
Why should the state, given its autonomy, strength and capacity, choose a ―benign‖ or
developmental‖ rather than ―predatory‖ course of action? States such as Zaire leverage their
strength to rob their society. Why are South Korea and Taiwan not motivated to do the same?
Why do they confound neo-utilitarian expectations? (Chung-In & Rashemi, 1994, p. 371)
What we take from these contrasting theories for this thesis is the fact that elite political
projects may be developmental or they may be predatory. Or they may, indeed, be a complex
and shifting combination of the two. Furthermore, because they may be planned and executed
in ways that are partly or wholly clandestine it may be difficult to judge what dynamics and
motivations are driving behind-the-scenes state agendas.
In Chapter 4 we will see in more detail how the shadow and the developmental aspects of the
Cambodian state co-exist. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to turn the spotlight on elite
politics in Cambodia and to try and identify signs of whether it is essentially developmental or
shadow, or to what extent there is flux. As an indication that both are powerfully present I will
use the term shadow/developmental state in order to refer to the informal elite politics and its
interaction with the informal economy which dominate much of Cambodian governance and
which find little place in official policies and legislation.
2.3.3 Uneven Landscapes of Rural Southeast Asia
This whistle-stop tour of selected theories that inform the journeys that development
interventions take has begun in the western development industry, has 1) begun with
incentives and compulusions in core/donor countries, 2) reflected on the nature of the host
nation government – a key gatekeeper on the journey – and now 3) finishes in the local
setting, in the lives and livelihoods of the people who are scheduled to benefit. The focus here
will be on debates about what defines and shapes livelihoods in rural Southeast Asia. First,
though, a brief note on how livelihoods are conceptualised here.
2.3.3.1 Conceptualising Livelihoods
One strand of development practice literature has sought to ensure that the perspectives of the
poor are given priority. Robert Chambers was at the fore in this, especially with his book
36
Rural Development: Putting the Last First (Chambers, 1983)25
. This perspective generated
two major strands of practitioner literature, one devoted to Participatory Rural Appraisal
(PRA), and another to Sustainable Livelihoods.
The sustainable livelihood approach was intended to enable analyses of individual or
household situations which supported understanding of people‟s situation and their agency. In
its rural iterations this led to a sustainable livelihood framework which located the
individual/household in a „vulnerability context‟ endowed each individual/household with
various „capitals‟, and postulating them as having livelihood choices which could be
simplified to variations on intensification, diversification and migration. The approach
embedded in this literature has much in common with the critical aim of this thesis of
avoiding the systematic and persistent misrepresentations exemplified in the 1990s studies:
The aim is to do away with pre-conceptions about what exactly rural people are seeking and
how they are most likely to achieve their goals, and to develop an accurate and dynamic
picture of them in their environment (Carney, 1999).
The sustainable livelihood framework has some significant limitations. One is that it provides
such a broad agenda that as a researcher it does not help one to prioritise any particular
variables, but rather tries to sum up every conceivable factor at every conceivable scale which
might influence how a household gets by (Scoones, 1998, p. 13). Another is that the framing
up of household endowments as „capitals‟ seems to both assign people the wrong class
position and to make static what are in practice highly dynamic and relational endowments
(Murray, 2001, p. 7).
For the purpose of this thesis, my concept of livelihoods relies centrally on incomes
(including non-monetary incomes). More specifically it focuses on the make-up of
households‟/individuals‟ everyday incomes; the coping strategies that households/individuals
have if there is an economic shock to their everyday income/expenditure balance; the
aspirations they have for the future incomes for themselves and for their children. This
concern with crises and with intergenerational issues what authors refer to when they discuss
sustainable livelihoods (Chambers & Conway, 1992, pp. 15-18). Understanding about the
political economy/political ecology/immanent development context is then accessed via
questions about the factors which constrain or enable livelihoods (ie current and future
incomes).
With this conceptualisation in mind we turn to some discussions which seek to identify trends
and determining factors in rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia.
2.3.3.2 Agriculture and Agrarian Transitions
Mainstream theories of national development suggest that national development tends to
follow a phased process with agricultural development preceding industrial development (e.g.
ADB, 2000, pp. 13-19; Timmer, 2006). Surplus labour from the countryside is postulated as a
necessary factor to enable capitalism to be driven from urban concentrations. Rostow‟s stages
of growth and Lewis‟s „dual sector‟ model, were the classic statements of this argument and it
continues to have purchase today: a recent Swedish study of Cambodia‟s economic situation
was framed in explicitly Rostovian terms (Sjöberg & Sjöholm, 2007). This version of the
agrarian transition, and its development policy implications remain firmly within the
mainstream; Bezemer and Headey (2008), for example, argue that industrial transformation
has always been preceded by agricultural transformation, and further argue that agricultural
25
This was one of two development books which I carried with me to Cambodia in 1991. The other was
Hancock‟s (1989) Lords of Poverty.
37
transformation is necessarily dependent on state intervention, arguing that “no agricultural
transformation has ever occurred without extensive and effective state support programs”
(Bezemer & Headey, 2008, p. 1346).
In this tradition, much scholarly attention is given to the conditions that are required to
stimulate the sort of agricultural development/agrarian transition that is required to stimulate
national development. Within this, debates about the role of farm size and land policy have
been central. James Putzel (2000) has argued that one of the main lessons to be learned from
20th
century history in Asia was that redistributive land reform works, and that “in situations
of capital scarcity and labour surplus there is an inverse relationship between the size of farm
and the productivity of land and labour in agriculture” (Putzel, 2000, p. 3). Specifically he
argued that successful development in South Korea and Taiwan, and then in China and
Vietnam had been squarely founded on land reform policies that both stimulated economic
growth and enabled political stability.
Hayami (2001) explained regional variation in the agricultural development in post-war
Southeast Asian economies in terms of the modes of production that had dominated in key
historical moments when hitherto unused natural resources on „empty land‟ suddenly acquire
a market value when exposed to international trade thereby enabling these unused resources to
be the basis for economic growth (Hayami, 2001, p. 178). Essentially he argued that Thai
agriculture had outperformed Indonesia and the Philippines because it had an almost entirely
smallholder economy. Indonesian agriculture, furthermore, had outperformed the Philippines
because it had more smallholders and fewer plantations.
In Hayami‟s view all crops typically considered „plantation crops‟ were actually farmed as
smallholder crops somewhere, and that the vertical integration and coordination required for
competitiveness could be supplied far more efficiently through systems of contract farming.
Plantation agriculture, he argued, has occurred not because it was economically optimal, but
because it was a means by which colonialists could pre-empt large areas of unused, or
apparently unused, land.
Crucially for the arguments in this thesis, it was unfolding historical events rather than the
pulling of policy levers at national level that had shaped these uneven developments. Attempts
at land reform in the Philippines had worsened agricultural productivity because of what
Hayami terms „the dilemma of land reform‟. Attempts at reform were restricted to the
subsistence sector, but because the threat of reform also hangs over the cash crop sector,
plantation owners have limited their investments in agriculture. Similarly, in the smallholder
sector, beneficiaries of the land reform were reluctant to hire out their land (as they might for
example in Indonesia) for fear that tenants might also acquire rights over that land under the
terms of the reform.
In this frame of thinking (narrowly exemplified by these two contributions from Putzel and
Hayami) then, agriculture is central to national development, farm size is central to the
demographic structure and economic incentives required to drive agricultural development,
and state policies (intentional development) may be key in determining appropriate farm size.
However, these cannot simply override considerations of political economy and „small d‟
development.
2.3.3.3 Decoupling and Deagrarianisation in Southeast Asian Landscapes
Analyses of rural development which blur the distinctions between rural and urban and
disrupt the more linear agrarian transition framings have been present in Southeast Asia
scholarship for some time (e.g. Rigg, 2001). It has been argued that important trends have
38
included a de-linking of rural development from agricultural development, and a consequent
de-linking of land holding from wealth, have rendered standard rural development policy
staples such as land reform and agricultural improvement less relevant and effective (Rigg,
2006)26
. A recently published study in northeast Thailand (Rigg & Salamanca, 2009) spanned
twenty-five years in two villages, and citing other research in villages in Northeastern
Thailand found strongly in favour of the de-agrarianisation thesis. This not only challenged
the linear, agriculture-driven development models, but also models that argue that Thailand
has been a case of dependent industrialisation and peripheral marginalisation. Rigg and
Salamanca (Rigg & Salamanca, 2009, pp. 265-266) used the example of an apparently
increasingly vulnerable and impoverished 58-year old widow, in poor health, who had sold
much of her land to pay hospital bills with one of her two sons having died, one having
moved to another village and her only daughter having married and moved to Bangkok. In the
village she was also classified as close to poor in wealth ranking exercises. However, her
livelihood was in fact relatively secure. She took care of her daughters‟ two children and
received about 100 USD per month remitted from her daughter (a garment factory worker)
and son-in-law (a taxi driver). The point here was not that there had been a decisive or
permanent improvement in the rural economy, but rather that “risk and vulnerability have
been re-shaped in significant ways” and that “the parameters of these changes are clear ... the
shift from farm to non-farm, from local to extra-local, from community to state and from
social to economic” (Rigg & Salamanca, 2009, p. 265). Meanwhile, the misrepresentation
identified with the 1990s studies in the introduction to this thesis appeared to be alive and well
in the late 2000s:
It is striking how far scholars, development practitioners and government officials still
rehearse the script of Northeast Thai villages being poor, farming dependent and isolated
(Rigg & Salamanca, 2009, p. 266).
Recent work in the de-agrarianisation tradition, encompassing studies from Asia and Africa,
has focused on studies of „frontiers‟. In this context, a frontier is “a particularly dynamic space
where the forces of economic, demographic and social change are brought to bear”
(Agergaard, Fold, & Gough, 2010, p. 1), and these frontiers are “regions where linkages to
global markets are dominated by one particular product (coffee, pineapples, gold etc) or a
number of similar products (handicrafts, fresh fruit)” although the concept also encompasses
the more diverse “manufacturing frontier” in Thailand (Fold, Gough, & Agergaard, 2010, p.
198).
Reviewing case studies of rural manufacturing and handicraft frontiers, Gough and Rigg
(2010, p. 156) found the non-farm sector developing dynamics which were increasingly
shaped by non-local markets and raw material sourcing rather than local resources.
Agriculture did not usually benefit from increased investment and even tended to become
more extensive as human resources and financial investment were attracted into handicrafts
and manufacturing, which even became a magnet for low-skilled migrant labour (Rigg,
Veeravongs, Rohitarachoon, & Veeravongs, 2010, p. 137). At least in the case of the Thai
manufacturing frontier (Rigg et al., 2010, pp. 146-147), it seemed that the success of the
manufacturing sector meant that the local economy was able to be successfully re-constructed
without requiring the degree of out-migration and remittance livelihoods that have been
characteristic of much of the shift towards de-agrarianised rural development. A region that
had formerly been Thailand‟s „rice bowl‟ had become not a labour reserve, but rather a site of
26
Whilst Rigg in that article was reaching out from Southeast Asia experience to look for empirical evidence of
comparable trends in South Asia and Africa, scholars such as Ellis (1998) and Bryceson (2006) were developing
similar perspectives on the basis of studies of livelihoods in rural Africa.
39
„industrialisation and metropolitanisation‟ with a population whose livelihoods were delinked
from the land and coupled to remote sites in the wider economy (Rigg et al., 2010, p. 148).
Meanwhile, in the agricultural frontiers, even in areas where agricultural was most
successful, more people tended to be employed in services and trade (Fold & Tacoli, 2010, p.
96). Fold and Tacoli, summarising the case studies in agricultural frontiers described a
continuum from mono-location and mono-activity to multi-activity and multi-location.
In contrast to the literature on agricultural development and agrarian transitions which Putzel
and Hayami exemplified, the recent work on rural-urban dynamics is not readily translated
into a narrative of national development. Fold, Gough and Agergaard (2010, p. 201) explain
that national rural-urban dynamics cannot be read off from their studies of frontiers. Their
frontier regions are primarily sub-national phenomena, oriented around complex dynamics
between local production and global markets. For them, the study of frontiers tends more to
structuring a “simple bipartite division of rural-urban dynamics in the context of national
development, namely into hinterland areas and areas which are resource rich” (Fold et al.,
2010, p. 200). Once again, then, as with the references to Uneven Development (Harvey,
2006; Smith, 2008) and Ferguson‟s (2005) Seeing Like an Oil Company, rural space becomes
conceptualised as a patchwork featuring resource rich sites of accumulation and less endowed
hinterland areas. The analytical lesson from a case study point of view is that conclusions
about what a case represents should be drawn with reference not to a generalised „national‟
„rural‟ space, but rather in relation to the mix of interdependencies and independencies in the
array of variously endowed and positioned frontiers and hinterlands.27
2.3.3.4 Agrarian Change and Resistance
Resistance has been a central theme in the politics of rural Southeast Asia, whether related to
the (successful) opposition to collectivised agriculture (Kerkvliet, 1995), or in opposition to
the rolling out of the Green Revolution (Scott, 1985). This is not least because of the limited
successes of Southeast Asia‟s rural poor when they have acted politically in acts of overt
resistance or rebellion (Scott, 1977).
The findings of studies of rural-urban dynamics in the frontiers and hinterlands of Southeast
Asia might almost suggest that there is little reason for resistance, given the overall
trajectories of change:
Factors such as the further development of frontier regions, technological innovations,
agricultural intensification and off-farm migration have – at a broad scale – reduced the
precariousness of rural life (Turner & Caouette, 2009, p. 13)
Such a position would be supported by Walker‟s analysis of the impacts of contract farming
in Northern Thailand, where he found that – notwithstanding various complaints by farmers –
that contract farming offered a reduction of risk and therefore of agricultural indebtedness and
had resulted in an engagement which he characterised as experimental rather than resistant
(Walker, 2009, pp. 76-78).
It might also be noted that the „hidden transcripts‟ of the rural poor do not always find place in
either „public transcripts‟ or acts of resistance. It is still possible for people and their ideas to
be marginalised. In my years in rural Cambodia discussions with farmers about potentials for
27
In the authors‟ words “attention should be paid to the selection of different regions with distinctive positions in
the national development process (including, for example labour reserve regions, resource-poor regions, and
geographically isolated regions) before conducting analysis on livelihood diversification, mobility and settlement
transformation….” (Fold et al., 2010, p. 201).
40
agricultural development frequently ended in suggestions that included the creation of state
marketing boards to guarantee prices for their produce, and the introduction of import bans to
prevent cheap produce from Thailand and Vietnam coming into the domestic Cambodian
market. Such views, however, find little voice in the various participatory processes to define
either donor assistance strategies or national policies.
A rural scene with relatively few broad-based political movements (Borras, 2009, p. 19) and
with complaining voices both mollified by the effects of relative prosperity and muted by the
lack of effective outlets may be a feature of a time that is coming to a close. Turner and
Caouette saw concerns about massive poverty and unemployment in rural Southeast Asia in
the 1970s as having been “deferred” rather than avoided. Certainly theories of Uneven
Development would encourage one to see the benefits of the past couple of decades as
contingent and precarious, with the possibility of economic crisis generating destructive
impacts throughout the now highly-integrated and interdependent rural landscapes of
Southeast Asia:
In some locales, the proliferation of wage labour along with the agrarian transition has
resulted in increased dispossession and marginalization, especially of smaller landowners and
agricultural workers. In other sites, there has been increased economic growth, with people
able to form new and increasingly sustainable livelihoods. Such divergent outcomes have even
occurred between village neighbours due to the progressively more individualized
consequences of the agrarian transition (Turner & Caouette, 2009) .
2.3.4 Fraught Journeys Recapitulated
This three-stop selective tour of the travel of development intervention from western origins
to Southeast Asian landscapes highlights some of the contradictions and contingencies
involved in interventions by the western development industry. It suggests that there are
strong reasons for having a critical approach in the sense of being sceptical of any intervention
that is framed as a well-intentioned, technical, win-win solution to problems jointly identified
and jointly addressed by host country governments acting in harmonious concert with
development industry actors. It also suggests that what we might term a „rural caricature‟,
present in the 1990s case studies in Chapter 1, remains a feature of development in the late
2000s. Having reflected critically on the long and uncertain journeys that development
interventions in general represent, attention will now focus on the theories that underpin the
particular sorts of intervention – property rights interventions in the form of land titling and
community forestry – that are the focus of the cases in this thesis.
2.4 Property Rights Theory and Interventions
2.4.1 Introduction
Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a
regular administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the
possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law, and in
which the authority of the state is not supposed to be regularly employed in enforcing the
payment of debts from all those who are able to pay (Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
cited in Rodrik et al., 2002).
Property rights have long had a prominent place in arguments over the pre-requisites for
growth and development. In recent debates about factors which best explain development
Rodrik has been a champion of institutions as opposed to „geography‟ or trade integration
(Rodrik et al., 2002). However, he has been critical of the way in which:
41
―institutions rule‖ has sometimes been interpreted as a form of property rights reductionism—
one that views the formal institutions of property rights protection as the end-all of
development policy (Rodrik, 2004, p. 1).
This section will examine the theoretical underpinnings of the interventions studied in this
thesis – individual private property rights theory for systematic land titling and common
property rights theory for community forestry. It will also review literature on these styles of
intervention, both the “rational policy” literature which enquires into the relations between
intention and outcome and what has been learned about the conditions required for successful
policy outcomes, and also literature that has “a more discursive and political approach” and
that “better captures what actually happens in the policy process” (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1047).
First, however, brief attention is paid to defining property rights.
2.4.2 Property Rights Definitions
Bromley (2006, pp. 479-480) defines property rights by separating the concept of property
and that of rights28
. Property is “not an object, but is, instead, a stream of benefits (values)
into the future”, with the concept of ownership being related to the control of a benefit stream
arising from the “setting and circumstance” that is the property relation. A right, meanwhile,
is understood as dependent on “an enforced duty”. The duty is for those who do not have
rights to not interfere with the interests of those who do have rights. The enforcement of rights
then requires enforcement by an authority or an authority system which is willing and able to
impose sanctions on those who do not fulfil their duties. Bromley stresses that this need not be
a state or government as understood in the industrialised economies, but might instead by a
“traditional leader”.
The distinction between different sorts of authority to enforce rights and duties in relation to
property is highlighted by Schlager and Ostrom (1992, p. 254) when they draw a distinction
between de jure and de facto rights. De jure rights are “given lawful recognition by formal,
legal instrumentalities”, whereas de facto rights arise when “resource users cooperate to
define and enforce rights among themselves”. Schlager and Ostrom make two points in
relation to these. First, that they are not an either/or pairing: de jure and de facto rights may
“overlap, complement, or even conflict with one another”, and second, that for a user there is
no qualitative difference between the two sets of rights unless the de facto rights are
challenged in an administrative setting.
The distinction between de jure and de facto rights might invite the idea that there is a latent
potential for any given de facto right to be made de jure through the simple measure of
formalising it. The term legal pluralism has, however, been termed by authors who suggest
that there is a need to be attentive to “multiple legal orders such as state, customary, religious,
project and local laws, all of which provide bases for claiming property rights” and that:
Instead of looking for clearly defined rules within a single, coherent legal system, it is more
useful to recognize the ambiguity of rules, and the multiplicity of legal systems. This ambiguity
and pluralism gives scope for human agency, through forum shopping and adapting rules in
the concretization of rights. Such agency is critical for dealing with uncertainties that arise
from environmental fluctuations, livelihood changes, social and political upheavals, and other
sources (Meinzen-Dick & Pradhan, 2002, p. 27).
28
My friend and former colleague Shaun Williams has pointed out to me that property is a form of right, and that
the term „property rights‟ is thus an oxymoron. This is surely correct, but given the prominence of the term
„property rights‟ in the mainstream, including much of the literature I have cited, and in the absence of an elegant
alternative, I have let it stand.
42
This, we may be sure, is not what Adam Smith (cited above) had in mind when he wrote of
the importance of the state securing property rights in order to facilitate economic
development. On the other hand, if property rights are about a quest for security and control,
the legal plurality and forum shopping concepts possibly serve to illustrate the fact that
„making secure‟ is not always within the reach of policy makers:
In general, legal pluralism calls for greater humility in policies and programs. It is not just a
matter of getting the ―right‖ law or the ―right‖ institution to allocate or manage resources.
Instead, rights to resources will be determined through messy, dynamic processes (Meinzen-
Dick & Pradhan, 2002, pp. 28-29).
Having adopted Bromley‟s definition of property rights, we might also note his argument
(Daniel W Bromley, 2006, pp. 481-482) that there are two common assertions which connect
property rights and development in policy discussions:
1. Economic development is impeded by the lack of property rights
2. Natural resource degradation in the developing world persists because of insecure
property rights.
He warns that neither of these assertions is adequately supported by empirical evidence. They
do of course represent the core claims of the respective interventions that are examined in this
thesis. Systematic land titling aims to stimulate economic development by providing
individualised, exclusive property rights via land registration and the issuance of title.
Community forestry aims to prevent natural resource degradation by providing communities
with rights over forest: the remainder of this section continues to investigate this apparent
paradox. Why would an assertion that is unsupported by evidence nevertheless be persistently
asserted in policy circles?
2.4.3 Theoretical Justifications for Land Titling
If farmers are secure in the ownership of their land, they will dare to invest in it, which they
would not dare to do if they were worried it would be taken from them. If people have title to
land, they can then use that title as collateral to obtain loans which would not previously have
been available to them, and then to invest either in improving the land or in other productive
activity. If all property is titled, then buyers and sellers will be confident to transact land,
thereby enabling a functioning land market which will allocate land to the most efficient
farmers. This set of three justifications constitute the core of the theoretical argument that has
long underpinned the promotion of land titling programmes (see Daley & Hobley, 2005, pp.
204-205; Deininger, 2003; Feder & Feeney, 1993; Feder & Nishio, 1998, pp. 26-28; Heltberg,
2002, pp. 204-205). A further motivation, less commonly at the fore of international
proponents of titling, but one which has been argued to be a historically dominant motive for
national adoption of titling programmes, is that land registration provides the government
with the basis for revenue-raising by means of a land tax. (Feeny 1988 cited in Heltberg,
2002). A final benefit which may be added relates to social costs of land conflicts: it may be
anticipated that a programme to title all land, whilst generating increased conflict during the
period of implementation, will potentially lead to clarity and resolution and therefore save on
the social and economic costs of conflicts and appropriations that persisted prior to titling. It
has been suggested that this might particularly benefit the most poor and vulnerable
(Törhönen, 2001).
Regarding the three principle justifications for titling, each of these has been stressed to
different degrees and for different reasons in different contexts. For many the impulse to title
is first and foremost about facilitating land markets (Barnes, 2003, p. 367; K. A. Gould,
Carter, & Shrestha, 2006). The assumption here is that the market is a far better and more
43
efficient distributor of land than the state, ensuring not only that the most efficient farmers
(those who are assumed to make most profits from farming and then to invest those profits in
expanding their holdings) receive most land, but also that the most efficient farm size will be
achieved (farms that are smaller or larger than the optimum will lose out in competition with
optimally sized farms and will either be combined or sub-divided until they are optimally
competitive). Because the efficiency of land markets is often assumed, the focus when
evaluating titling has often been limited to whether the market is active or not (and not on the
results of its allocations) with increased transaction volume and increased land prices are held
to be sufficient indicators of the benefits of titling (Feder & Nishio, 1998, p. 40), although this
assumption has not gone unchallenged (D. Mitchell, Clarke, & Baxter, 2008, p. 472) .
The argument that systematic land titling improves security and therefore leads to investment
and increased productivity is coupled to the idea of a strengthened, stabilised rural sector. In
Cambodia, for example, it has been suggested that enabling security of tenure and increased
investment would provide the impetus for smallholder farming to become the third engine of
national economic growth after garments and tourism (World Bank, 2006, 2007b). While not
necessarily in conflict with the aim of facilitating the land market, there is some tension
between the images evoked: the one of land changing hands and with the prospect of a surplus
population seeking their comparative advantage elsewhere having sold up in the dynamics of
the agrarian transition; the other an essentially conservative vision of farming households
remaining in place but becoming securer, more productive and more prosperous.
Even convinced advocates of land titling programmes have not suggested that they are
appropriate in all situations:
If it is not clear whether the key factors for the economic viability of land registration systems
are present, it may not be an opportune time for the government to invest in land registration.
The society would benefit more from other types of investment ,which address more binding
constraints to its economic development (Feder & Nishio, 1998, p. 38)
Or (in the context of a sceptical review of De Soto‟s work):
Titling must be followed by a series of politically challenging steps. Improving the efficiency
of judicial systems, re-writing bankruptcy codes, restructuring financial market regulations
and similar reforms will involve much more difficult choices for policy makers. These are
swept under the rug in the text of The Mystery of Capital (Woodruff, 2001, pp. 1222-1223).
For each of the main three postulated benefits, a set of complementary functioning institutions
is required: tenure security requires that a legitimate authority (courts or their equivalent) will
enforce and sanction the property rights inscribed in the title; collateralisation requires that
there is a well-functioning financial market so that the new demand for credit can be supplied;
a functioning land market requires that the land administration authorities are efficient,
affordable and accessible to buyers and sellers (Feder & Nishio, 1998, p. 37). It is the lack of
complementary institutional arrangements that prompts scholars to doubt whether the
theoretical benefits of titling can in fact be realised in, for example, transition economies (Ho
& Spoor, 2006, p. 586)
The functioning of these institutions post-titling must be compared with the situation prior to
titling. It is possible that even without the land registration apparatus, and possibly without the
involvement of formal authorities and credit institutions, that tenure might be secured, credit
obtained and market transactions guaranteed by means of informal authorities. Such a
situation would, paradoxically, solve most of the potential implementation problems that
relate to titling interventions, but would at the same time rob them of their potential to add
value.
44
2.4.4 Theoretical Critiques of Land Titling
2.4.4.1 The De Soto Factor
During the past decade, largely as a result of the prominence achieved by Hernando de Soto‟s
(2000) The Mystery of Capital, it is the second theoretical potential of titling, to enable
increased access to credit, that has received most attention. Highly popular in political and
policy circles whilst at the same time often criticised heavily in academic circles (Gilbert,
2002, p. 2; T. Mitchell, 2004, p. 5; Payne, Durand-Lasserve, & Radoki, 2009, p. 445;
Woodruff, 2001, p. 1215), de Soto (2000) argued that the reason some economies had
successfully developed, or, in his terms, that capitalism had only succeeded in the west, was
that individual property rights were formally secured in the west and not elsewhere. Formal
title, he argued, had enabled loans to be leveraged against assets which otherwise were „dead
capital‟. In poor countries, and especially in the informal urban settlements in Latin America
which is where he began his research career, his findings were that poor people did not lack
assets, but that these assets were held in „defective forms‟. If their informal residences could
be securely titled then they would be able to raise financial capital and further exploit the
business skills which he found them already to possess in abundance in the informal
economy. Counterarguments to this thesis have abounded.
To the extent that arguments for land titling are increasingly taking their theoretical departure
point from the work of de Soto29
, there has been criticism of the historical validity of the case
that he makes. Mitchell (2004, p. 25) has suggested that the focus on documentation is
misplaced. He points out that there has been a traditional mistrust of documents in the west
(there being, for example, no title document in either British or US systems), and that what
counts is not paper representations but extent of control. To select from the tip of the iceberg
of criticisms of de Soto‟s reasoning, methods and findings, Mitchell (2004, p. 11) has pointed
out that most homeowners in the West do not collateralise their domestic properties in order
to obtain business loans, but rather go into debt in order to purchase the property in the first
place; most of the 40%-70% of the population in the West are „homeowners‟ do not
completely own their homes because they are mortgaged and not yet paid for. Gilbert,
meanwhile, cites his own research and reviews other studies suggesting that titling has not
made a difference to the ability of people in urban settlements to obtain formal credit, and
furthermore that most poor people would rather not seek credit because “repaying a loan is a
burden that may endanger the household‟s whole financial viability” (Gilbert, 2002, p. 17).
The heavy weight of academic critique notwithstanding, de Soto‟s work has furthered the
promotion of titling as a development strategy and of collateralisation as a justification for
that strategy, not just in urban Latin America but in urban and rural settings around the globe
(Alden Wily, 2008, p. 43).
2.4.4.2 Markets are not benevolent
Collateralising land and transforming it into a tradable commodity are both double-edged
swords. If land is used as collateral for a business loan and the business fails, the land is lost.
If land can now be more easily sold as a commodity, then poor people will be more vulnerable
to losing it at low prices when their circumstances become difficult (Cousins, 2009, p. 897).
29
This is surprisingly widespread as even serious scholars such as Deininger whose engagements with the topic
are longer, more scientifically grounded and nuanced, use reference to de Soto to justify the claim of a
theoretical benefit from land titling in the form of improved access to credit (Deininger, Ali, & Alemu, 2009, p.
5).
45
Mitchell, not entirely at ease with the conceptualisation of the informal sector and the assets
lying „outside‟ capitalism, also sees any change wrought by titling as exposing poor people to
unequal competition within the formal market arena:
The movement of assets from what is called the outside to the inside does offer a means to
create wealth. But not in the way De Soto describes. The process of property titling and the
use of property as collateral offer up opportunities for speculation, for the concentrating of
wealth, and for the accumulation of rents (T. Mitchell, 2004, p. 27).
Christophers (2010) meanwhile, drawing inspiration from David Harvey (Harvey, 1973,
1982), takes issue with the idea that it is possible to separate property as financial capital
(realisable by collateralising an asset) from its physical manifestation. This is in direct
contradiction to de Soto‟s encouragement to “conceptualise property less as its physical
manifestation and more in terms of its legal function, and hence as a form of representation”
(Christophers, 2010, p. 103). What this theoretical argument comes down to, is that at all
scales, household, national and global, the analytical separation (what Christophers terms the
„mystification‟ of „voodoo economics‟) of financial capital from its material manifestation
will inevitably, somewhere, constitute not a win-win but a zero-sum scenario, and there will
be losers:
Any apparent ‗economic growth‘ located in the property rental market must ultimately be
grounded in, and sustained by, growth in the real economy of productive activity. If such
growth is not occurring, and surplus value is not being generated, the notional growth
delivered by the landlord class must eventually come crashing back to earth (Christophers,
2010, p. 106).
Bromley, (2009) has argued that the priority for poor people is employment: as such he
viewed the advocacy for formal titles as “cultural imperialism” and “an example of the
persistent quest for ideational hegemony” (2009, p. 6).
2.4.4.3 Tenure is not always reducible to simple formal ownership
As we will see in the common property literature, even where tenure is not essentially
communal “often several layers of interest in property are recognised as legitimate”
(Benjaminsen, Holden, Lund, & Sjaastad, 2009, p. 34). Two issues coincide here and both
provide theoretical grounds for challenging registration of ownership as a policy intervention.
The first is the impossibility of reducing to a single category of exclusive ownership complex
bundles of rights to property where different people have different rights over land at different
times of the year.
The second relates to the idea that tenure systems evolve over time as a result of a number of
(highly contested) variables including demographic change, relative factor prices, the cost of
providing and enforcing private title, agricultural commercialisation and trade, available
technology, (Heltberg, 2002, p. 199). Partly, as Heltberg discusses, these debates over the way
in which tenure systems evolve has focused around discussions of the validity of Boserup‟s
(1965) proposition (both neo-Malthusian and anti-Malthusian) that increased population
would drive technical development and agricultural intensification.
Recent work in Africa describes an alternative historical trajectory. Chauveau and Colin
(2007, p. 66) make a definitional distinction between traditional „tutorat‟ forms of exchange
“in which land transfers are embedded within a broader socio-political relationship and entail
a continuing duty of gratitude and of allegiance toward the customary land holders” and sales
“which are monetarised deals that do not entail a continuing relationship once the transaction
is completed”. They portray a long-term transition from a situation of labour scarcity to a
situation of land scarcity has seen a transition in forms of property rights. This has largely
46
(though with variation within and between countries and a great deal of hybridisation between
older and newer property regimes) been a transition towards more private, individualised
exclusive forms of tenure. The point here, then, is that a titling programme is potentially
capable of formalising a property rights regime that has achieved a point on its trajectory (or
evolution in some discourses) where broader socio-political relationships have brought into
being private, individualised tenure. The proposition that the simple fact of implementing a
titling programme might shift tenure arrangements to that point is altogether more unlikely.
Cousins makes a similar argument with regard to a general approach that prioritises bestowing
formal legal rights, when these will not have leverage with substantial reality and argues that
only “civic activity (i.e. politics)” can achieve these (Cousins, 2009, p. 906).
2.4.4.4 Formalisation is biased against women
The potential gender bias of land titling interventions is as much an empirical issue as a
theoretical one. To the extent that land titling is a process of formalising existing tenure
arrangements, it may be unfair to women in that formal arrangements may tend to be highly
biased towards men in comparison to customary or „informal‟ pre-titling arrangements. This
has been found, for example, in the way a „head of household‟ has been designated as title
holder in Latin American projects:
In the past, land titling projects granted titles in the name of the head of household, who was
usually an adult male. This often undermined the tenure security that women had through the
customary system that operated prior to titling (Barnes, 2003, p. 373).
On the other hand, when attempts were made to address this, for example through joint titling
of conjugal property, this was often met by resistance from within existing dynamics, which
also had their gender biases. Based on experience in Colombia and Nicaragua, strong rural
women‟s organisations were found to be the most promising way to address the issue of
protecting women‟s land and resource rights through titling (Barnes, 2003, p. 373). Case
study evidence from Senegal and South Africa, meanwhile suggested that women‟s tenure
security had been enhanced by being specified on ownership records (Payne, Durand-
Lasserve, & Radoki, 2009, p. 447).
2.4.5 Empirical Evidence on Land Titling
It is beyond the ambition of this thesis to provide a definitive and conclusive summary of
findings relating to the claims made for and against land titling programmes. Broadly it might
be said that they are both varied and contested. This section examines findings, primarily from
recent reviews of the literature, in relation firstly to the main theoretical claims made for
titling namely Impact on Security and Investment, Impact on Access to Credit, Impact on
Land Markets, then on a range of significant secondary issues, Impact on Revenue Raising
and Other Impacts and Implementation Issues. Finally, but of high importance given the
arguments of this thesis, I examine observations in relation to the Spatial Distribution of
Titling.
2.4.5.1 Impact on Security and Investment
Deininger‟s (2003) research report for the World Bank on land policies for growth and
poverty reduction found that while tenure security was strongly correlated with economic
growth, that the relationship between formal land titling and tenure security could not be
assumed (Deininger, 2003, p. 39). His understanding from the literature was that informal
options might in many circumstances provide many of the tenure security benefits that are
expected from land titling, but that formal titling became the preferable option in situations
47
where there was sufficient land administration capacity, and where land prices were
sufficiently high (Deininger, 2003, p. 56). While stressing the importance of context in
determining which land policies were appropriate, and noting mixed results in Africa,
Deininger also gave Thailand as the case which most clearly demonstrated positive economic
impacts (Deininger, 2003, p. 5). While the Thai project has been widely praised, Williams
has suggested that it may be a case where successful implementation and output delivery has
blinded judges to the lack of evidence on which to base claims of positive outcomes (S.
Williams, 2003).
Looking for evidence of the relationship between security and titling, Payne et al. (2009, p.
447) found that titling programmes have often been implemented where there is already de
facto security. In places where there was insecurity they found the evidence of improvement
“surprisingly thin and mixed”.
Some risks associated with titling related to unequal information and involve speculation and
acquisition of land at low prices in anticipation of price rises post titling. However, even when
all actors are well informed, the anticipation of programmes has led in some cases to an
intensification of conflicts, social unrest and insecurity (Benjaminsen et al., 2009, p. 31).
2.4.5.2 Impact on Access to Credit
Deininger et al. (2009, p. 5) have recently – and in passing - summarised the literature on the
impact of titling on credit. They found the literature somewhat equivocal: some studies
showing some positive effects, but others showing either no effect at all, or that only larger
land owners had benefited. This ambivalence has long roots, and possibly reflects the lack of
studies that specifically engage with the relation of titling to credit and adequately
contextualise and explain findings. One of the more frequently cited studies by Feder and
Onchan (1987) is referred to as both demonstrating that titling does improve access to credit
(Deininger et al., 2009, p. 5) and that it does not do so (Daniel W. Bromley, 2009, p. 23).
Payne et al. (2009, p. 455) are if anything less optimistic, finding that the literature suggests
that titling has not (at least in the short term) generated any significant increase in access to
formal credit. Their case study work in Senegal and South Africa, furthermore suggests that
most loans taken out are for house improvement rather than as business loans, and that
business development loans have not been secured against houses.
2.4.5.3 Impact on Land Markets
Part of the key to the relationship between land titling and a functional land market is not the
initial titling process itself, but the registration of subsequent transactions. In Latin America
earlier experience had been that registering land and issuing title were insufficient to address
land market issues, but that problems within the land departments responsible subsequent
registration “overly bureaucratic, costly, inaccessible, centralized, corrupt and not transparent
to the users” also needed to be addressed (Barnes, 2003, p. 369). This, whilst being a problem
identified since the 1980s remained an area where the World Bank and USAID remained
“short of lessons” (Barnes, 2003, p. 373).
Payne et al. (2009, p. 453) in their review found that whilst the literature supported the claim
that titling enhances the value of land, and that this is often in the order of a 25% rise, that this
was not necessarily of benefit to the poor because:
...the lack of a formal title is a price that the urban poor pay to gain access to a residential
plot that they could otherwise not afford. Of course, increases in land values are beneficial to
owners planning to sell land, but they are less attractive to those seeking to acquire it as
48
average incomes do not increase at a similar rate to average urban land values (Payne et al.,
2009, p. 453)
Increased land values have also had adverse knock-on effects in terms of reduced access by
the poor to rental markets (Payne et al., 2009, p. 447).
2.4.5.4 Impact on revenue raising and other secondary impacts
Whilst not always to the forefront of literature promoting the benefits of land titling, the
preparation and maintenance of a land register can provide part of the basic infrastructure for
the collection of land taxes. One of the intentions of the World Bank supported Thailand Land
Titling Project was certainly that it should include a land valuation component which would
enable government to use the land register as the basis for revenue raising. This was an
intention that despite the best efforts and encouragements of project staff was never realised
(Rattanabirabongse, Eddington, Burns, & Nettle, 1998, p. 13).
One might speculate that two different agendas were in play here. The Bank might be
imagined to have a self-interest in being able to demonstrate that loan repayments flowing out
of a country are covered by the tangible revenues to the treasury generated by the project
thereby eliminating any doubts as to whether the loan was (at the national scale) cost effective
for the borrower. The Thai government, on the other hand, might be reluctant to risk its
political capital by introducing unpopular new taxes. If development projects are
conceptualised as somewhat long and uncertain journeys, the land valuation and revenue
raising component of the Thai Land Titling Project may be seen as an example of a project
component which was turned away at the threshold by the national gatekeeper. In this respect,
the suggestion by the authors that the key lesson was a “need” to “document the necessary
commitment of all parties to the implementation of the project design” (Rattanabirabongse et
al., 1998, p. 15) is strongly reminiscent of the unrealistic control orientation and obliviousness
to local political realities that Porter et al. (1991) found characterising international
development practice in eastern Kenya twenty years previously.
In a recent study, Deininger and colleagues reviewing the literature suggested that clear
positive impacts of titling had been more associated with increased investment and increased
land values in rural schemes, as well as reducing fertility, increasing investment in children
and affecting governance, corruption and the performance of local institutions (Deininger et
al., 2009, pp. 3-4).
2.4.5.5 Implementation issues
Some of the literature reflects on issues relating to effective (or otherwise) implementation of
land registration and titling. In Guyana, for example, titles were issued in blocks of 100 plots.
If one title was delayed by a conflict then the whole block had to wait (Hendrix & Rockcliffe,
1998). Were lessons from glitches such as this learned during the preparation and
implementation of land titling in Cambodia? Chapters 4 and 6 will answer that question.
Meanwhile, the implementation literature also yields some unintended lessons about the
relationship between operational imperatives and substantive results. Within the World Bank,
the Thailand Land Titling Project, mentioned above, is regarded as an outstanding success;
Rattanabirabongse and some of his colleagues and advisors on that project have written on the
reasons for that success (Rattanabirabongse et al., 1998, p. 3). Some of their solutions,
however, had implications for the substantive goals of the project.
One implementation issue in the early phases of the Thailand project was that completion rate
was affected by the fact that survey teams were not able to register parcels near forests. This
was solved in later phases by the Royal Forest Department being brought in to define forest
49
boundaries before titling commenced, in order that the overall scope of titling was clear.
Within adjudication areas a second problem was that completion rates were affected by the
fact that not all people eligible for title actually completed the process of paying for and
taking receipt of their titles once land had been registered. The solution to this problem was
that the definition of „complete‟ titling was amended such that titling was considered
complete when all plots had been registered, and where a plan was in place for dealing with
any remaining non-issued titles. In terms of project efficiencies these „lessons‟ clearly had
value (Rattanabirabongse et al., 1998, p. 18). However, for people with a claim to land
deemed by the Forest Department to be inside forest, and for people who did not receive titles
at the time as their neighbours, these solutions may have confirmed their exclusion from the
benefits of titling, or at least made their struggles to obtain benefits much less visible.
In a similar problem to the Thai forest example related to communal lands in Ethiopia; a risk
that was prevented by identifying communal lands in a “public and participatory process”
before titling (Deininger et al., 2009, p. 6). As always, it is difficult to discern much about the
outcomes of conflicts between competing interests when they are glossed with participation
(cf. Biddulph, 1996), however, this may indicate a development of a more contested if not less
power-laden dynamic than simply inviting in the relevant state authority to, at one go, make
and achieve its territorial claim.
2.4.5.6 Spatial distribution of titling
Cambodia‟s titling process resembles earlier processes also supported by the World Bank in
Thailand and Indonesia. Williams has suggested that the main lessons that Indonesia learned
from Thailand were “ways to avoid complex tenurial situations, as well as complex land types
such as forests, so as to be able to concentrate on reaching high production targets in non-
contested areas” (S. Williams, 2003, p. 8). In other words, the titling programme (intended to
achieve security of tenure) was being implemented in areas where tenure security was not a
problem (“non-contested areas”).
Liz Alden Wily (2008), meanwhile made a similar point from the other side of the fence when
she argued that instead registration of the rural commons should take priority:
The reason is simple; that it is these properties, not the family farm or house, that have been
and remain today at most risk from involuntary loss – and which represent losses with most
real and potential jeopardy to the rights of the majority rural poor (Alden Wily, 2008, p. 48)
The introduction of communal property and community based management leads us into
another area of theory-inspired policies and a literature replete with advocates and critiques
and discussions of what is necessary or desirable in order to make policies effective. Before
making that step, it is worth making one geographical point. Alden Wily was writing about
Africa, and on the basis of vast experience on the African continent. She referred to two sorts
of common land: one where communities exercised “de jure or de facto customary tenure”
and another which referred to “the millions of hectares of land designated state or public land
but customarily understood as community property” (Alden Wily, 2008, p. 43).
From quite different perspectives, then, what both Williams and Alden Wily are pointing to is
the possibility that in its spatial distribution, systematic land titling may tend to be
implemented away from the places where the problem it is supposed to address is most
present.
50
2.4.5.7 Discursive claims: why land-titling travels well as policy
Mitchell‟s (2004) analysis of de Soto‟s success was that he had succeeded in generating a
“much more positive account of the resources and potential of the majority of the people of
the global south”. Cousins (2007), likewise notes the benevolent assumptions that “a
competitive market economy by its very nature generates „win-win‟ solutions”. The
suggestion that by means of a relatively simple administrative intervention that latent forces
may be brought into harness may provide much of the explanation as to why de Soto in
particular and titling in general have been so „successful‟ as policy „simplifications‟ or
„development myths‟. As we will see, similar arguments circulate in relation to common
property rights as policy.
2.4.6 Theories of Common Property Rights
The departure point for the literature on common property and the associated literature on
community based natural resource management (CBNRM) is Hardin‟s short (1968) article on
„The Tragedy of the Commons‟ (Alden Wily, 2008, p. 43; Dietz, Ostrom, & Stern, 2003;
Ostrom, 1999). The well-known and often-rehearsed element of Hardin‟s argument was that
rationally behaving herders would put too many animals on common grazing land leading to
its overgrazing and degradation, even though they knew that this was the outcome: a form of
prisoner‟s dilemma on a larger scale with more actors. As a result, commons were not a
sustainable form of land management for anything but very sparsely populated areas. Either
state intervention (Hardin‟s preference) or privatisation was required if the tragedy was to be
avoided.
From the point of view of common property and CBNRM theorists, the faulty assumption that
Hardin made was that the herders would not communicate with each other and there would be
no spontaneous social organisation in response to the threat of overgrazing. Hardin was not in
fact describing a situation of common property, but rather an open access regime. Common
property rights theory takes issue with the assumption that commons regimes are de facto
open-access regimes:
The prediction that resource users are led inevitably to destroy CPRs is based on a model that
assumes all individuals are selfish, norm-free and maximisers of short-run results. ...
However, predictions based on this model are not supported in field research or in laboratory
experiments in which individuals face a public good or CPR problem and are able to
communicate, sanction one another, or make new rules (Ostrom, 1999, p. 279).
Common property theory takes into account the possibility that populations may take on some
of the characteristics of a community, and that this may enable local institutions to develop
which enable a more rational balancing of community and individual interests than that
assumed in the tragedy scenario:
Simply enabling subjects to engage in face-to-face communication between decision rounds
enables them to approach socially optimal harvesting levels rather than severely
overharvesting the commons (Ostrom, 2007, p. 15183).
As we have seen, one of the criticisms of programmes of systematic land titling is that they
deliver an individualised, exclusive ownership. Schlager and Ostrom (1992) encouraged a
more disaggregated understanding of property rights in the context of common property
regimes
The conception of rights in common property rights (CPR) theory is typically more complex
than that used in the theoretical literature on the benefits of land registration and
51
formalisation. Rather than one simple category of exclusive ownership, a hierarchy of rights is
imagined (see Table 2-1) and these are conceptualised as „bundles of rights‟ (see Table 2-2).
Table 2-1: Hierarchy of Rights in Common Property Regimes
Right Defined as the right to...
Access ...enter a defined physical property
Withdrawal ...obtain the „products‟ of a resource (e.g. catch fish, appropriate water etc)
Management ...regulate internal use patterns and transform the resource by making improvements
Exclusion ...determine who will have an access right, and how that right may be transferred
Alienation ...the right to sell or lease either or both the above collective-choice rights
Source: Adapted from Schlager and Ostrom, 1992, p. 250-1
Table 2-2 Bundles of Property Rights Associated with Different Types of Rights-Holder
Hierarchy of Rights Owner Proprietor Claimant Authorised
user
Access and withdrawal X X X X
Management X X X
Exclusion X X
Alienation X
Source: Schlager and Ostrom, 1992, p. 252
An empirical literature, revolving around the work of Ostrom, draws on real world cases and
laboratory experiments in order to identify key variables and criteria for functioning common
property regimes and commons management. A central theme in this literature is an insistence
on the complexity of common property scenarios and, therefore, of the complexity of any
institutional arrangements for common property management and of any intervention that
intends to support such institutions. Ostrom has, throughout her career, rallied against
simplifications (arguing that much policy discussion is so simplified that it constitutes
metaphor) and panaceas. Furthermore, that the failure to acknowledge the complexity of
“institutional details” has been particularly disastrous where communally owned forests in
Third World countries have been nationalised (Ostrom, 1990, pp. 22-23).
If the common property literature is framed as an enquiry into the circumstances in which
some form of common property regime may be preferable to state ownership or private,
individualised ownership (Ostrom, 1999, p. 279), of particular interest for this thesis are the
conditions which this literature suggests as being important for an effective common property
regime. Dietz et al. (2003, p. 1908) did not offer any clear definitive conditions but suggested
that effective commons governance were “easier to achieve” when the following five
conditions obtained:
resources and resource use can be monitored;
rates of change are moderate – applies to resource, resource use, population,
technology, economic and social conditions;
frequent face to face communication and dense social networks among the
community; outsiders can be excluded at low cost;
users support effective monitoring and rule enforcement.
52
However, they also insisted that few settings in the world would be characterized by these
features so that:
―The challenge is to devise institutional arrangements that help to establish such conditions‖.
Furthermore, given the dynamics of biophysical, socioeconomic and technical change, and the
inevitability of humans devising ways to evade governance rules, that institutions must be
capable of delivering ―adaptive governance‖. This is held to be particularly difficult in cases
where challenges involve ―systems that are intrinsically global‖ such as ―timber production
for the world market‖, and where situations ―differentials in power within user groups or
across scales allow some to ignore rules of commons use or to reshape the rules in their won
interest, such as when global markets reshape demand for local resources‖ (Dietz et al., 2003,
pp. 1908-1909)
Agrawal (2007) has reviewed the relationship between forest management and the common
property literature providing a more forest-oriented discussion of the conditions necessary for
effective common property regimes (see Table 2-3).
Table 2-3: Analytical Framework and Agrawal's Observations on the Literature
Cluster of variables Observations
The resource system Key variables include size of the resource system, its boundaries, rate and
predictability of benefits, ease of monitoring conditions.
Notwithstanding priority assigned by Ostrom (2005) and others, biophysical
properties of forests tend to be neglected in scholarship on forest-based
commons.
The users While, smaller, interdependent, relatively homogenous, well off and groups
that are very forest dependent and do not suffer sudden shocks in their
demand for forest resources are more likely to successfully create institutions
that effectively regulate forest governance, cause-effect relations of
particular variables are not linear or predictable “whether the relationship
between different measures of successful governance of commons, and
group characteristics such as size, heterogeneity, interdependence,
dependence on forests, and poverty is negative, positive, or curvilinear seems
subject to a range of other contextual and mediating factors, not all of which
are clearly understood”.
Institutional
arrangements
“Rules that are easy to understand and enforce, locally devised, take into
account differences in types of violations, help deal with conflicts, and help
hold users and officials accountable are most likely to lead to effective
governance”. Although what that really means is difficult to understand and
apply given the instabilities and breadth of terms, and the fact that “there
may be literally hundreds of thousands of rule combinations from which
decision makers can choose”
External
environment
“Demographic, cultural, technological, market-related factors, the nature of
state agencies, and the level of involvement of other actors and forces such
as NGOs and international aid flows are issues to which those interested in
deforestation have been more attentive than scholars of forest commons”.
Source: Adapted from Agrawal (2007, p.118-125)
Whilst the institutional economics orientation of Ostrom and her collaborators has paid more
attention to the structure of incentives required to enable effective institutional functioning,
the issue of the origins of common property rights regimes and management systems is also
important within the literature. For Alden Wily, for example, common property regimes are
by definition customary and indigenous (Alden Wily, 2008, p. 45). From a policy point of
view, this sets up the potential option of common property rights interventions as a
53
formalisation programme analogous to the formalisation of informal possession into formal
legal tenure. In other words, that it might not entail engineering of incentives and building of
new institutions, but rather be a matter of providing legal title and recognition for already
existing processes. This shifts the discussion slightly, and, as we shall see, opens up debates
around what a common property intervention consists of (introducing a new development or
preserving an existing – though dynamic – institution), and around how the world of policy
and intervention apprehends (represents/misrepresents) what is informal, local or indigenous.
2.4.7 Critiques of Common Property Rights Approaches
While land titling programmes and the trend towards formalising individualised, private
tenure have been criticised on ideological grounds, for incorporating people in economic
relations which expose them to the vagaries of the market and the threat of dispossession, no
comparable critique is made against common property rights (CPR) and related community
based natural resource management (CBNRM) approaches. Scrupulously set within a context
of alternatives that include state and private individualised tenure and management, and
paying attention to natural science, economics and broader social science concerns the
CPR/CBNRM agenda is not typically regarded as carrying any particular ideological load
either as a project of the left or of the right. Critiques of CPR/CBNRM tend to nod
respectfully at the theoretical grounds (Blaikie, 2006, p. 1952), but protest at the way these are
mobilised in discourses which pay insufficient attention to either actual livelihoods or political
economy/ecology settings. Blaikie sees this as a global tendency and ascribes it to precisely
the sort of simplifications that Ostrom has repeatedly set out to counter in scientific work, but
which have a particular resilience in policy circles as, for example, Roe has argued in his book
on policy narratives and meta-narratives:
Stories commonly used in describing and analyzing policy issues are a force in themselves,
and must be considered explicitly in assessing policy options. Further, these stories often
resist change or modification even in the presence of contradicting empirical data, because
they continue to underwrite and stabilize the assumptions for decision making in the face of
high uncertainty, complexity and polarization (Roe, 1994, p. 2 cited in Blaikie 2006, p1947).
This tendency for CPR/CBNRM narratives to succeed at policy level has often led to
CPR/CBNRM being promoted and implemented in places where they are ill-matched to the
livelihoods and political ecology settings. This tendency is exacerbated by a tendency to focus
on local institional arrangements rather than broader political ecology contexts (“the
continuing and nearly single-minded concentration of commons scholarship on institutions
and property rights” as Agrawal, 2007 p.129 expressed it)
Walker (2004, p. 312) coined the term „arborealisation‟ to describe the way in which
community forestry discourses “recast upland livelihoods as forest livelihoods”. He argued
that this misrepresented both the main livelihood activities of the forest-dwelling poor, which
were primarily agricultural and not Non-timber Forest Product (NTFP) oriented, and also the
main forms of tenure, which in relation to agricultural land were private possession rights to
individual plots. Walker included four elements of misrepresentation in arborealisation, as
people were framed as: essentially non-commercial (so even where commercial activities are
acknowledged they are classified as non-authentic); shifting cultivators; NTFP gatherers – and
culturally disposed to be such; dependent on environmental services from forests. These
elements of misrepresentation were maintained in spite of lack of evidence to support them,
and even clear evidence to contradict them (Walker, 2004, pp. 313-315). These might be said
to comprise a „forest caricature‟ similar to the „rural caricature‟ first encountered in the 1990s
studies in Chapter 1, and found by Rigg et al. (2010) to still be in circulation in the late 2000s.
54
Casting the net a little wider in Southeast Asia, Tania Murray Li has reviewed experience in
Philippines and Indonesia and concluded that “the forest-dwelling, resource-conserving,
„traditional‟ indigenous uplanders who serve as exemplars or embodiments of CBNRM are
relatively rare on the upland scene” (Li, 2002, p. 267). She found that this contrasted starkly
with the realities of upland livelihoods, which have long-since and irreversibly been
transformed, largely by smallholder initiatives, to an intensive, sedentary, cash-crop
orientation (Li, 2002, p. 269). She furthermore, again in ways that mirror Walker‟s
observations in Thailand, found that CBNRM discourses were mobilised by donor-driven
conservation campaigns aiming to resist the expansion of oil palm production, whilst the
interests of villagers would have been better served by improving the terms on which villagers
could deal with plantations (Li, 2002, p. 272).
At the same time, she found that, not necessarily by conscious and deliberate design, and still
at the same time as potentially opening up opportunities for dialogue and resistance,
community forestry also to some degree extended State control over communities and forests.
Communities were allocated “only land which is already denuded of trees and extracts from
them cheap labor in reforestation and protection” (Li, 2002, p. 274), while more valuable land
was allocated to logging or plantations as economic concessions.
Continuing the theme of misrepresentation Li argued, referencing Peluso, that CBNRM
rhetoric in Indonesia:
Tends to locate the essence of community in a pre-colonial past and then truncate the time
frame such that autonomous communities are assumed to have persisted throughout the
colonial and postcolonial period, up to the time of intensified logging beginning in the 1960s
(Li, 2002, p. 276).
In relation to the notion that CBNRM might empower communities in relation to the state she
argued that communities should be imagined within the state rather than in opposition to it30
,
and that:
Where citizens are indeed up against ―vicious states‖, the potential of CBNRM to empower
them is very limited (Li, 2002, p. 278).
While Murray Li‟s, Blaikie‟s and Walker‟s critiques of CBNRM speak to the dangers of
policy simplifications and incapacity to engage with the realities of local livelihoods and
political ecology, they also raise the question of policy intention. While common property
rights theories envisage benefits for both communities and the survival of commons
resources, the impulse for their implementation might be more one-sided. Specifically,
whether it is international conservation agencies seeking traction over resources in distant
places, or national forestry authorities seeking consolidation of their territory and cheap labour
for resource management, the policy intervention may effectively consist of an attempt to co-
opt local people‟s labour in the interests of the higher aim of resource management or
conversation. Murray Li, adopting a position that prioritises the rights of upland peoples
argues:
The search must therefore continue for legal strategies which secure for uplanders the benefits
of a fuller citizenship and which offer them, and expect from them, no more and no less than
other citizens. In order to tease out what these strategies might be, it will be necessary to go
beyond the simplifications of the CBNRM model, and locate its assumptions more precisely
within the changing political economy and ecology of upland settings (Li, 2002, p. 278).
30
This is coherent with arguments Li has made elsewhere in relation to the work of Scott where she argues that
there is no space beyond the State (nor indeed beyond the market), and that conceptualizations to the contrary are
misguided (Li, 2005).
55
2.5 Conclusion
In the first section of this chapter a framework was developed. Bebbington has suggested a
form of geography of development intervention which maps development interventions
(intentional development) onto key features of political economy (immanent development)
and analyses the relationship between the two. My `Critical Geography of Development
Intervention‟ framework modifies the definitions of intentional and immanent development
somewhat, not least to stress that „immanent‟ development consists of a range of ongoing
material and ideological struggles which any development intervention must contend with. It
also complements the focus on the spatial distribution of phenomena with the use of
contextualised studies of place as a means by which to engage critically with the generalised
claims of development theory and policy, and the conceptualisation of development
interventions as journeys – real and metaphorical – in order to unpack the discursive and
political shapings of intervention and therefore the temporal and contingent nature, of any
given spatial arrangement of intervention.
In the second section, a selective three-stop guided tour of theoretical and empirical studies
relating to the travels of development journeys yielded perspectives that will inform the
arguments and findings in this thesis. First, the ever expanding nature of development
industry agendas, with the consequent risk of overreach were highlighted, as was the
possibility of unintended but beneficial events being set in motion. Institutional economics
perspectives explained how the incentives structuring the industry do not tend to hold it
accountable to the rural poor who might otherwise be regarded as its clients. Rather, the lines
of accountability point back to the donor country and tend to encourage reporting of success
based on the few direct outputs that interventions can best control. Second, national political
elites representing host governments are crucial as they play the role of gatekeeper and
development partner. The development industry tends to represent national governments as
„development partners‟ often framing them as having very similar motivations to development
agencies but lacking the capacities to implement them. Our reference to neo-patrimonialism,
shadow state theory and the Southeast Asian „Asian Values‟ developmental state have shown,
by contrast, how political elites will always have a political project of their own. Whether this
is aimed at national improvement or self-enrichment or a mixture of the two, it is unlikely to
be reflected in the formal positions adopted by the political elite. Shadow state theory in
particular is complemented by resource curse literature and work such as that by Ferguson
(2005) which puts the resource curse into a spatial frame. 3. Literature on livelihoods and
Southeast Asian rural transformation, has focused on economic relations and mobility. A
persistent debate between those who see agriculture as central to rural transformation, and
those who see other links to wider markets enabling economic transformations that do not
depend on the agricultural sector. These happen in a shifting landscape of frontiers and
hinterlands, but it is largely a gentler, less violent landscape than that portrayed in the shadow
state literature. Although the effects of recent transformation have been uneven, with winners
and losers; there is a sense on the one hand, that there have been more winners than losers in
recent times, but on the other hand that the gains are fragile and that populations may rapidly
become extremely vulnerable.
Finally, we turned to the theoretical underpinnings of the interventions that constitute this
case. Systematic land titling and common property rights (CPR) interventions are contrasting
from an ideological point of view. Land titling is a market enabling strategy and one that has
taken precedence over strategies that prioritise state interventions to allocate land. CPR on the
hand occupies a third space with neither market nor state as allocator and manager. Both land
titling and CPR interventions have been credibly shown to be effective in particular times and
particular places. Proponents of both approaches stress that the respective interventions,
56
whilst having great potential, can only yield that potential if the context is suitable. Land
titling will have potential if there are competent authorities respectively to enforce ownership
and to register transactions, and if there are adequate supplies of credit. The extent of that
potential will be determined by the extent to which pre-titling conditions did not already
provide tenure security, credit and functioning land markets. Common property rights
interventions and community-based natural resource management initiatives will have more
prospect of success if the resource users can exclude non-members effectively and at
reasonable cost, if the resource users are not too many, too heterogeneous or too
geographically spread, and if there is not extreme instability in the biophysical, economic or
social and political relations around the common property regime. As with land titling the
clear paradox is that the more suitable the pre-intervention context is for intervention, the less
urgent the need for intervention is likely to be in that context.
The empirical chapters of this thesis will describe the distribution of systematic land titling
and community forestry interventions in Cambodia, and will provide detailed studies of two
places where these interventions were implemented. This will enable conclusions to be drawn
in the context both of existing literature on the respective interventions in Cambodia, the
broader literature on these sorts of intervention as reviewed in this chapter, as well as
attempting to suggest some broader implications for the development industry and for critical
geographies of development intervention. First, however, in chapter 3, I will describe and
justify the methods employed for this study.
57
3 Investigating Intervention at National and Local Scales
3.1 Justification of Overall Approach and Scales
Chapter one has introduced this project which is an enquiry into the relationship between
property rights interventions and the lives and livelihoods of the rural Cambodians that they
are designed to assist. This is set in the context of a broader interest in the tendency of rural
development interventions both to fail to make a substantial difference to the people they are
intended to benefit, and to misrepresent their context.
In chapter two a critical development geography was proposed. This would, on the one hand,
use studies of place to provide a critical lens through which to view the generalised claims of
development policy and theory, and on the other hand would use studies of the spatial
distribution of interventions as a means of revealing key interests and ideas which are not
apparent in the policies that framed interventions.
Detailed case studies provide the possibility of “holistic understanding of complex processes”
(Mayoux, 2006, p. 117). In this case, then, village studies would provide the means by which
rural livelihoods could be seen in their everyday, lived context, and by which central concepts
and mechanisms envisaged in the interventions could be seen worked out in everyday life. A
detailed case study would provide us with insights as to how tenure insecurity was
experienced, or what the processes were which led to changes in levels of local control over
resources. At the same time, some weaknesses are typically associated with case study work
at the sort of small scale where these holistic understandings can be achieved. One is that of
representativeness. How can a single village represent a whole country? Another is that of
bias.
The „representativeness‟ of a detailed, contextualised village case study is different to the
„representativeness‟ of a large-sample survey. The main risk of a detailed case study is that it
might portray an exceptional case, or that it might prove impossible to tell from that case what
is specific and what is general. The main risk of a large-sample survey, on the other hand, is
that the meaning of the answers might be somewhat thin31
. Conventionally, these weaknesses
are complementary. A small scale study may identify a particular phenomenon or mechanism
and explain it in the study context. If this phenomenon is sufficiently important and the
explanation sufficiently convincing, these may then be tested against a wider sample using
quantitative methods. In practice, there are other matters of degree and debate around the
representativeness of any specific case, which might be characterised as discussions of what a
case might represent. In
31
In the context of this thesis, one thinks for example of the statistic cited by Deininger (2005) and Markussen
(2008) that 21% of respondents in the 2005 Socio-Economic Survey had land titles. As Markussen explained, no
titling had been done on that scale in Cambodia at that time, so the respondents must have meant something
different – but with only anonymous statistics available, it is only possible to speculate as to what the responses
meant.
58
other words, a study of a remote fishing village might potentially represent other remote
fishing villages, and therefore a subsequent iteration of research using quantitative methods
might only extend its scope to include other remote fishing villages. Defining characteristics
of a case may be developed both in advance (as criteria for selection of the case) or in
retrospect (once the case has been analysed and key factors and dimensions more fully
understood). In this research, then, careful consideration has been given as to what the local
cases might represent.
At the same time, however, it should be noted that in practice this iteration between case study
and survey work is somewhat rare. The processes described by case study work may be too
complex or embedded to lend themselves to quantitative work. Or the case study might be so
convincing in its own right that it rapidly circulates and influences research and policy
without need to be tested against larger samples.
More vexed than the question of representation (though they are often related) is the question
of bias. Subjective biases are often held to be more likely in qualitative research which
focuses on contextualised studies at a small scale (Mayoux, 2006, p. 121). It is acknowledged
that bias is possible in the design and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative studies. The
response to this is that a researcher should firstly, strive after objectivity, even whilst
acknowledging that no method can be entirely value-free and objective, and secondly, should
attempt to specify and acknowledge biases (Holme & Solvang, 1997). In this study, I have
both attempted to be objective, but have also sought to acknowledge my biases. Thus chapter
one clearly situates me as a sceptic in relation to the effectiveness of rural development
initiatives generally, and also makes clear that I have an expectation that the development
industry may misrepresent rural livelihoods. These are not matters of uninformed prejudice,
but are rather grounded in personal experience and in my readings of development studies
literature. Nevertheless, in respect to the current thesis, they do constitute bias: I have
acknowledged that bias, explained where it comes from, and I have during design
implementation and analysis phases striven after objectivity notwithstanding any biases that I
have32
.
With regard to the study of the spatial distribution of the intervention, choices regarding
which phenomena should be identified to enable a mapping of “the uneven geographies of
poverty and livelihood under capitalist expansion and contraction” (Bebbington, 2004, p. 726)
followed the choice of intervention to be studied and will be treated below. The question of
scale, however, can be treated here. The spatial distribution of an intervention or its effects
could have been studied at various scales – at district or province level, for example, or within
a particular watershed. Indeed, the local case studies did provide the opportunity to study
spatial distribution of the interventions at the village scale. However, as we saw in Chapter 2,
given the national government in the crucial dual role of gatekeeper/development partner,
national scale investigations are particularly valuable for attempting to discern national scale
interests and dynamics not immediately apparent in policy framings.
3.2 Evolution of Research Design and Selection of Cases
In the context of a 4-year PhD employment, and given the difficulty and sensitivity of some of
my research interests, I determined to make the research phase of the project as long as
feasibly possible and to adopt an approach that would be flexible and iterative. The research
32
I might also add that another bias that I have is that in all the years that I have done development research I
have always hoped to find examples of intervention that have genuinely made a difference to people‟s
circumstances. My hopes are profoundly biased in a quite different direction to the acknowledged biases in my
expectations.
59
plan therefore consisted of a one year inception phase followed by a two year main phase. In
total I had just over six months of field work available to me in Cambodia. This was divided
into six one-month research trips, two during the inception phase and four during the main
phase.
The intention during the inception phase was to ground the research in the study of the lives
and livelihoods of people in a single rural village, and to use that experience to identify an
issue of critical importance in their livelihoods. Leaving the decision about that issue until the
conclusion of the inception phase was an attempt to let the research respond to local
circumstance rather than just to my own interests. The methods for the main phase were
likewise not to be decided until the completion of the inception period in order that they could
be tailored to fit the research task that emerged. My assumption was that the issues identified
at village scale would be followed up by a larger scale quantitative survey thereby generating
an iterative process between small-scale and large-scale methods. As it turned out, local
circumstances did very much influence the shape and content of the research, although
contrary to my own expectations, the research effort included a sustained focus on two
villages over a three year period. Below I recount the process by which the two villages and
the research themes were selected, before, in the sections that follow, detailing the actual
methods used.
A village in Cambodia may be anything from a dozen to a thousand households, with the
rough average at the 1998 census being 164 households33
. For my purposes, a smaller village
was an advantage if I was to have a chance of developing an adequate understanding of the
entire village. I therefore made size of village a criterion and gave smaller villages priority
during the selection of a case.
The next criterion that I applied was to try and identify a village where there might be easily
traceable links to the sort of powerful and wealthy people who might have a dominant role in
setting the social and economic conditions for rural life, but not be resident in rural villages.
To do this I took advantage of some existing research in order to select a village with an
unusually wealthy resident. At the time that I was beginning my research, the international
NGO Oxfam had been carrying out some research on landholdings in rural areas of
Cambodia. They had a database where it was possible to identify villages which included
some residents with very large agricultural landholdings. Their largest category for an
individual land-owner was over 50 hectares. I reasoned that any individual who had acquired
that much land would not be a „normal‟ poor villager, and would have connections to wealth
and power beyond the local area. From the category of villages in the Oxfam survey which
contained land owners with more than 50 hectares I then chose the smallest rural village. It
was by this means that the village that I call Bey, in Chhlong district of Kracheh province was
selected as the study village for the inception phase34
.
After an initial overnight reconnaissance visit, the village research began in earnest on 26 July
2006, when I deployed for the first time to Bey village accompanied by a research team (see
33
This is a crude estimate achieved by dividing the 1998 census population of 11,437,656 by the number of
villages, 13,406, and then by the average household size, 5,2. These figures include both rural and urban
settlement so may not be perfectly accurate. (I suspect that the average rural village size is nearer 250
households). 34
Ironically, we were never able to identify who the Oxfam research had pinpointed as owning over 50 hectares.
We obtained the phone numbers of the students who had done the research in Bey village but were not able to
talk to them. Nobody in the village reported owning more than 50 hectares of land, although it is certainly
possible that landholdings of some of the wealthier households involved in trading land did extend that far.
60
below). On our first evening we35
heard that officials from the Forestry Administration had
called a meeting in the village school. I attended that meeting, and was astonished to find
myself sitting alongside the villagers as a forestry official, employing the calmest and most
reasoning of tones, informed a third of the villagers that they were to be evicted from their
land so that the State could allow the forest to grow back again. That evening, I watched the
deputy village chief distribute and collect forms for villagers to protest the evictions. My
attention was caught by the fact that the villagers started to refer to these forms as „land titles‟.
One immediate concern was that if this village was to become a site of mass evictions that a
foreign researcher might not be a welcome witness to the conflicts and violence that that
might involve. I felt that I needed a contingency in order to be able to continue the project if I
was barred access to Bey.
At the same time, having heard the villagers talking of „land titles‟ I was struck by the
possibility of comparing the informal situation in Bey to the official land titling process that
was proceeding elsewhere in the country. I therefore decided to select another village which
could be the sole research village for the inception phase if Bey became inaccessible, and
which could also provide the basis for a comparision of informal and formal land titling
processes.
In order to do this, I chose Bati district, because this is the district where I understood that the
systematic land titling process had first been piloted and then implemented. Bati district town
is only a little more than an hour‟s drive from Phnom Penh. From amongst the communes in
Bati that had already been registered, I decided to try and identify a relatively remote
commune within the district in order to make the case study as „rural‟ as possible36
. Within
that commune I identified the smallest village, which I am calling „Buon‟ in this study, for the
reasons given above.
At that point I therefore had two small villages and one issue, namely land tenure security. In
Buon there was a development industry activity, namely systematic land titling within the
Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which had been implemented in
order to address the issue of tenure security. From the point of view of the development
industry, Bey was therefore the village where LMAP did not go. I was therefore interested to
look at the question of what sort of development industry intervention did go to this village.
The main development intervention in Bey was community forestry. This suited my purpose
well given that it was also a form of tenure security intervention.
By late 2006, then, after just one of the two inception visits, I had already identified two
villages, (whereas I had initially planned to only work in one) and also a broad theme,
property rights interventions, with two specific cases – land titling and community forestry –
when I had not intended to identify a theme until completion of the inception phase. Indeed, in
the case of the second village, Buon, the activity was identified not on the basis of the
interests and priorities of the villagers, but on the basis of my own interest that had been
catalysed by events in Bey. Already at that stage, then, the shape of the research was different
to what I had anticipated.
35
During village research I employed a team. I therefore tend to use the first person plural “we” to describe our
activities in the village, and the first person singular “I” where I am referring to decisions and actions that I took
alone. This is in addition to use of “we” where, as the context makes clear, it is the reader who is incorporated in
the first person … “as we shall see”, “as we have seen” etc. 36
At this stage nowhere in Bati could be described as „peri-urban‟, though this is likely to change in the coming
years and decades.
61
At the end of the inception period there remained a question to answer about the approach for
the remainder of the study. Would I continue in the two villages, or would I attempt to scale
up, or could I do both? At that point in the research there were many unknowns in Bey: I was
in the midst of unravelling the motives behind the initial attempt to evict the villagers, as well
as following the processes by which the villagers‟ protests would be examined and
adjudicated, and working out the allegiances and intentions of various other actors rumoured
to be wanting to become active in the village. Meanwhile, I discovered that a well-designed
baseline study had been carried out to assess the impacts of land titling in rural Cambodia
(including field research in four provinces that had undergone land registration as well as in a
fifth village that would not be registered in the near future and would serve as a control case),
and that it would be followed up in 2007. The prospective availability of these research
findings allied to interest in understanding the dynamics that lay behind the mass eviction
initiative in Bey (which of course provided me with the possibility of the explicit link between
poverty and power that I had been looking for but not as I had intended) led me to continue to
focus the primary research on achieving a deeper understanding of unfolding events in the two
case study villages, and to put them in a wider context by means of secondary sources and
interviews with actors at provincial and national levels.
This one-thing-leads-to-another process of selecting interventions and villages meant that I
had, adopted one lowland rice village and one upland forest village. I had in other words
chanced upon the two types of landscape which dominate not only rural Cambodia, but the
whole of rural Southeast Asia. This clearly did not make them representative of all upland
forest and all lowland rice field villages: a village like Bey inhabited by people from the
Khmer majority would for example differ from a Phnong or Kravet minority village in one of
the neighbouring provinces; similarly a village like Buon with small landholdings, rain-fed
agriculture and poor soils would differ from the villages with irrigation, fertile soils and large
landholdings found in the same province but nearer the border with Vietnam. Nonetheless,
this possibility of broader resonances was at least opened up and was partly responsible for
inspiring the national level case study which is the first of this dissertation‟s three empirical
cases.
The national case study involved reviewing secondary sources, and supplementing these with
interviews with key stakeholders involved in order to construct the geographies of,
respectively, tenure insecurity, systematic land titling and community forestry.
3.3 Conduct of the Village Studies
The village studies each consisted of six stays of approximately a week once every wet season
and once every dry season from July 2006 until March 2009. In total, approximately 370
interviews were conducted, about 140 interviews in each village and a further 90 interviews
with government officials and development practitioners. At village level these were
complemented by a series of questionnaires and surveys. The rest of this chapter describes and
explains the conduct of the research
3.3.1 Research Team Composition
One of my advantages in conducting this research is my fluency in the Khmer language.
Bernard (2002) notes the risks attendant on being a researcher who does not know the local
language, especially those related to being considered a “freak” and to being given
mischievously false information. In his words, “The most important thing you can do to stop
being a freak is to speak the language of the people you are studying – and speak it well”
(Bernard, 2002, p. 339).
62
The employment of a research team was a matter of choice, therefore, rather than of necessity.
A small team, I reasoned, would enable us to maximise the amount of information collected in
a (relatively) short period of time, and also to provide different interpretations of our findings.
Four heads, I decided would be better than one.
I assembled a team that included a mixture of age and sex, and also that included people who
had grown up in rural areas of the country (see photography at Figure 3-1) The assumption
here is that women like to talk to women, men like to talk to men, old people like to talk to
other older people etc. Obviously other dynamics also apply, but by ensuring that our team
was as heterogeneous as possible we maximised our chances of benefiting from those
dynamics. Myself and a lady from a village in Battambang whom I had known since 1998
were the older half of the team, while two students formed the younger half of the team. At
the outset these were two final year sociology students, who (as they became unavailable)
were then replaced by geography students from the Royal University of Phnom Penh. At the
risk of stating the obvious, the characters and abilities of the research team members were
crucial to the success or otherwise of the research (Simon, 2006, p. 165).
Photograph: Robin Biddulph
Figure 3-1: Research team in Phnom Penh, 2008. Saroth, Chanreth, Dina, Robin
In many ways the personality of the team members was more important than their intellectual
capacity. They must be the sort of people who villagers would want to talk to, and the sort of
people who would want to listen, and who would be curious enough to ask follow-up
questions and interested enough to remember and reflect on what they were told.
3.3.2 The Profile of the Research Team in the Villages
During the research we stayed in the villages overnight. This enabled us for a time to be as
involved in the life of the village as much as possible. We did not offer to pay for
63
accommodation, but did pay for our food. As guests we developed relationships in the village
and particularly with the members of the households where we stayed. Typically we would
give small gifts as souvenirs of our visits and as tokens of our gratitude. This seemed to be
both basic courtesy and to fit with what is recommended in the literature (e.g. Brydon, 2006,
p. 30).
We sought to achieve a balance during our research between being seen to be approved of by
the local authorities (and therefore not a threat to them, which might cause people to avoid
us), and at the same time having enough distance from them that we might have the chance to
hear critical and dissident voices. This is part of the standard problem of both entering a
community at the same time as not being captured by „gatekeepers‟ who enable that entry
(e.g. Apentiik & Parpart, 2006, pp. 35-36; Brydon, 2006, p. 28; Momsen, 2006, p. 49; Willis,
2006, pp. 147-148).
On arrival in the village, especially for our first visit, and especially on any occasion when we
had new members in the research team, we always ensured that we went for a walk around the
village area, this was as much so that we could be observed as it was so that we could
observe. We would be in the company of the village chief, and therefore our presence was
tacitly approved. And people would have already seen us once, and possibly had their
curiosity aroused, so that when we arrived at their houses we would not be complete
strangers.
Typically, we would begin the first morning with a long interview with the village chief and
others in the village authorities. Partly this was strategic. By the end of that process they
would start to tire of us, and any desire they had to follow us around and monitor us would be
exhausted. Furthermore, by dividing the team of four to work as either pairs or individuals we
were effectively beyond the resources of the village authorities to monitor. Having said that
we made efforts to insulate ourselves from the oversight of the authorities in order to ensure
that we gave ourselves the best chance of hearing critical voices, it is also worth noting as an
aside that deputy village chiefs in each of the villages were clearly the men with the best
relationships with higher levels in the ruling party hierarchy, and were also the source of some
of the most critical comments we heard.
It is not, of course, certain, that deliberately being seen in the company of the authorities was
the best strategy for ensuring that we also heard critical voices. However, my reasoning was
that given the hierarchies and formalities of visiting a Cambodian village that distancing
ourselves from the authorities might have made people reluctant to be seen confiding in us.
By making ourselves as respectable as possible we tried to ensure that talking to us was not
seen or experienced as a seditious or dangerous activity. It was then up to us to win people‟s
confidence such that we could get the fullest and frankest possible answers from them.
Our selection of a place to stay involved a similar balancing act. Often in a village there is a
senior woman who is not in practice an everyday participant in the work of the authorities, but
who is formally involved and recognised as one of them. We succeeded in staying with just
such a woman in Buon. In Bey, however, we were immediately adopted by the deputy village
chief and his wife: they claimed that nobody else in the village would be able to cook food
good enough for us and insisted we stay with them.
During interviews we always explained that our work was to enable Robin to write a book
about people‟s life in rural Cambodia so that people in Britain and Sweden can know about it.
We always insisted that we were not going to help anybody and were nothing to do with any
development project. It is unlikely that this was completely believed, indeed the commune
chief responsible for Buon village was quite explicit in saying that he knew that we had to say
64
this, but that in the end we would be providing assistance, or telling somebody else to provide
assistance. Presumably at least some of the people we interacted with acted on that
assumption and it is difficult to see what more we could have done to avoid that.
3.3.3 Conduct of Interviews
Priority was given to putting the interviewee at ease. To the extent that there is a trade-off
between getting the interviewee to talk freely, and capturing everything that they say, I
consistently prioritised the former. Decisions about how and when the interviews were
documented were also decentralised within the team. When we worked in pairs one person
typically took notes and the other asked questions. So in cases where we were carrying out
individual interviews (as opposed to administering questionnaires), researchers were given the
choice of whether they took notes during the interview or waited until afterwards. In practice,
the Cambodian team members always took notes when they interviewed respondents, and I
usually did so too. If I took notes afterwards it was more likely to be following a chance
encounter, or where a conversation had taken place when I was doing something else.
Working on the assumption that the interview itself might be sufficiently constraining for the
interviewee to result in much screening of information (as the informant kindly, and
desperately tries to second guess what the interviewer wants to hear and then to provide them
with that information), researchers were also encouraged to close their books at the end of an
interview, set their pens aside and have a bit of a chat, to give a chance for anything that was
on the interviewees mind to come out.
For this same reason I did not generally tape record interviews. This was a policy which I
modified towards the end of the study. For certain set-piece interviews, where I already
considered that I had captured the sensitive information, or where the information was not of a
sensitive nature, I recorded the interview37
. This particularly included some accounts of
village history with older villagers in Buon, and an interview with the head of the community
forestry group in Bey recapping all that we had talked about during the previous two and a
half years. This latter interview provided confirmation of the idea that people will not talk as
freely when they are recorded. Whilst he appeared as frank as usual, there were certain issues
and incidents where his position shifted, and where he specifically refused to make allegations
which he had made before. This set up certain questions which (every project must have a
finish) could not be resolved. Was it fear inspired by the recorder which made him more
cautious? Or had he been exaggerating earlier when he could speak without fear of
contradiction or consequence, and was the recorded response in fact the more honest one?
More generally, interview notes were gone through after lunch and in the evening of each day,
with the researchers reporting what they had learned and me translating and transcribing
directly into English in my notebook or (on later visits) laptop computer.
Interviews ranged in character. Generally there was a structured portion where researchers
would ask specific questions followed by a less structured portion. Chance encounters and
unexpected conversations also contributed to our data and were also on a few occasions
documented. On one evening, for example, we were washing at a remote spot at the stream
east of Bey after the water had risen to high at our normal washing place and were approached
by a villager who shared extremely sensitive information with us. On other occasions
information acquired in casual conversations could then be confirmed later in interviews.
37
All of these strategies – audio recording, taking notes during the interview, taking notes after the interview –
are recognized as legitimate options, each with relative advantages and disadvantages, in the method literature,
(e.g.Willis, 2006, pp. 149-150).
65
The interviews have all been recorded in Word files and assigned a number. In my records are
the typed up notes/transcripts along with the names of the interviewee and interviewer, the
date and in the case of the village interviews the household number that we used to identify
the household in our records and maps. In the text interviews are referred to by a simple
number. All interviews referenced in the text are listed at Appendix 1 and there the date of the
interview, identity of the interviewer, gender of the interviewee and other limited descriptive
information which does not breach confidentiality is provided (c.f. Brydon, 2006, pp. 26-27).
3.3.4 Village Census and Developing Analytical Categories
The villages were assumed to be stratified and dynamic. In other words, it was not expected
that all household would have similar livelihoods. An early attempt to identify any patterns of
difference which might be used to disaggregate the village population was a village census.
This involved administering a short questionnaire at every household in the village. For every
household this told us when their household had formed in the village (i.e. when the couple
got married, or when they moved to the village); when they had occupied their current plot;
when they had built their current house; whether they owned a television and/or a motorcycle.
For every individual this told us: when and where they were born; their name and sex; their
location on the day of the census; their main activity on the day of the census (see Appendix
1). This enabled us to solve what Gould (2006, p. 82) has called one of the “classic technical
problems” of “having a systematic baseline and population or household universe for deriving
a community sample”
By comparing data on migration and livelihood activities and discussing these with our hosts
in the village we were able to make an initial disaggregation of the village population. These
disaggregations were different for each village, as for example, one of the villages had
undergone successive waves of migration which underpinned the class system and division of
labour in the village, whilst no such demographic changes were apparent in the other village.
A secondary benefit of beginning with the census was that very early in the research process
we had been in every household in the village. This meant that we could already at that stage
rely on our observations to inform our choice of case study households and interviewees and
not therefore be dependent on village „gatekeepers‟
3.3.5 Case study households
In each village, eight households were selected for more detailed study. We aimed to make
these representative of the broader population, and used the information from the village
census as well as our village maps in order to try and have a sample that drew from all
geographical areas of the villages as well as from the full range of household origins and
livelihood profiles (as far as we understood them after our initial visit).
Within the research team each person was allocated two households with whom they were to
become particularly well acquainted. This degree of familiarisation was designed to maximise
the chances of collecting information which was as full and accurate as possible. The
assumption here was that we could not hope to understand the situations and dynamics of all
sixty-six (in the case of Buon) or eighty-three (in the case of Bey at the outset of the research)
households in the villages, and that just as we had privileged knowing two villages very well
rather than, for example, thirty or forty villages less well, we also privileged knowing sixteen
households very well within those two villages. For those sixteen households, then, we have
life histories which were put together in a series of five or more interviews per household
between early 2007 and early 2009.
66
The more time we spent with the case study households, the more that the relationship became
a personal one. The rules of the game become unclear and the research rested more and more
upon personal dynamics. There is a difficult balancing act within this approach. The most
fundamental problem is that the stronger the emotional bond between the researchers and the
villagers, the more there is the potential that the emotional relationship is being abused in
order to garner information. On the one hand, this was exactly what I was aiming at: to build
open and trusting relationships in order that I could obtain as much accurate information as
possible. Given this, we were scrupulous in reminding the interviewees of our role as
researchers, and that they were aware that, while we would not identify them individually,
anything that they said to us could be used in the book I was writing. In other words we
attempted to always maintain “informed consent” to the greatest extent possible (cf. Brydon,
2006, p. 26) .
3.3.6 Iterative Research Process
3.3.6.1 Inventory of Research activities
With the village census as the start point, and the case study households as a continuous
resource we had the basis for an iterative research process. The intention was that we would
begin by only focusing on livelihood issues – both how people made a living and what
particular factors enabled and constrained those livings – and that only in the later stages
would we turn our attention to the development interventions. That strategy was designed to
try and prevent answers being distorted by villagers assuming that we were actually
development providers (and that if they gave the right answers about how important and
necessary the particular products we might have to offer were that they might receive our
assistance).
In addition to this general trajectory, we were constantly identifying gaps and anomalies
which we then tried to follow up. These might be small issues identified during our reporting
and discussions at the evening of each day, and might result in a researcher going back to the
same household to ask some supplementary questions, or going to another household to
“triangulate” some piece of information that did not seem quite right. Or they might have been
longer term issues, perhaps with me reflecting on what we had learned from one visit during
my five months in Sweden, and feeding these reflections into the choice of methods and
questions for the next trip. Likewise, they might be a particular sort of enquiry, trying to work
out the supply chain in the local resin trade, or the barriers to entry for villagers wanting to
work in garment factories, or they might be a more specific question regarding a particular
period in history or a particular meeting that we had heard about but were not yet clear on.
Table 1 below gives an overview of methods used. The bold type highlights the name for the
research method that is given in the text. Comments on reliability were based on either
triangulation with other explicit research methods, or with our own observations either of
material conditions or of how (in the case of wealth ranking) judgements did or did not appear
to be influenced by personal attachments or animosities. The remainder of this section
consists of an account of the specific methods utilised on each field visit, supported by
Appendices which provide supplementary information in the form of question lists and survey
forms etc.
67
Table 3-1: Summary of Village Research Methods used in Bey and Buon case studies 2006-2009
Date Activity Comments
Autumn
2006
Village census (all
households and all
individuals)
Quantitative information. Reliable. Enables good demographic
overview of population. See Appendix 2.
Autumn
2006
25% Livelihood
survey (20 households
per village)
Quantitative information. Reliable. Includes detail on
indebtedness, livelihood activities, health crises and coping
strategies, travel beyond the village. Questions at Appendix 3.
Spring
2007
10% Income and
Expenditure survey of
8 case study
households – using
MOPS questions.
Incomes and expenditures do not tally well and seem to be
under-reported. Information somewhat unreliable and to be
used cautiously. Summary information at Appendix 4.
Autumn
2007 10% Life histories of 8
case study households Rich and varied.
Spring
2008 Land and Livelihood
survey (I) Information on land holdings and yields in both villages.
Probably reliable. Also information on livelihood activities,
reliable but probably understates the number of activities.
Information on incomes in Buon – very unreliable. Questions
at Appendix 5.
Spring
2008 Mapping of selected
land claims in Bey Accurate to within 11 meters according to the Global
Positioning System. Mapped a number of claims, mainly
belonging to case study households, some of which may be
contested during the project period.
Spring
2008 Wealth ranking in
Buon by village chief
with commune
councillor
Convincing information on relative wealth of households
according to three categories.
Autumn
2008 Repeat of Village
Census in Bey and
Buon
Detailed, reliable information allowing us to document
demographic change within the course of the project. See
Appendix 2.
Autumn
2008 Land and Livelihood
survey (2) in Bey Just four questions. Provided wet season comparison with
spring activities, as well as a check on reliability of
landholding information. See Appendix 7.
Autumn
2008 Land titling impact
survey Reliable information on extent to which villagers felt tenure to
be more or less secure after titling, and whether titling had
made a difference to agricultural practice. Summary findings
at Appendix 8.
Spring
2009 Wealth ranking in Bey
with deputy village
chief
Fairly convincing information, but slightly less reliable than
the same exercise in Buon.
Spring
2009 Survey of land
transactions in Buon Detailed information on how transactions have been secured
historically, (following up respondents who reported having
bought or sold land in Land and Livelihood Survey (I).
68
3.3.6.2 Field Visit 1 July and November 2006
A village census was conducted in each village (Bey in July and Buon in November38
), see
3.3.4 above and Appendix 2, and the results entered into two quantitative databases, one of
which recorded household and the other individual information. In addition to collecting this
basic information our purpose was to establish good relations with villagers, including that
research team members start to identify people in the village with whom they could develop
particularly good relations.
A 25% livelihood survey was a questionnaire administered to over twenty households in each
village (see Appendix 3 for details). This provided information by household on land
holdings, dry season and rainy season livelihood activities, including information on both
sources of money and sources of food. Questions on health were used in order to identify the
means households had at their disposal to support themselves through shocks and crises.
Questions about debt were used in order to identify the extent to which either business
development and small-scale capital accumulation or indebtedness and potential dispossession
might be underway, and also to get insights into the extent to which the villages had economic
relations beyond the village. Questions about the village were used to help us get a sense of
the sort of village this was, and questions about journeys to other locations were used to get a
sense of the degree of and reasons for mobility within households.
3.3.6.3 Field Visit 2, Spring 2007
During this second visit, based on the results of the village censuses, the eight case study
households were identified in each village, aiming to represent a cross-section of different
sorts of household in the village, especially regarding diverse ways of making a living and
differing degrees of wealth and poverty.
In order to attempt to quantify information on incomes and expenditure that we could
compare with other existing surveys, we used the sections of the questionnaire used by the
Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) Moving Out of Poverty Study (MOPS)
(Fitzgerald & Sovannarith, 2007) which related to income and expenditure. The validity of
this was limited by the fact that the original study did not have clear protocols regarding how
to deal with responses which gave widely divergent incomes and expenditures, and that we
encountered just such divergences from some of our respondents. Nevertheless, this did give
us some insights into the economies of the case study households (see Appendix 4).
3.3.6.4 Field Visit 3 September 2007
The main task at this stage was to compose life histories of the eight case study households, to
help us understand their long-term livelihood trajectories, and also to build up an account of
village history complemented by interviews with older villagers. At this stage we began to
focus a little more on the interventions in our interviews and conversations, having up to that
point tending to avoid them and focus on discussions of livelihood.
3.3.6.5 Field Visit 4, January 2008
By now we had from our contacts with the case study households quite strong suspicions of
what was and was not important in household livelihoods, however, we sought to obtain
confirmation through data on all households in the village, including if possible reliable
quantifications. A Land and Livelihood Questionnaire (see Appendix 6) included information
38
The first trip in July 2006 included only a research trip to Bey, with a two-day reconnaissance visit followed
by a week-long stay. The decision to adopt a second village was made after I returned to Sweden, so I made an
extra trip to Cambodia so that I could incorporate the second village in that first rainy season.
69
on land holdings and yields which appeared quite reliable and gave us insights to the
importance of agriculture in the two villages; a „livelihood matrix‟ enabled us to tick off
which household members had participated in which activities during the previous year.
Questions about income were administered in Buon. As a check we also conducted a Wealth
Ranking exercise with the village chief. There were huge discrepancies between the reported
incomes and the wealth ranking. On the basis of our own knowledge and judgement, the
village chief‟s assessments were more reliable than the financial information we got from
interviewees. These findings, then, could only be used with the utmost caution if at all, as they
seemed to be biased by better off households under-reporting their incomes.
3.3.6.6 Field Visit 5, October 2008
The village census was repeated in both villages, enabling comparison with the censuses taken
two years earlier in July 2006 in Bey and October 2006 in Buon. Photographs of all houses
and all available household members were taken as a supplementary documentary record.
The Land Titling Impact Survey in Buon enabled us to compare the impacts expected to
accrue from systematic land titling to those actually experienced. The simple survey consisted
of just three yes/no questions. 1. Do you currently worry that your land could be taken from
you? 2. Were you worried before titling that your land could be taken from you? 3. Have you
changed the way you farm since you received your title? Wherever there were anomalous
answers, those were followed up for clarification. Where respondents answered yes to
question 3, a crucial element of the justification for land titling, follow up was carried out to
ascertain whether the land titling was a causal factor in the changes in agricultural practice.
In Bey a land and livelihood survey was conducted. This was to gather information about
landholdings, area farmed and yields, and provided a direct comparison between the 2008
agricultural season and the 2007 agricultural season. Villagers were also asked about their
main source of income.
3.3.6.7 Field Visit 6, March 2009
In Buon, all households who had reported buying or selling land in the land and livelihood
questionnaire were interviewed in order to ascertatin information about the land market in Bey
before and subsequent to land titling.
In Bey, a wealth ranking exercise was conducted with the assistance of the deputy village
chief.
3.4 Conduct of National Study
3.4.1 Approach: Adopting and Adapting Bebbington
According to Bebbington‟s presecription, a development geography of intervention would
consist of three analytical moves:
1. Trace the uneven geographies of poverty and livelihood under conditions of
capitalist expansion and contraction, explaining how these are produced.
2. Trace and explain the emergence of uneven geographies of intentional intervention.
3. Analyse the interactions between these geographically uneven processes of immanent
and intentional development. (Bebbington, 2004, p. 726)
For the purpose of the thesis there was no need for the concern to span as ambitiously to
produce a geography of “poverty and livelihood”. Rather, the first step was a national
70
geography of tenure insecurity in Cambodia. The geographies of intentional intervention,
systematic land titling and community forestry, constituted the second step. Thirdly and
finally, the interaction between the „problem‟ of tenure insecurity and the „solutions‟ of
community forestry and systematic land titling was analysed, starting with the simple matter
of examining the extent to which there was geographical congruence between the problem and
the posited solutions.
3.4.2 Database Access for National Case Study
The data used to construct the national case study was a combination of primary sources in the
form of interviews with key stakeholders, secondary sources in the form of existing literature
– principally „grey literature‟ and newspaper reports – and databases. Effectively there were
three phenomena to be mapped: tenure insecurity; systematic land titling; community forestry.
In each case, securing interviews with relevant informants, and accessing relevant literature
proved relatively unproblematic. These provided the basis for a narrative account of the
geographies. In order to adequately map these geographies, however, I needed more
comprehensive GIS-linked databases. These existed for all three geographies that I was
attempting, but accessing those proved problematic.
Table 3-2: Database and Map Access for National Case Study.
Data Database owner Access39
Implications
Tenure
Insecurity
NGO Forum of
Cambodia
Access to reports, but not to
database on grounds of
confidentiality.
Analytical categories used in the
report do not tally with my
analysis so difficult to use. Access
to full database may not solve this.
Community
Forestry
(CF)
National Forestry
Administration
National map but not yet
the database that underpins
it.
Gives clear picture of location of
CF but not of the relation to
quality of forest/deforestation.
Systematic
land titling
Ministry of Land
Management
Urban Planning
and Construction
Have obtained a map down
to district level, but not the
database that underpins it.
Map only provides detail down to
district level, whereas patterns of
distribution are more interesting at
more detailed level.
Source: Author’s derivation.
3.5 Ethics and Anonymity
As explained above, we strove not to wake false expectations amongst villagers, both by
telling a clear and simple story about why we were in the village (Robin works at a university
and is writing a book about rural Cambodia so that people in England and Sweden can
understand more about life here), and by explicitly repeating that we would not be helping in
any way, including that we would not be attracting others to assist in the village.
We also made it clear that whilst anything that was said we would use as material for our
writing, that we would not use individual‟s names. We have respected this promise, and we
have also further protected the identities of villagers and of the villages by concealing the
names of the villages and the communes in which they are situated. This means that the
substantial photographic record I have of the villages, as well as the painstakingly drawn
maps of the villages have not been used in this thesis.
39
All data owners were cooperative and in principle willing to consider sharing more information. Ongoing work
on databases, and a lack of time allocated by me to follow up with relevant owners to get the appropriate
permissions were the reasons access was not fuller.
71
This should be considered an extra precaution, and certainly not a watertight one. Anyone
who has been involved in our work, including from senior government officials, to local
authorities to noodle shop owners can easily find out where we have been if they do not
already know. The real protection for informants is the fact that information in this thesis is
not surprising or new to anybody who is directly affected by it. We did receive one or two
pieces of information that could have proved incendiary and those we have not shared.
Nevertheless, commonsense and the cautions in the methodological literature, suggest that it
is impossible to know what might prove to be controversial at a later stage, and that it is
therefore sensible to protect identities to the extent possible (Brydon 2006).
My own road to hell paved with good intentions has related to consultation with development
professionals and government officials working on the interventions discussed in this thesis.
Good ethical practice would have included sharing drafts with them in good time before this
thesis was published. Failure to do so was entirely because of the difficulty I had in writing
drafts of sufficient standard in good time to circulate. I did make a presentation at the
Community Based Natural Resource Management Learning Institute offices in Phnom Penh
in March 2009 to people in the community forestry sector where most of my most
controversial and critical findings were shared, and discussed. However, I did not manage to
organise anything comparable for people involved in systematic land titling. The thesis will be
circulated to people involved in both interventions, and their comments will be considered and
given due weight in any subsequent publications relating to this research.
3.6 Limitations
The events of our first morning in Bey meant that in some respects the inception phase lasted
barely a day, rather than lasting a whole year. The consequence was that the project had from
the beginning a double-focus rather than the single-issue, single-location start point that had
been envisaged. There had been a trade-off between depth and breadth of coverage here. The
enhanced breadth has meant that the two villages can be mobilised to construct a case that
engages with issues affecting both halves of the dichotomised rural Cambodian landscape
agricultural rice plains and more or less forested uplands. However, this has meant that my
resources have been spread more thinly with regard to engaging with the respective
agriculture and forestry sectors, and the histories and geographies of interventions in those
sectors.
The structure of the research, with a month‟s field research in Cambodia, followed by five
months of writing and analysis and reflection in Sweden, had different implications in each
village. In Bey, where the period 2006-9 represented a period of significant upheavals at the
village level, and where much information was controversial and not readily shared, stretching
the research over a three year period had clear advantages. Visible changes could provide the
impetus for questions (as for example certain families built larger houses while others
remained in fairly miserable conditions), and we could trace events over the months it took for
them to unfold (as the provincial authorities undertook to review the protests made by the
villagers against their evictions, and then abandoned that investigation whilst shedding light
on the events that had set the process in motion). The repeated visits over time increased the
chances of obtaining interviews with certain people including the well-connected businessman
who had direct responsibility for the forest concession in the area of Bey. Effectively it meant
that I had six chances to try and arrange an interview with him – and it was on the fifth of
these six that I succeeded in doing so. Likewise, at village level, where people may be
protecting information, stretching the research over three years has advantages. People are
very happy to tell what they think you already know, and are unlikely to remember what they
told you six months previously. By hinting that I had picked up information from a meeting
72
with officials elsewhere, or giving the impression that I was already informed about a
particular deal (and perhaps because issues become less controversial with time), I often
obtained information in one visit that I had not been able to obtain in a previous one.
Buon, on the other hand was not subject to dramatic changes during the research period, at
least not at the village level: the village had undergone dramatic changes in the decade before
we arrived, and it seemed on the threshold of other quite different changes, but 2006-9 was an
interim of relative calm. The extended time span did give us an opportunity to witness some
of the dynamics within households, countering an implicit weakness in our approach of
dealing mainly with the household as a unit, and particularly highlighting some of the crucial
gender dynamics. Overall, though, it is likely that our understanding of the situation in Buon
(unlike that in Bey) could have been enhanced by spending a longer period of unbroken
research there, rather than being disrupted by half a dozen sets of entry and departure rituals.
None of the national data sets currently available provides a comprehensive overview of
tenure security in Cambodia. The content of supplementary interviews gives strong support to
the geography of tenure insecurity outlined in this report. Access to an updated land dispute
database might also have indicated whether there is any beginning of change to the broad
trends established.
As noted above, an important limitation relates to engagement with the officials, agency staff
and consultants working in community forestry and systematic land titling in Cambodia
during the closing stages of the thesis preparation. In addition to my own inability to meet
deadlines I set myself, contacts with systematic land titling appear to have been hampered by
the ongoing investigation into the World Bank support for LMAP. I sent questions to people
supporting land titling, to elicit their views in relation to main lines of argument generated in
the thesis, but only one „person close to the LMAP project‟ answered the questions, whilst the
only other response was a polite apology for the inability of World Bank staff and consultants
to answer (see Appendix 9 for the list of questions and the World Bank response).
3.7 Summary
The question of the relationship between property rights interventions in Cambodia and the
lives and livelihoods of rural people who they were designed to assist has been addressed by
means firstly of a „geography of development intervention‟ incorporating a national
geography of tenure insecurity and geographies of the implementation of community forestry
and systematic land titling, and secondly through the means of two village studies,
implemented between 2006 and 2009, which described villagers‟ livelihoods, explained the
actors and processes shaping those livelihoods, and then reported the differences made to lives
and livelihoods by the respective community forestry and systematic land titling interventions.
The three chapters that follow present the findings from these studies at national and village
level.
73
4. The National Case Study
4.1 Introduction
This chapter contributes to the overall enquiry of the thesis into the relationship between
property rights interventions and rural livelihoods by investigating the relationship between
the (immanent development) geography of tenure insecurity and the (intentional development)
geographies of systematic land titling and community forestry. It relies primarily on
secondary sources, complemented by interviews carried out during field research between
2006 and 2009. On occasion these are supplemented by earlier direct observations 40
.
The chapter begins with a historical background to Cambodia, culminating in the transition of
the 1990s and the (re-)consolidation of power by the current Prime Minister. The geography
of tenure insecurity discusses both the distribution of tenure insecurity in rural Cambodia, and
the political and economic factors which shaped that distribution. The geographies of the
respective interventions, systematic land titling and community forestry, likewise discuss the
distribution and the factors which shaped that distribution. In order to complete the
geographical analysis at the national scale there is a discussion of the “mutually constitutive
interactions” (Bebbington, 2000, p. 515) between the “geography of immanent development”
of tenure insecurity and the “geography of intentional development” of the tenure security
interventions. Finally, the chapter is summarised.
4.2 Historical Background
4.2.1 Rural Inertia in Cambodian History
David Chandler‟s History of Cambodia gives prominence to four themes: the effects of its
location between Vietnam and Cambodia; the relationship of twentieth century Cambodia to
its past, and particularly to the Angkor period; “the pervasiveness of patronage and
hierarchical terminology in Cambodian thinking, politics and social relations”; “the inertia
that seems to be characteristic of rural society” (Chandler, 1992, pp. 1-2, my italics). All four
of these themes remain resonant in contemporary Cambodia and can readily be traced into the
discussions in this thesis.
Chandler is cautionary regarding the apparent continuities of rural life in Cambodia.
Commentators mention the similarity of the rural scenes depicted on the temples of Angkor
Wat (built between 800 and 1300) and the rural Cambodia of today. In terms of everyday
practices, the few detailed studies which have been carried out have supported this41
. Chandler
40
Made during the time I lived in Cambodia, 1991-2001, or during visits I made there during the time between
moving to Sweden in 2001 and commencing doctoral research there in 2006. 41
Academic studies of rural Cambodia appeared during the 1960s. Jean Delvert was a french geographer whose
1961 doctoral dissertation Le Paysan Cambodgien (1961) attempted a detailed account of peasant life. Just prior
to this the American anthropologogist May Ebihara had completed twelve months of field work in a village just
74
affirms that Cambodia‟s “rural technology” has remained largely unchanged “until very
recently”. Certainly in the 18 years since I have been acquainted with rural Cambodia many of
the things that had been continuous for centuries have changed. Milling rice by hand was the
norm two decades ago, but is rarely if ever seen now, as most villages have at least one
household with a petrol fuelled milling machine where people pay to have their rice milled.
Oxcarts had wooden wheels for centuries, but in the past decade almost all of these have been
replaced by car or tractor wheels. However, our readings of studies from the 1990s (Ferguson,
1994; T. Mitchell, 1995; Porter et al., 1991) should warn us about the dangers of generalising
such continuities into a picture of unchanged, undisturbed agricultural rural isolation, and this
is also Chandler‟s main point. He argued that every one of his thirteen chapters represented a
major transformation in Cambodian life and that:
The notion of changelessness is a myth or at least an oversimplification of events, but it has
persisted for too long among students of Cambodian history and among Cambodians who
make a virtue of a conservative point of view (Chandler, 1992, pp. 2-3).
When Chandler identifies the importance of the relationship to the past, this is not simply a
historian prioritising his own subject. The temples of Angkor Wat provide a symbolic
reminder that Cambodia stood at the centre of a powerful empire between the ninth and
thirteenth centuries, controlling vast tracts of land that are now in the territory of Thailand and
Vietnam. Since the colonial promotion of this stage of Cambodian history as a central part of
the construction of national identity (Edwards, 2008), Angkor Wat has appeared as the central
symbol on every one of the five national flags that have been adopted during Cambodia‟s
tumultuous and sometimes disastrously nationalist post-independence history.
4.2.2 Colonial Influences
French colonialism was not only central in the construction of a national Cambodia identity,
but also in the survival of the Cambodian state itself. Throughout the „dark ages‟ from the fall
of Angkor in the fourteenth century up to colonial times the struggles for power in Cambodia
were inevitably between factions supported respectively by Vietnam and Thailand. Each
victory led to deals whereby the victorious faction granted its supporters in the neighbouring
country land or influence in Cambodia. Had France not intervened Cambodia would quite
possibly not have survived as a nation into the twentieth century (Osborne, 1997, p. 175).
Cambodia first concluded a treaty with France in 1864, and became a fully-fledged
protectorate in 1883 (Chandler, 1992, pp. 141-144). The main historical sources privilege
events at court and allow few glimpses of rural life, except in those rare periods when the
peasantry became an actor in national politics through organised revolt, such as 1884-6
during the period of insurrection after the protectorate was established (Osborne, 1997, pp.
206-231) and the 1916 riots against French policies on compulsory labour and the abuse of
those policies when implemented by the Khmer administration (Osborne, 1978). Otherwise,
even French colonial officials complained of knowing very little about the rural areas of the
country, including not knowing how many people lived there or who had what rights to land
(Chandler, 1992, p. 147).
Much of French policy focused on establishing new institutions in rural areas. Some of the
institutions created by the French are still found in modified form today, notably the system of
south of Phnom Penh which she called „Svay‟ and which was subsequently documented in her unpublished but
widely circulated and influential PhD dissertation (Ebihara, 1968).
75
forest concessions and the commercial rubber plantations in the eastern central province of
Kampong Cham. Some of the reforms tried and failed under the French, such as
democratically elected local councils and the establishment of a cadastral register are now
being repeated by the modern development industry. Chandler‟s analysis of the early French
„will to improve‟ in the form of abolition of slavery and introducing land ownership rights
was that the French vision was of “a liberated Cambodian yeomanry responding rationally to
market pressures” (Chandler, 1992, p. 144). One of the Cambodian Princes, King Norodom‟s
favourite son Yukanthor, went into exile in protest at the French policies and claiming that
they, by creating property had created the poor, which Chandler judged “largely true” (1992,
p. 147).
Researchers are beginning to mine the national archives in Phnom Penh, and the French
colonial archives (in Aix-en-Provence and elsewhere) to give a full account of the French
reforms in Cambodia42
. Margaret Slocomb‟s (2007) history of the development of
Cambodia‟s rubber plantations will hopefully be the fore-runner of a number of works on land
management and politics during the colonial period.
4.2.3 Post-Independence
Independence from French rule came to Cambodia twice. On 13 March 1945, at Japanese
prompting, Cambodia declared itself independent, invalidating all existing Franco-Cambodian
agreements. The defeat of the Japanese in the war brought the French back to power, but only
following negotiations that yielded new arrangements between the countries. Chandler
(Chandler, 1992, p. 172) noted that, “The agreement promised Cambodia a constitution and
the right to form political parties, but French control remained in such fields as finance,
defense, and foreign affairs.”
In the following years Cambodia‟s newly-formed political parties were frustrated in their bid
to persuade France to grant independence. The young King Sihanouk, however, utilizing his
ability to mobilize mass demonstrations and his superior relations with the colonial power,
was able to gain credit for the achievement of independence in 1953. During this period,
Sihanouk gradually learned how to use his increased personal popularity and power to
extinguish the pluralistic electoral politics that had been introduced in 1946 and establish his
own personal control (Chandler, 1992, p. 184). Summing up the failure of the 1946
constitution to usher in a Western political system Osborne wrote (no doubt with one eye on
contemporary events):
Most fundamentally, the constitution assumed that a population that had never experienced
anything remotely like democracy could quickly adopt the attitudes and practices of a largely
alien system (Osborne, 1994, p. 59).
Abdicating in favour of his father in order to become Prime Minister, Sihanouk (now Prince
Sihanouk) presided over a one-party system of government. All political hues were welcome
in the party (which was both „royal‟ and „socialist‟), and even within government, but anyone
voicing opposition was likely to disappear from the scene (Kiernan, 2002, p. 484). This period
(1955-70) constituted the formative years of the older members of the post-1993 ruling elite:
it would, with its patronage, sponsorship of development, “cancer of corruption” (Osborne,
1994, p. 137) vote-buying and manipulation of elections (e.g. Osborne, 1994, p. 187) and
42
In Phnom Penh I was, confidentially, given the outlines of one edited book involving international and
Cambodian scholars that would attempt to commemorate the hundred years that had passed since the
establishment of the cadastral system and the concession system.
76
underlying brutal menace, be their most recent memory of „peace‟ or „normality‟ before civil
war and worse engulfed the country.
Sihanouk cultivated friendships within the non-aligned movement and attempted to maintain
Cambodia as an „island of peace‟ in the face of the overtures from both sides in the USA war
in Vietnam. This proved an impossible balancing act and arguably the decline in his fortunes
in domestic politics could be traced back to when he broke off US military aid which up to
1963 had constituted a 15% subsidy to the national budget (Chandler, 1992, pp. 201-204). In
1970, while Sihanouk was away overseas, a coup by a right-wing pro-American faction led to
the creation of the Khmer Republic under former police chief and Prime Minister Lon Nol.
His urban-based regime underwent a five-year civil war in which a countryside-based
resistance comprising royalists and communists eventually triumphed, marching into Phnom
Penh and evacuating it (Chandler, 1992, pp. 204-208). During the three years, eight months
and 20 days of Khmer Rouge rule that followed, virtually the entire population was resettled
in the countryside (Kiernan, 1996, 2002, pp. 485-486). Forced labour, communal living and
starvation rations were standard43
. This work regime, overlain with successive purges, first of
external enemies before 1977 and then of (real and imagined) enemies from within after 1977,
led to a death toll that is most commonly estimated at about 1.7 million out of a population of
7 million. This is alleged to have been the highest per capita rate of killing in modern world
history (Ledgerwood, 2002) and meant that almost everyone lived with extreme fear, and that
most lost immediate family to either execution or forced starvation.
Purges in the Khmer Rouge Eastern Zone were met with resistance by military units there
who mutinied and after prolonged fighting took flight to Vietnam. They returned as part of a
Vietnamese led force of 150 000 on 25th
December 1978, and in a matter of days they had
driven the Khmer Rouge out of power and taken over the country (Kiernan, 2002, pp. 486-
487). It was from these mutineers that the country‟s leadership during the 1980s and 1990s
was taken, including the current Prime Minister Hun Sen, who became Foreign Minister at the
age of 28, and then in 1984 at the age of 32 succeeded Chan Si as Prime Minister. The
overthrow of the Khmer Rouge did not herald peace in Cambodia. For geopolitical reasons,
the United States and China, supported amongst others by regional allies in Thailand and
Singapore, wished to oppose the new Vietnamese- and Soviet- supported government in
Phnom Penh and were prepared to rehabilitate and support the Khmer Rouge in order to do so
(Chandler, 1992, p. 231). Cambodia therefore endured an extended period of isolation and
guerrilla warfare as US and Chinese opposition to Vietnam and the Soviet Bloc took the form
of UN recognition of the Khmer Rouge and their allies as the rightful government of
Cambodia. As a result of the government‟s need to defend against this internationally
sponsored guerrilla resistance, local government and authority remained militarised and
hierarchical tendencies in Cambodian governance remained firmly in place, as, for example,
Slocomb (2001) has outlined in her account of the role of the national defences erected in the
north-west in the nation building project of the 1980s.
Cambodia‟s international isolation became a campaigning point for the international NGO
Oxfam, who had had an office in the country since responding to the starvation conditions in
the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Their country
representative Eva Mysliwiec (1988b) authored an account of the effects of isolation on
Cambodia under the same title as the campaign Punishing the Poor. The international
isolation and internationally sponsored civil war only concluded when the collapse of the
43
Although not totally standard. Vickery (1984), taking exception to what he calls the “Standard Total View”
(1984, p. 36) of the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge period has written about regional variation, instances of resistance
and exceptions to the general trends of educated people being victimised and often killed.
77
Soviet Union led the major powers to conclude that their interests would be better served by
finding a face-saving way of switching from undermining the Cambodian state to supporting
it44
.
Timber became a key source of revenue to both government and guerrilla forces, and a key
element in their dealings with their respective Vietnamese and Thai patrons. Gottesman45
documents how as early as 1980 Vietnamese and Cambodian officials were involved in
logging, and how attempts to control this centrally were frustrated by the participation of both
provincial authorities and national officials in the trade (Gottesman, 2004, pp. 156-158). He
likewise shows how military units asserted their right to log in order to support themselves
(2004, p. 230), and how negotiating timber deals with the Thai authorities became a key part
of Cambodian government strategy to attempt to undermine the assistance being given to the
guerrilla resistance (2004, p. 291).
4.2.4 UNTAC and Cambodia’s Second Transition to Democracy
The Paris Peace Agreements signed on 23 October 1991 were the outcome of the international
realignments following the collapse of the Soviet Union and led to the creation of the United
Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia 1992-94 (UNTAC). Over twenty thousand
international civilian and military personnel and a budget of over 4 billion US dollars were
deployed to support an UNTAC mission which would include enforcing a cease-fire,
organising demobilisation of armed factions, returning all refugees from the Thai-Cambodian
border, organising democratic elections, and establishing a permanent government. Operating
under an advisory council comprising all four of the rival factions, UNTAC was to have direct
control over five key policy areas: foreign affairs; defence; finance; public security;
information. It also had the right to investigate and sanction those parts of the administration
not directly under its control (Matheson, 2001, p. 3). The political parties that emerged under
UNTAC differed little in their stated ideologies and platforms. All proclaimed support for the
monarchy, Buddhism, and liberal democracy, and all enthusiastically welcomed the prospect
of cooperating with the international community to democratize and develop Cambodia. The
main parties were descendents of to earlier ruling factions, often featuring survivors from the
pre-1975 times. FUNCINPEC (United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful,
and Cooperative Cambodia), led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was a royalist party founded
by supporters of Sihanouk‟s rule during the 1960s. The Cambodian People‟s Party (CPP), led
by Prime Minister Hun Sen, was the ruling party during the 1980s and had very largely
maintained its structures and personnel. The Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (BLDP) led
by Son Sann was descended from the supporters of the pro-US Khmer Republic (1970-75).
Absent from that role call of recent Cambodian regimes by the time of the 1993 election were
the Khmer Rouge who withdrew from the peace process, boycotted the elections and
continued to fight a guerrilla war from their bases in Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia and
Pailin in the north-west. Operating now without the international sponsorship that they had
previously enjoyed, they intensified their logging operations and trade with Thailand in order
to finance themselves (Kiernan, 2002, p. 490).
The results of the 1993 election and subsequent formation of a government provoked
controversy. FUNCINPEC won 45 percent of the vote and CPP 38 percent, yielding 58 and
51 seats respectively. While scholars are divided regarding the legitimacy of what occurred
44
Becker (1998, pp. 437-507), a journalist who had worked in Phnom Penh before 1975, in the 2nd
Edition of her
history of modern Cambodia provides a particularly rich account of the political processes leading to peace. 45
Gottesman, working as a UN lawyer in Phnom Penh in 1992-4 stumbled across official records of government
meetings from the 1980s and wrote a valuable and highly-regarded history of that period based on those sources.
78
between the announcements of the election and the formation of the new government
(Roberts, 2001, pp. 104-120; Vickery, 1999), the requirement of a two-thirds majority to
approve a new constitution meant that a coalition government was always the likely outcome
and few would disagree with the following summary:
All parties were eventually made aware that without a satisfied CPP in a position of strength,
UNTAC and Cambodia could be held hostage. Sihanouk observed that ―we have to share
power equally otherwise the violence cannot end.‖ (Roberts, 2001, p. 112).
In retrospect, UNTAC ambitions to take over the Cambodian administration, establish a
neutral civil service and thereby create a neutral and fair environment for elections were never
realistic and never came close to being achieved (Doyle, 1995, p. 35; Peou, 1997, p. 197).
Drawing conclusions for international peacekeeping Findlay (1995, p. 170) wrote that
UNTAC in Cambodia had been a “salutary reminder of the limitations of multilateral attempts
to fast-track the socio-political re-engineering of a nation-state.”
Pieterse‟s (2009) observation about the development industry principally achieving “paradigm
maintenance” rather than substantive change seemed to apply perfectly to the UNTAC
intervention: the idea of democracy was introduced and recycled, but little impact was made
regarding the substantive achievement of democracy. The new, UNTAC drafted constitution,
far from constituting Cambodia, became a piece of presentational paraphernalia. In many
respects, then, UNTAC, with its ambitious agenda, but its very limited effects (Hughes, 2009,
pp. 89-93) provided a parable about the capacity of international interventions to initiate
change in Cambodia, and an indicator of what would follow.
The partial peace that followed the elections resulted in an intensification of forest
exploitation, which became a central issue in the negotiation of power as the country
underwent the transition to a market economy. There was sufficient peace to greatly intensify
logging in ways which Le Billon (2000, p. 787) interpreted as being in line with both shadow
state theory and Southeast Asia regional developments. In those terms, logging was
“politicized and sustained the power of the army and the political elite” and “forest dwellers
were adversely affected and progressively disempowered by large scale logging”. While on
the one hand shadow state style “clientelist and corrupt governance” meant that “virtually
none” of the logging revenues went into the national accounts. On the other hand, winning the
competition for these resources and ensuring that former rivals had an (informal) economic
stake in a post-conflict landscape, was not part of an extreme predatory shadow state endgame
where the leadership attempts to undermine all formal sources of political and economic
security for the people, but rather led, Development State style, to peace and stability which
enabled the decade of investment and growth which followed from the late 1990s to the late
2000s (Le Billon, 2000). The priority which was given to logging in the personal dealings of
the shadow state/Developmental State elite was indicated by the way in which the post-
election co-prime ministers Ranariddh and Hun Sen on the day of the investiture of the new
government revoked a ban on logging exports and signed a deal with a Thai company
allowing them to export 55 000 cubic meters of round logs (Le Billon, 2002, p. 571).
Le Billon‟s comments on the international response to forest management during the 1990s,
and the effects it had, are relevant to the concerns of this thesis. The international community
was critical of the fact that the forest resource was being exploited without transparency and
without benefit to the national treasury, and advocated stronger management. According to Le
Billon (2002), the Cambodian elite co-opted this agenda and used it to both legalise its own
activities and to use logging bans to crack down on small businesses and poorer people who
were making a living from timber. Again, then, as was the case with UNTAC, national elites
were able to shape development interventions and discourses to their own objectives (good or
79
bad, shadow or developmental). As we will see, however, at least at some times and in some
places, the consequences of the logging bans for poor people may have been precisely the
opposite to what Le Billon suggested, in other words, opening up rather than closing off
opportunities for small-scale operator and labourers (see Chapter 5).
4.2.5 Cambodia Today
As we have seen, beginning with Sihanouk‟s coup against the elected government in 1952,
four successive regimes in Cambodia had taken power unconstitutionally and by force prior to
the 1993 national elections. Lacking a strong sense of security and legitimacy, each regime in
turn (and to very differing extents) used state violence and killing in order to suppress real and
potential opposition in times of both war and peace. For successive generations of
Cambodians, politics has been bloody and dangerous:
A winner-takes-all political culture based on endemic distrust has impeded the development of
a civil society, stifled free expression, encouraged cronyism and violence, and exacerbated
people‘s tendency to distrust and fear those in power (Chandler, 1998, p. 43).
Understandably, therefore, politics remains a sensitive subject associated with danger in the
Cambodian countryside. This does not mean that it is never discussed, but it does mean that
people are often cautious regarding when and with whom they discuss political issues.
Certainly anybody involved in opposition politics will have included in their calculations the
risk that retribution, possibly lethal, may follow. This is not just a reflection of the specifics of
current politics, but a continuation of the situation since before Independence.
Recent political analyses examine the emergence of the current ruling group centred around
the Prime Minister Hun Sen, who became prime minister in 1984 following the death of Chan
Si and who has retained the position since46
.
Hughes (2003b) in her account of the political economy of Cambodia‟s transitions during the
1990s argued that Cambodia‟s “triple transition” from command economy to free market,
from war to peace and from authoritarian rule to democracy was dominated by the nature of
the transition from command economy to free market. Central to this transition to market, and
to what Heder (2005) has called turbo-capitalism, has been a network of commercial, military
and political interests linked to the Prime Minister. In recent years, and especially since 2004,
the Prime Minister has consolidated power in ways that have been compared with “similar
trajectory-defining periods” elsewhere in Southeast Asia47
(Heder, 2005, p. 125).
Possibly the defining feature of the new polity is the extent to which the key political
decisions are off the record and outside the mainstream political process, while huge portions
of the national economy are off-budget. A recent newspaper article on the children of
Cambodia‟s elite does not necessarily overstate the case:
Cambodia‘s official economy largely depends on garments, exports, but there is a much larger
shadow economy in which only the ruthless and the well-connected survive and prosper. ―If
you‘re doing business, you have to know someone high up, so he has your back‖, says Victor
(Marshall, 2009).
By their nature the shadow economy and shadow politics of the “shadow state” (Le Billon,
2000) are difficult to research or assess. Forests and forest management have attracted
46
Between the 1993 elections and the fighting of 1997, Hun Sen was officially the Second Prime Minister, whilst
the head of FUNCINPEC, Sihanouk‟s son Norodom Ranariddh was First Prime Minister. 47
“Philippines in the late 1940s and 1950s, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in the late 1950s and 1960s and in
Indonesia in the late 1960s and 1970s”
80
attention because of the huge amount of money involved, but also because they are so much
more visible than other informal flows. Percentages taken off development assistance projects
or foreign investments cannot be captured by aerial photography or interviews with rural
villagers.
While it is clear, not least from the highly visible assets and lifestyles on display in the
national capital, that a super-rich (by recent Cambodian standards at least) elite has emerged
(Marshall, 2009), the relations of this class and their wealth to the rest of the country are far
less clear. Patronage payments circulating in the system might be generating some form of
informal, shadow social welfare and safety nets. Some of this is visible in the form of physical
infrastructure projects sponsored by senior figures, and is attracting interest in Cambodia from
researchers looking at the potential accountabilities involved in mass patronage on the
patrimonial side of the neo-patrimonial equation (Craig & Kimchoeun, 2009). However, there
remains little empirical basis to answer questions about the wealth circulating in the informal
economy, or about the politics of mass incorporation/exclusion in relation to that wealth.
Within the formal economy, official statistics have suggested that for the decade to 2006,
economic growth has averaged around 8% per annum (Sjöberg & Sjöholm, 2007). Poverty,
meanwhile, has been held by some to have marginally decreased, although this is contested
and at other times the same data sources have led analysts to conclude that poverty has
marginally worsened. There is, however, agreement that any benefits of growth have been
unevenly distributed leading to a society that is becoming more and more unequal. The elite
have become much richer whilst the poor have become relatively poorer (World Bank, 2006,
2007b).
The steady record of economic growth has been reflected differently in urban and rural
landscapes (as well, of course, as within them). In the capital city, Phnom Penh, there have
been rapidly rising land prices, a construction boom and, since 1996, a rapidly expanding
garment sector that has employed over 300 000 low-skilled, low-waged workers at its peak
(Salinger, 2006, p. 1)48
. The garment industry, however, is only the most formal and easily
monitored of a range of employment opportunities available to people migrating from rural
areas. The construction industry has been thriving in all urban centres, and especially in
Phnom Penh, providing a similar scale of labour opportunities to the garment industry, but
generally on more casual terms - with the gender division of labour, overlaying existing
gender relations, meaning that while young women were working 28-30 days a month and
returning to the villages en masse on pay day to hand money over to their families, young men
were much better placed to negotiate both their own terms of incorporation into the industry
and to decide when to go home and how much of their income to share. The Ministry of
Labour has reported 200 000 Cambodians working abroad in Thailand, Malaysia and South
Korea (Sakada, 2008), and especially in the case of Thailand (where agricultural work in the
north-east and construction work in the capital seem to be the main sources of employment),
this is likely to be a serious under-estimate. While the clothing industry has provided a labour-
intensive „engine of economic growth‟, tourism has provided a second engine. Despite at
times having the fastest growing tourist industry in the world and attracting increasing
numbers of foreign visitors (Chens, Sok, & Sok, 2008, p. 42), the tourist industry, focused
mainly on the Angkor temple complex in the north of the country, has fewer links with the
rest of the economy, employs few people, and tends to rely on imported goods (World Bank,
2006).
48
Makin (2006, p. 3) reported 290 000 garment factory workers in 2004, of whom 90% were women, and 72%
of those women single. She characterized them as principally rural women sending money home to households
with typically 4-9 members.
81
The economic transformation of the rural landscape has been more partial. After several false
starts (with roads being „rehabilitated‟ and then rapidly deteriorating to a worse condition than
previously) there is now a comprehensive system of all-weather asphalt roads throughout the
country. Along these roads, in contrast to the early 1990s, it is common to see parcels of land
with boundaries marked by barbed wire fences or brick walls topped with broken glass. Land
prices have soared as roadside land is demanded not only for residential and business uses, but
also for speculation. The new owners are typically non-locals, not well-protected by the
locally secured informal or, as So Sokbunthoeun (2009) aptly terms them, quasi-formal
property regimes. There are therefore good reasons for them to take all available measures to
secure their property, both by physical means and by paying the fees to acquire sporadic land
titles49
.
District towns, previously little more than rural villages, are often adorned with air-
conditioned brick residences of a sort unthinkable 15 years ago. Further away from the roads,
rice field landscapes and the settlements they host often remain strikingly similar, although it
is increasingly common to find brick houses, and even brick boundary walls topped with
broken glass or barbed wire in rural villages. Forest landscapes are more likely to have been
transformed, with forests often replaced by either temporary waste lands, or by new
plantations, and with extensive ribbon development along new roads, as well as new villages.
As we have seen, intensive logging of Cambodia‟s forests generated incomes from timber that
were key to the off-budget funding of Cambodia‟s „shadow state‟ during the 1990s. However,
it seems that economic land concessions oriented towards agricultural development, but also
largely located on land officially designated as State forest, have taken over from logging
concessions as primary earners, and also that elite business interests have now migrated to a
greater degree into casinos, coastal resort development and the Phnom Penh construction
boom (Sjöberg & Sjöholm, 2007).
Within the agricultural sector, rice farming dominates the landscape physically, comprising
88% of cultivated land, while only providing 54% of crop value and 9% of GDP. Most rice
farmers have less than one hectare of rice land, and are therefore not in a position to produce a
marketable surplus (or even enough rice for their household‟s consumption). There are areas
of the country where either land holdings are larger or land is irrigated where rice farming
may be the largest part of a successful family business, however these are exceptions rather
than the rule. The idea that Cambodia should improve its agricultural productivity, and
various arguments about whether it could or should do have continued for the past decade and
a half: in that time, however, rice farming has for the most part continued to be rain-fed and
low-input rather than evolving into the more intensive, productive practice that policymakers
and developers have envisioned (Sjöberg & Sjöholm, 2007, pp. 503-507).
4.2.6 The Myth of Dependency in Contemporary Cambodia
The political „transition‟ which the United Nations‟ Transitional Authority in Cambodia 1992-
4 (UNTAC) was supposed to herald was to a large degree a tradition from one façade to
another. Cambodia transited from the appearance of State communism to the appearance of
liberal democracy. In fact, as we have seen above, the real political trajectories involved the
reassertion of power by the CPP and within the CPP by a faction around the Prime Minister.
This was within a process of competition and contestation which started long before UNTAC
and continued long after and which was little-affected by the international intervention that
49
The distinction here is between systematic land titling, where an entire community is titled en masse at the
initiative of the state, and sporadic titling, where an individual goes to the land office in order to obtain a title.
Prior to the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) there was only sporadic titling.
82
was intended to facilitate change. In this sense, then, UNTAC serves as warning parable
regarding what an international development intervention might achieve.
The inability of international donors to make any difference to domestic Cambodian politics is
highlighted by Heder (2005). He described how the donors acquiesced in Hun Sen‟s
consolidation of power in 2004, refusing support to domestic political opponents who
criticised Hun Sen on human rights and governance grounds50
, but instead “universally”
welcoming the formation of the new coalition, partly justifying this in terms of the sphere of
influence politics: if they did not support the government then it would simply receive
unconditional support from China.
However, as I have suggested above, it is also possible to read the UNTAC process more
simply as a transition from isolation to intervention by the West. Instead of financing refugee
camps and guerilla armies on the Thai-Cambodian border, the West now sought ways to
finance the Cambodian state and the development of its people. Arguably, the real political
agenda was not about achieving peace or democracy or even development, but simply
enabling the sponsors of Cambodian conflict to exit from those positions without losing face,
in order that they could pursue improved relations with each other.
Given the scale of official development assistance (ODA) in comparison to national budgets,
it is in some ways not surprising that „aid dependence‟ began to be a theme in discussions
about Cambodia:
For the period of 1992-2000, external assistance disbursements totalled to US 3.67 billion.
Bilateral and NGO organizations provided US 2.4 billion or 64.50% of total; the balance is
financed by multi-lateral organisations; all of these accounted for 50% of total public
expenditure. From 1992-1999, ODA [Official Development Assistance] continued to increase
by an average of 9.1% annually (Chhieng, 2001).
The idea of Cambodia becoming „dependent‟ on aid was intensified by commentators who
followed Cambodia during the 1980s and drew unfavourable comparisons between the
(possibly exaggerated) level of responsibility and self-reliance demonstrated the state before
and after the UNTAC intervention (e.g. Curtis, 1994). Nevertheless, the „aid dependent‟
literature has indicated a number of ways in which intervention might feed certain
pathologies. These include: international financial assistance removing incentives for the
government to collect revenues or provide services (Chhieng, 2001); international technical
assistance substituting for and marginalizing national capacity rather than building it (Godfrey
et al., 2002); aid programs, even when claimed to be “national” or nationally-owned, being
piecemeal, uncoordinated and tending to pay civil servants to neglect their government job in
favour of the donor program (Godfrey et al., 2002); policy instruments such as Financial
Policy Frameworks, Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks, Poverty Reduction Strategies
and other “national” planning documents introduced to Cambodia during the last decade
providing legitimate access points for donors rather than in any way guiding the development
of the nation (Biddulph, 2001b). Overall, though, this narrative of „dependence‟ is highly
misleading. The idea of dependence here is misleading: the fact that it has been sustained for
as long as it has is surely partly symptomatic of the post-colonial and „Development‟
imaginary which sees poor countries as resembling small children with rich countries in loco
parentis (Baaz, 2002). As we have already seen, the determinants of Cambodian politics and
50
Heder notes the irony of the fact that having refused support to the domestic opposition that western donors
and organisations released “a flurry of highly critical donor and other assessments of Cambodia‟s governance,
poverty reduction and human rights protection, slamming previous Hun Sen governments‟ lack of political will
to achieve any of these goals” (Heder, 2005, p. 124).
83
economic are long-term; much of the crucial political and economic action in the country
happens off-stage in the “shadows”. Foreign money and foreign advisors have been allowed
to colonise many of the more visible and formal areas of public administration and policy, but
to imagine that Cambodia is dependent on this is an unwarranted leap. Caroline Hughes in a
recent book argues that the informal economy has been a key source of funds enabling
Cambodia‟s leadership to resist donor pressures:
There is no doubt that the amount of unofficial funding available to the government, at least
on a temporary basis, considerably outweighs the amount of international aid that might be
cut by donors determined to establish conditions that the Cambodian government repeatedly
fails to meet (Hughes, 2009, pp. 161-162).
If the control of the informal economy makes for shadow state activities of extreme
enrichment, however, it has also been accompanied by Developmental State achievements in
terms of macro-economic and political stability as well as “the delivery of respectable figures
in terms of economic growth, human development and poverty reduction” (Hughes, 2009, p.
163). With China offering substantial funds, and with the prospect of offshore oil in the Gulf
of Thailand, there is every prospect that the Cambodian leadership will continue to be able to
continue to do its key business in the shadows, and to pursue strategies of its own choosing.
4.3 Immanent Development: A Geography of Tenure Insecurity in Cambodia
In Chapter 2 we saw how the literature on property rights interventions focuses on tenure
security as the fundamental element leading to potential benefits from those interventions. For
an individual rights holder, it is the security of tenure which gives the confidence to invest in
land, gives credit suppliers the confidence to lend to the land-owner, and which give buyers
and sellers the confidence to transact land in the market. For common property rights holders
it is the ability to exclude others from the land and its resources which provides the
fundamental difference between the potentials of a functioning common property regime and
the almost inevitable tragedies of open access regimes. In Chapter 3 we saw how the threat to
villagers‟ security of tenure in Bey prompted an interest in tenure security, and attempts to
guarantee it, in this thesis.
Immanent development, meanwhile, a synonym for political economy or political ecology,
was characterised as embodying the struggles between Development and development (Hart,
2001, 2010), or between the disembedding and re-embedding tendencies inherent in
capitalism (Polanyi, 2001). In taking up Bebbington‟s (2000, 2003, 2004) proposition to
„map‟ immanent development in terms of poverty and livelihoods, it was therefore logical, as
I explained in Chapter 3, that in this thesis tenure insecurity should be the immanent
development variable to be mapped.
4.3.1 The Emergence of Tenure Insecurity as a Political Problem
It was in the mid-1990s, at the juncture where the CPP leadership was establishing its primacy
over its coalition partners/rivals at the same time as finalising the victory over the Khmer
Rouge that the issue of rural land tenure security began to be prominent in Cambodia.
Political analysts, observing the gradual success of the government‟s defections policy looked
for other potential sources of instability51
. Land disputes were often presented as the most
likely source of any future troubles, with the problem being made visible by newspaper
51
I remember reading articles to this effect at different times between 1996 and 2000 and also to meeting risk
analysis consultants looking at tenure insecurity in the context of political stability, although I have not been able
to track down specific references to these.
84
reports of land grabs, angry speeches by the Prime Minister and a stream of victims of forced
eviction camping outside the parliament building and requesting help (Ear, 2005; Hay, 2007).
In 1999 reviewing land issues literature, Williams wrote:
During the course of preparation of this review, local Cambodian newspapers carried almost
daily stories of court cases and protests by farmers' dispossessed by officials and military
officers who have misused their authority. Sales of public property for personal gain,
including ministerial head offices, schools and land within national parks were openly
reported and unprosecuted (S. Williams, 1999, p. 3).
The first comprehensive documentation of an individual case was a study of land
expropriation by local authorities in north-west Cambodia (Kato, 1999). In that case, refugees
repatriated from the Thai-Cambodian border had been allocated land and land titles near a
village in Battambang province. However, a portion of the land had been sold to unidentified,
non-local buyers. The returnees had received official titles from the cadastral office, and also
had a letter recognizing these as legitimate from the commune52
chief. However, they were
unable to farm the land that they had been allocated. Informal militia recruited by the
unknown „buyer‟ forcibly kept them off the land. Despite high profile support from various
national and international organisations, and the unquestionable legitimacy of their claim, the
returnees never gained access to their land. Various rounds of protest came to nothing and
eventually disintegrated as some families accepted payments from the buyer‟s agents and
others drifted away in search of other land and livelihood opportunities53
.
This first case typified the way that land disputes would come to be seen: pitting groups of
poor people against powerful but often shadowy alliances between private businesses and
senior political or military figures. The depiction of land disputes as the result of the predatory
activities of business and military elites operating with the complicity of the authorities was
not only promoted by NGOs and the media. The Prime Minister himself repeatedly
characterised land disputes in precisely the same way, and presented himself as a champion of
the poor in such struggles.
...some well-to-do government officials put up fences on land for speculation ... and they are
no ordinary people but people with power and rich merchants ... I will never side with them
but support our people‘s claim ...I will inform the villagers to take back their land with my full
support ...(the Cambodian) people must have the priority to development, not the investors
(Sen, 1998, p. 4).
And, employing a formulation that would be repeated verbatim in successive speeches, (Sen,
2000a, p. 4, 2000b, p. 4):
I have taken personal interest in addressing many cases of illegal land grabbing. The RGC
has recently confiscated many plots of land grabbed by some powerful, crooked officials and
given them back to the state or to their previous owners (Sen, 1999b, p. 6).
During the following decade a number of NGOs involved in land issues began compiling data
on land disputes. While none of these were comprehensive, they did yield some statistics and
analysis. Cooper‟s (2002) review of the reports from four NGOs with major land case loads in
52
Commune is the lowest formal level of government in Cambodia, and the next administrative level up from the
village. 53
After Kato‟s original study highlighting the case I was able to follow it up when I evaluated the development
NGO supporting the villagers in 2000 (when I stayed with the village chief in the village) and on later
evaluations of the effectiveness of support provided by human rights and legal aid NGOs in land conflict cases
(Biddulph, 2003a).
85
2001 suggested that allowing for some overlap that perhaps there were about 240 cases pitting
200 000 poor people against powerful opponents in large scale land disputes .
A recent analysis of cases reported in the media in 2008 by the NGO Forum on Cambodia‟s
Land Information Centre (LIC), found that over 80% of the disputes were long-standing and
remain unsolved (Land Information Centre, 2009). In this sample cases on average involved
200 complainants, and average land size under contest was 50 hectares (Land Information
Centre, 2008, 2009).
Research findings confirm the profile of the protagonists reproduced by the NGOs and the
Prime Minister. The LIC analysis was based on information from 107 cases54
and found that
the defendants were in 30% of cases private companies; 21% military authorities; 21%
unknown; 20% local (up to district) authorities; 4% provincial/national authorities; 3%
„community‟ and 2% police (Land Information Centre, 2009, p. 8). An earlier study looking at
rural landlessness found that 74% of households who reported having had their land taken
from them, identified the provincial administration or the military authorities as responsible
(Biddulph, 2000c, p. 2). The exact classifications, however, may be of limited value given that
the identity of buyers is often quite uncertain. Private sector actors will need to recruit the
support of civilian authorities and/or a credible security force, and may prefer to keep their
identity concealed behind those of their local clients; conversely, if a member of the
authorities, civilian or military, is engaged as a private investor they may prefer to conceal this
by implying that they are agents for another, wealthier, better-connected actor.
A study completed in 2006 looked in detail at seven land in two provinces in Cambodia, and
sought to learn more about the way in which collective action was triggered and the extent to
which it might be “harnessed to increase the responsiveness of the state to the needs of the
poor” (Center for Advanced Study, 2006, p. 8). Collective strategies were focused on
patrimonial rather than legal-administrative solutions: in other words “villagers employed a
variety of tactics in pursuit of a single strategy, that is, to get a powerful administrative
decision maker to intervene on their behalf” (Center for Advanced Study, 2006, p. 37). The
authors found that frustration with the disputes was giving rise to “uncertainty, frustration and
political pressure” (Center for Advanced Study, 2006, p. 38).
The sense that land grabs continue to represent a threat to social stability continues up to the
present time. Leading human rights organizations in Cambodia, both international
(UNOHCHR, 2007) and national (see Chakrya, 2009; Licadho, 2009) continue to highlight
land rights abuses as central to their case loads. A case reported in the media at the time of our
final field visit in March 2009 was illustrative of both the violent resentment that may be
generated by land rights abuses, and of the potential for them to rebound on politicians. In
March 2009 a security guard in Phnom Penh violently attacked the 70 year old senator whose
house he was guarding. The guard had owned land on the outskirts of the city, but it had been
taken from him. The senator had not personally been involved in the case, but the guard was
overwhelmed with anger and frustration towards all high level officials and vented this
general frustration against that whole class on the nearest available target (Macan-Markar,
2009). The sense that land disputes are a politically flammable issue that could potentially
lead to social unrest is, of course, balanced by the fact that after over a decade of disputes,
despite the sense of anger and injustice, and despite daily national newspaper headlines and
the continuation since the 1990s of the succession of dispossessed villagers camping outside
the parliament building or the Prime Minister‟s residence to plead their cases, there have been
no serious breakdowns of law and order. Grievances have remained but the aggrieved have
54
Total sample was 173 cases. Information on defendant available for 107 cases.
86
been effectively pacified, often having been adopted by a succession of NGOs each of whom
made a series of interventions on their behalf but ultimately moved on to other cases
(Biddulph, 2003a).
4.3.2 Landlessness was not a Tenure Security Issue
Another problem which came to prominence at the same time as land disputes in rural areas,
and was often linked with tenure insecurity and dispossession, was the issue of rural
landlessness (e.g. Sen, 1999a, p. 7). To some extent this was also a product of the same
anxious worries about alternative sources of instability and danger when the Khmer Rouge
threat finally started receding. Rural landlessness seemed to be a significant and growing
phenomenon: national socio-economic surveys in 1997 and 1999 found landlessness to be
13.0% and 15.8% respectively55
, but shed no light on the causes.
A piece of research commissioned by an international NGO in 199956
(Biddulph, 2000d),
made it clear that landlessness was chiefly related to poverty, and would have been growing at
about the same rate regardless of whether tenure security had been a problem or not.
Expropriation and land disputes (i.e. lack of tenure security) simply were not a major cause of
landlessness. In a sample of 145 villages comprising over 30 000 households, 13% were
found to be landless. Only a small fraction (6.2%) of those landless households reported
having become landless as a result of expropriation. Overwhelmingly, the landless had either
never owned land (55%), or had sold the land they had as a result of financial pressures (39%)
often related to an episode of ill health. A later iteration of this research using a smaller
sample which was arguably more nationally representative57
yielded a comparable level of
landlessness (11.9%), but found that less than one percent (4 of 526) of landless households
reported having had their land taken from them (Biddulph, 2004).
Households who had never owned land were either younger couples who had got married
since the 1980s and had not received land, or were households that had moved around, often
former refugees who had been in camps during the 1980s when land was distributed, and had
arrived in new villages where there was no available land for clearance, and where they had
insufficient capital to buy. Poor Cambodians could have been blessed with the most secure
private property rights in the world, but these households who had never had land, and those
who had needed to sell would nevertheless have become landless. The only possible link to
tenure security suggested by the landlessness research related to the security of public land: a
theme to which we will return.
Despite this conclusive evidence that landlessness was not a product of expropriations (i.e.
lack of tenure security) the myth remained prevalent. The two issues have continued to be
55
Differences in method suggested that it was not possible to interpret this as meaning that landlessness
increased by 2.8% in the two year period, but that the two figures give a reasonable idea of the possible scale of
the problem from a nationally representative sample (Biddulph, 2004, p. 8). 56
The research was conducted not only as an exercise in discovering the causes of landlessness, but also to raise
awareness amongst development workers and organizations of the problem of landlessness and to generate
lessons about the extent to which existing practice was effective in either preventing landlessness or assisting
households that had become landless. In accordance with that goal, organizations were encouraged to volunteer
to conduct research in the villages where they worked. The sample of 45 organizations and 145 villages
generated in this way therefore reflected biases in the organizations‟ choices of location. Nevertheless the
similarity between the headline landlessness figure in the research and that in national statistics, as well as the
broad geographical coverage (15 out of 24 provinces) lent some credence to the results. 57
The sample design was not in fact representative as it drew samples in equal number from the four agro-
ecological zones of Cambodia whose share of the national population varied by a factor of over ten (Biddulph,
2004, p. 13)
87
linked, and a causal relationship often suggested, as the following citation from a recent
UNDP report on land and human security illustrates:
However, many rural households in Cambodia suffer either from landlessness or near
landlessness, or lack of formal property rights to the land they live on...A likely consequence
of the many disputes is that landlessness or near landlessness is also on the rise (UNDP, 2007,
p. 11)
Having introduced the issue of tenure insecurity, and established it as a significant social
problem, though not the driver of rural landlessness that it was sometimes misrepresented as,
we can now turn to its geography.
4.3.3 Regional Distribution of Tenure Insecurity
The most reliable available proxy for tenure insecurity is the records of cases where people
have reported being dispossessed. Such cases are recorded on land dispute databases held by
various organizations engaged in land rights work. These record cases where there are five or
more parties to a land dispute, and thus potentially provide a geographical overview of tenure
insecurity. Unfortunately, the databases have not been well-maintained, and have not been
shared by the agencies, so it has not been possible to achieve a national overview of the
problem of tenure insecurity (Biddulph, 2003a)58
.
According to Kato, during the 1990s:
Expropriation – especially expropriation of large tracts of land – appears to happen most
frequently in the northwest, particularly to returnees and internally displaced people whose
occupancy of the land is either recent or who were forced to abandon the area at some point
because of the war. However, cases of eviction have been reported throughout Cambodia
(Kato, 1999, p. 1).
These two statements – that tenure security is prevalent „throughout Cambodia‟ and
particularly in the north-west of the country appear to be borne out by subsequent reports.
Cooper‟s review of data, for example, noted that the most cases were found in Battambang
and Banteay Meanchey in the north-west, in Kandal in the centre of the country, in Kampot in
the south-west and in Kampong Cham in the eastern central part of the country (Cooper,
2002). Recently, NGOs, while still not managing to combine their data to produce a decent
statistical overview are at least starting to map some of their own cases. One of the country‟s
two leading national human rights NGOs, The Cambodian League for the Defense of Human
Rights (LICADHO), recently published a report documenting a steep rise in the number of
dispute cases that it is involved in. The map of the cases where they are providing support
shows that there are land disputes in all of the provinces where they work (see Figure 4-1),
and that the north-western provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Siem Reap are
particularly prone to disputes (Licadho, 2009, p. 5)
58
The NGO Forum‟s Land Information Centre was in the process of addressing this gap in the course of this
research, but had only produced a pilot study report (Land Information Centre, 2008) and an analysis of cases in
the media in 2008 (Land Information Centre, 2009).
88
Figure 4-1: Land Disputes in Cambodia Monitored by Human Rights NGO LICADHO 2003-2008.
Source: (Licadho, 2009, p. 5)
The NGO Forum Land Information Centre (LIC) used the data from 173 cases recorded from
local media during the year 2008 to generate maps showing both provincial aggregates
(Figure 4-2) and individual dispute locations (Figure 4-3).
89
Source: Land Information Centre, 2009, p.10
Figure 4-2: Land Disputes in Cambodia Reported in the Cambodian Media 2008
90
Source: Land Information Centre, 2009, p. 2
Figure 4-3: Location of Land Disputes Reported in the Cambodian Media 2008
A refining of the “throughout Cambodia” geography, however, comes from a 2006 study
commissioned by the World Bank and the federally owned German Gesellschaft für
Technische Zusammenarbeit. The purpose of the report was to review the effectiveness of
donor-supported government land dispute mechanisms, but amongst the authors‟ key findings
was:
Ownership of the well established rice farming land which makes up the bulk of Cambodian
land holdings is relatively uncontentious as compared with other sorts of land holdings,
particularly chamcar land, common pool resources and land which was cleared by the parties
themselves (Adler et al., 2006, p. ix)
This suggests that while land disputes are „everywhere‟ in the sense of being found in all rural
provinces, there may be certain sorts of land that are more vulnerable than others, and that a
closer look at the geography might yield a more differentiated picture. Alert to this warning, I
will now seek to explain the geography of land disputes in Cambodia in relation to their
causes.
91
4.3.4 Explanation
Cambodia underwent a triple transition during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A transition
from a planned to a market economy, from conflict to peace and from authoritarian rule to
formal democracy, with the transition to a market economy seen as the dominant of those
transitions (Hughes, 2003a). While the idea that Cambodia has been „democratising‟ has been
convincingly rejected as an explanatory framework (Öjendal & Lilja, 2009), the transitions to
market and to peace provide the key dimensions to explaining the geography of tenure
insecurity in Cambodia in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
4.3.4.1 Rice Farming Landscapes and the Transition to Market.
The majority of the Cambodian population are rural smallholders. The dramatic changes in
the political systems and formal institutions for managing land during the half-century since
Independence suggests that the tenure rights of smallholder households have changed
radically and often. During the 1960s landholdings were based on a combination of what
households had received from their parents and what they had cleared themselves. By farming
their land, households established and maintained their right to that land. During the Khmer
Rouge rule 1975-79 all private ownership was abolished. All farming was communal, and the
state exercised the right to decide where people would live, often separating families, setting
people to work in mobile labour gangs, and relocating whole populations often for reasons
relating to security and regime survival. In 1979 one communist regime replaced another as
the Vietnamese supported People‟s Republic of Kampuchea supplanted the Khmer Rouge‟s
People‟s Democracy of Kampuchea. Again, farming was to be communal, with the state
owning all land and villages organised into krom samaki (solidarity groups) of about ten
households per group. Land was to be redistributed equally amongst the population according
on the basis of family size and available labour. A transition to market was mentioned in
political speeches from 1985, some private ownership was allowed from 1986 and land was
formally redistributed to farmers in 1989. The passage of the 1992 Land Law, established the
mechanisms by which individuals could set about obtaining ownership title, which set in
motion a titling process that was never completed 59
(Sovannarith et al., 2001, p. 188; S.
Williams, 1999, pp. 7-9).
Despite these apparent upheavals, however, there was in fact a large element of continuity in
land ownership and land use for individual farming households. When land was redistributed
to the solidarity groups in 1979 it was often done in such a way that in practice families
returned to farming the land that they had owned prior to 1975. In other cases, land was
claimed on a first come, first served basis after 1979, and then those patterns of ownership
confirmed under the supposedly communal farming arrangements. In addition to land that was
officially under communal farming, households were often also able to clear land from nearby
forests and this was treated wholly as private (Kusakabe, Yunxian, & Kelkar, 1995, p. 89).
Communal farming, furthermore, was often only practiced for a short time, sometimes only
for the year or so that it took to overcome the acute shortage of rice seed, draft animals and
other inputs in the immediate aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime (S. Williams, 1999, p. 8).
As one history of the 1979-1989 period concludes, this was in fact a time when the free
market flourished and “the PRK encouraged the family economy and made this the
foundation of its rural legitimacy” (Slocomb, 2003, p. 263). There has been no comprehensive
research on the various ways in which land redistribution was interpreted and implemented,
59
Applications were made and receipts for these applications were issued. The titling process was never
completed, however the receipts, which looked a little like a bird‟s wing and were known locally as „chicken
wing forms‟ were kept by many households as a proxy for a title.
92
but it is clear that in some places there was a genuine attempt by local authorities to follow the
central directive to redistribute, whilst in others there was basically a return to former
ownership patterns. Gottesman found that the system of collectivization had already failed,
and cited central government discussions of particularly unruly cases where local cadre had
been involved in selling off the best land on the private market and leaving only the poorest
lands to be farmed collectively (Gottesman, 2004, pp. 272-273). I have not heard similar
stories to this during my years in the Cambodian countryside, so suspect that these were
exceptional cases, nevertheless what is clear is that the „redistribution‟ of communal land that
is commonly referred to as having occurred after the Vietnamese withdrew their support in
1989 was simply a question of the legislation catching up with something that had already
happened up to a decade previously.
Buying and selling of land, meanwhile, occurred as early as the very early 1980s, as has been
made clear by interviews with landless households (Biddulph, 2000d). There has always been
a degree of stigma attached to trading of land – the social norm is to farm the land and then to
hand it on to your children - but it has also been a recognised and accepted part of village life
and of coping with crises60
. While there was no legal way to transfer land privately during the
1980s, transactions were secured by either community recognition or informal written
contracts by the transacting parties or the local authorities or an informal witnessing of the
transaction by the village chief (or some combination of these). These practices continued
after formal privatisation in 1989 and the passage of the 1992 Land Law as land transactions
became legally possible, but only through channels which were never realistically available to
poor rural households. In practice, then, for rural smallholders, the transition from planned to
market economy had little or no effect on their tenure arrangements as land was already
effectively under private ownership.
Overall, the norms relating to land tenure of smallholder agricultural land remained
consistent. Possession and de facto ownership were established by farming land. Families
could acquire land by inheritance, and could also expand their holdings by clearing new land
at the edge of the village. Selling and buying land were likewise recognised and accepted
ways of acquiring or disposing of land, but with selling a reluctant response to crisis. My
experiences of carrying out research into the causes of landlessness led me into countless
conversations with rural Cambodians who had sold their land between the early 1980s and the
early 2000s. I had the impression of a well-functioning local land market where selling and
buying were not problematic, and therefore of rather secure tenure arrangements. As Adler et
al. pointed out, only 1.8% of plots in the 2004 socio-economic survey were reported as ever
having been subject to a conflict, with two-thirds of those disputes already resolved, leading
them to conclude that “tenure in Cambodia is more secure than is generally assumed” (Adler,
Porter, & Woolcock, 2008, p. 2). Adler is particularly interesting on the subject of the urban
fringe around Phnom Penh. The city has been expanding and investors have been acquiring
ever larger tracts of land outside Phnom Penh, effectively transforming it from rural to urban.
However, this process has been geographically differentiated. Various sorts of public and
common such as lakes and marshes have been expropriated by investors through opaque deals
with authorities. In the case of rice lands however, and regardless of whether the owners have
official title or not, investors have acquired the land by purchase.
60
Interview 178, with a provincial cadastral official in Takeo.
93
4.3.4.2 State Land and the Transition to Market.
If tenure of smallholder agricultural land was generally secure, where did the protests about
land grabbing and dispossession which attracted the headlines in Phnom Penh come from?
While the informal arrangements around rural smallholdings have remained stable and
governed by the same norms and practices through the decades, the same continuity has not
been found with other land. After the signing of the Peace Agreements in 1991 and the formal
change from the People‟s Republic of Kampuchea to the State of Cambodia, there was
suddenly a situation where the State had vast assets, no legal way to divest itself of those
assets, and no intention to continue with a command economy. In Phnom Penh the
consequences were rapid and visible: State factories and other assets were sold off by ministry
officials, provoking protests by suddenly unemployed former workers, and the violent
suppression of such protests (Sanger, 1991)61
.
In the countryside a similar vacuum was created. Suddenly, all land which had not been under
the plough was subject to contest. And at all levels this became an unfair contest between
people who could mobilise the authority of the state, and much poorer people who lacked
such connections. Previously, the land between villages had been forest or scrub which
provided a reserve of agricultural land which could be cleared as the population expanded, as
well as a source of food and firewood. Suddenly, villagers discovered that all of the land
between the villages, which previously „had no owner‟ in their eyes, was now privately owned
(Biddulph, 2000d). Small areas of communal land held in trust by local authorities rapidly
became the private property of village chiefs and their families, while vast areas of forest and
scrub were turned over to national and international business interests as agricultural or
forestry concessions (Van Acker, 1999, p. 54).
In addition to the intensified logging and granting of timber concessions already discussed,
the State began issuing Economic Land Concessions, mainly for plantation agriculture, again
with limited compliance with relevant legislation (UNOHCHR, 2007, p. 49). In addition to
the 943,069 hectares of economic land concessions documented, there have been rumours of
land deals struck with foreign governments for huge areas (Minder, 2008), as well as a brief
flirtation during 2008-9 with the policy of allowing provincial governors to issue concessions
of up to 1000 hectares. None of these is on land that is in any way „empty‟ or unclaimed. In
addition to various authorities jostling to broker investment deals there has also been a steady
flow of migrants into forested regions looking to secure new agricultural land. Any
Cambodian household using or occupying land in forest or forest margins has tenure that is
insecure in the extreme. In many respects, then, the division that Alden Wily made in Africa
seems to apply well to Cambodia: smallholder agricultural and residential land is relatively
secure, whilst other public or commons land to which people have had various de facto rights
is extremely insecure (Alden Wily, 2008 see chapter 2)
4.3.4.3 The Transition to Peace.
Following the ouster of the Khmer Rouge regime by Cambodian defectors supported by the
Vietnamese army in 1979 came a period where the primary sources of regional difference in
the Cambodian countryside were security related. The prolonged guerrilla war which took
place from 1979 did not reach many parts of central Cambodia which effectively enjoyed
peace from that time on. The resistance forces, with their bases and supply lines among the
61
I was resident in Phnom Penh at the time and recall being out on the streets on one of the evenings when
people were protesting in the streets and police accidentally shot dead a bystander watching from a balcony
above the angry crowd.
94
refugee camps on the Thai border were most effective in the north-west of the country, but
also established bases in the forests in north-east and south-west of the country. After the
peace process and UN sponsored elections in 1993 the Khmer Rouge continued their struggle,
which was not finally ended until the death in 1998 of Pol Pot and the integration of the final
remnants of the Khmer Rouge military into either the national military or civilian society. As
a result of this conflict large tracts of the country, especially in the north-west, but also in the
south, south-west and north-east of the country were insecure. The combination of military
activity and risk of land-mines meant that much cultivable land remained unoccupied. As
peace came, these areas opened up. Families in search of land, including many of the 350 000
former refugees from the Thai-Cambodian border, moved in. At the same time, military
commanders often had their own plans for that land, thus many of the land conflicts that were
documented during the late 1990s involved a single commander on the one side in conflict
with sixty or seventy households on the other side. During the 1990s the places with most
fighting and the largest and longest military presence were those worst afflicted by
widespread tenure insecurity (Cooper, 2002).
Related to this were land conflicts along the Thai-Cambodian border. The refugees who had
lived in the camps in Thailand during the 1980s had well-established livelihoods there. They
had the connections required to engage in cross-border trading or smuggling, and to access
casual labour markets in agriculture and construction. Many of these people having returned
to Cambodia found it difficult to establish themselves and often came back to the border in
order to earn a living. Large informal settlements grew up along the border, and especially
near the main crossing point between Poipet in Cambodia and Aranyaprathet in Thailand
(NPA, 2003). Meanwhile, this land was also prime real estate, not least for the construction of
casinos and hotels which could be built on Cambodian soil in order to cater for wealthy Thai
clients (casinos being illegal in Thailand). As a consequence there has been a series of
settlements and often violent evictions in the Poipet area (for example CHRAC, 2005;
Woodsome, 2005).
It is thus a combination of insecurely resettled returned refugees, military interests, a
population which has been more prone to displacement by fighting and land-mines than in
other parts of the country, and lucrative investment opportunities along the national border
that have made the north-west particularly prone to tenure insecurity.
4.3.5 Immanent Development and Tenure Insecurity in Summary
The consequences for tenure security of Cambodia‟s transitions to market and to peace were
minimal in the areas where smallholder rice farming had been practiced since the ouster of the
Khmer Rouge in 1979. Both peace and markets had come to these places a decade before the
1991 peace agreement and the 1993 Constitution, and villagers‟ relations to land were firmly
established within long-standing social norms. By contrast, areas that had formerly been under
State management, or under conflict, were subject to competing claims, often including
competition between settlements of poor people and well connected military commanders or
business people. In such situations, poor people‟s tenure has been extremely insecure. A 2002
report looking into land policy and conflicts in Cambodia pieced together data from various
organisations involved in land related conflicts, concluded that by the end of 2001 there were
“at least 200,000 poor Cambodians involved in land disputes with powerful people including
generals, high government officials and large businesses” (Cooper, 2002, p. 8).
The idea that tenure insecurity is „throughout Cambodia‟ is justifiable in the sense that it is
found in all provinces to a greater or lesser extent. On the other hand, it is not prevalent on all
sorts of land. Up to this point, whether as a result of the ruling party‟s political allegiance to
the population who remained in place during the 1980s, or because of a respect for the rice
95
farming norms that have been seen as central to Khmer culture, it appears that the smallholder
rice lands where the majority of the population have their residential and farmland have
remained secure.
4.4 Intentional Development: A Geography of Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia
4.4.1 Systematic Land Titling
In 1992, following the 1991 peace agreements, the Cambodian government passed a new land
law and began the process of issuing land titles to all citizens who had occupied their land
peacefully for five years or more. Four million applications were made for title, of which 15%
were reportedly processed62
. However, the State‟s bureaucratic capacity could not match its
vision and the process ran out of steam. A request was made by the government in 1995 for
donors to assist with a land titling process. Eventually, after a number of pilot projects
financed principally by the Finnish and German governments, a Land Management and
Administration Project (LMAP) was agreed63
. Originally this was a 5-year programme
running from 2002 until 2007, with a total cost of 33.4 million USD financed respectively by
the International Development Association of the World Bank (23.4 million USD); the
Government of Finland (3.5 million); the Federal Republic of Germany (3.5 million USD);
the Royal Government of Cambodia (3.0 million USD).
The project consisted of 5 components, as follows:
1. Development of land policy and regulatory framework.
2. Institutional development.
3. Land titling programme and development of a land registration system.
4. Strengthening mechanisms for dispute resolution.
5. Land management.
It is component 3 which is the focus of interest for this study. Two sorts of land titling are
distinguished: systematic land titling and sporadic land titling. Systematic land titling refers to
a process whereby a whole community is surveyed at the same time and titles issued en
masse. This is systematic in the sense that survey teams can cover each district, commune by
commune and each commune village by village until all of the land in an administrative area
has been titled. Systematic land titling was the central element in the LMAP titling
programme; the other components can be seen as providing the regulatory and institutional
framework to enable systematic land titling to succeed. Sporadic land titling refers to cases
where person/legal entity in an area which has not yet been titled makes an application to get
their land individually titled. Typically, it is non-local buyers who have used sporadic land
titling to secure their purchase of land in the Cambodian countryside. In a pre-study for the
LMAP project, sporadic land titling was identified as a source of tenure insecurity in rural
areas, as outsiders could potentially develop a legal claim, supported by documentation, for
land used by rural dwellers without such documentation (Sovannarith et al., 2001).
The local origins and motivation to the land titling programme could be traced to the
Cambodian government wish to complete the process which it had begun but been unable to
62
Williams (1999, p. 10) suggests there should be some scepticism about this figure by noting that “many
commentators” question this figure both how it can be so large, and how in practice a count was accomplished. 63
Unless otherwise specified, information below comes from the Project Appraisal Document (World Bank,
2002)
96
complete in 1992, and to speeches made by the Prime Minister emphasising the importance of
secure land titles (World Bank, 2002, p. 9). The project‟s overall goals were “to reduce
poverty, stimulate economic development, promote social stability and improve
environmental management”, and these were to be achieved via its specific objectives which
were “to improve land tenure and promote the development of efficient land markets” (World
Bank, 2002, p. 2).
These goals and objectives were set in the context of a project description which related
tenure insecurity to a lack of investment:
It is overwhelmingly clear to both government and donors that the overriding problem and the
one with the greatest contributed to poverty is lack of land tenure security (and the associated
landlessness) and restricted access to common property resources. Symptoms of the problem
are clear from the rising number of landless people due to forced or distressed sales and the
high number of land disputes clogging the judicial and other institutions for resolving land
conflicts. (World Bank, 2002, p. 3).
There are suggestions that state agents such as the military and politically connected people
have dispossessed people of their land which is being facilitated by the lack of formal
recognition of rights on these lands (World Bank, 2002, p. 3).
The economy has also been growing steadily, an average annual rate of about 5 percent per
year. However, unclear rules governing rights to land threaten both political stability and
economic development (World Bank, 2002, p. 3).
Finally, the low output of Cambodian rice farming compared with the remainder of the region
was highlighted, and it was posited that increasing tenure security would remove a barrier to
investment in irrigation:
Lack of clear title is also hindering economic growth in Cambodia by reducing incentives to
invest...Rice output in Cambodia is enough to feed the average family for only seven months a
year. Low yields are primarily due to low investments in water control technologies essential
to take full advantage of high yielding rice varieties...Low investment in agriculture is in part
a result of lack of security over rights to land (World Bank, 2002, p. 4).
During the course of the research for this thesis the World Bank repeatedly presented the
systematic titling under LMAP as having the potential to transform smallholder agriculture in
Cambodia by removing the “primary binding constraint” to agricultural growth, namely “ill-
defined property rights” (World Bank, 2006, p. 74). It was claimed that titled land would in
consequence deliver yields that were 73% greater than untitled land, meaning that the
issuance of one million titles would enable 438,345 individuals to escape from poverty and
would reduce the national poverty rate by 3.36%. These impressive figures were derived from
a study (Deininger, 2005) which unfortunately was impossible to locate during the research64
,
but which in turn appears to be based on very unreliable answers from the 2004 Cambodia
Socio-Economic Survey (Markussen, 2008, p. 2280)65
.
If the claims made on behalf of the LMAP project were somewhat doubtful, its success in
delivering outputs both ahead of schedule and at a lower than anticipated cost was indubitable
64
Two colleagues of Deininger who were in possession of the report suggested that I contact him directly for a
copy. Deininger (who given his prominence no doubt receives a very large amount of correspondence from
fellow researchers) did not respond to my communications. 65
According to the survey responses 21% of parcels of land held official title. This was not feasible in 2004,
before LMAP was implemented. The answers may relate to receipts issued during the abortive registration and
titling begun in 1992 by the Cambodian government, or it may have been that respondents felt it was in their best
interests to claim that they had title even when they didn‟t. Instructions given to enumerators failed to clarify the
matter (Markussen, 2008, p. 2280).
97
likewise its track record in building up the technical capacity of the staff employed by the
Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (Anttonen, 2010). The
project was extended twice and was eventually completed on 31st December 2009
66. By its
original completion date, it had delivered 794,639 signed titles to land owners, thereby
exceeding the project document target of 760 000 (World Bank, 2009a, p. 8). With 700
trained staff working in registration teams in 11 provinces, producing on average 20 000
legally registered titles per month this reflected an impressive training and management effort
(Sovann, 2005). With titles costing less than 10 USD per parcel to produce, it has also
reportedly been the most cost-efficient land titling system in the Southeast Asia region
(FINNMAP, 2008).
Despite its successes in achieving intended outputs, the project was not without controversy
during the course of this research. World Bank complaints about procurement processes,
strongly disputed by the LMAP project director, led to an international procurement agent
being appointed for the project (World Bank, 2009a), and then late in 2009 a group of NGOs
working with urban communities in Phnom Penh initiated a complaints procedure against the
Bank staff on the project via the World Bank‟s Inspection Panel (World Bank Inspection
Panel, 2009). That complaint related to the inability of a group of urban dwellers living
around a lake in Phnom Penh to get their tenure secured by the project. The issues raised in
the urban complaint – where does the project go, and where does it not go, reflect the
concerns of this research in rural areas, and we will return to that later.
4.4.1.1 Geographical Distribution
In rural areas, the focus of this research project, LMAP systematic land titling has been
implemented in the seven provinces and two municipalities67
. As can be seen in Figure 4-4,
the northeast of the country, has not been included. These four provinces play host to forest-
dwelling ethnic minority communities. The west and north-west of the country has also
largely been avoided. This is another part of the country with large expanses of forest. The
main concentrations of titling have therefore been in central and southern Cambodia.
Data available at district level gives the impression that the titling programme covers more
territory than is actually the case: within these districts only some communes will have been
titled, and within those communes it is only private land that has been fully adjudicated and
titled. Selected State land, in particular the sites of public utilities such as wells and schools
have been titled, but other State land remains untitled. What the villages that have been titled
in rural areas have in common is that they are located in the landscapes of the “well
established rice farming land which makes up the bulk of Cambodian land holdings” (Adler et
al., 2006, p. ix).
66
LMAP is one in a series of projects coordinated by the Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and
Construction as part of a programme which will envisages registering and titling all land in Cambodia within
about 15 years. LMAP was superseded in 2009 by the Land Administration Sub-Sectoral Project (LASSP),
which continues to be supported by Finland and Germany but no longer by the World Bank. 67
Provinces of Battambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kampot, Kandal, Prey Veng,
Siem Reap, Takeo. Municipalities of Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh. Whilst provinces are notionally rural and
municipalities are notionally urban, all municipalities include some rural areas, and provinces all include urban
areas.
98
Figure 4-4: Districts in Cambodia With Systematic Land Titling as at July 2009 (Source: LMAP)
4.4.1.2 Explaining the Geography of Systematic Land Titling
In the geography of tenure insecurity in Cambodia we found that the one sort of land that was
generally not prone to insecurity was that belonging to smallholders in established rice
farming areas. Yet LMAP, a programme that intends to address the problem of tenure
insecurity, is only being implemented in areas where tenure security is not generally a
problem. Why might this be the case? Part of the explanation relates to project management
strategies. The LMAP Director (Interview 219) explained that it was important to begin the
programme in areas where it would be able to succeed. He used the metaphor of a cock-fight
to explain the process and said that if a cock is sent to fight and loses, that will be the end of
the cock with no second chances. So it is always wise to send the cock out to fight against
some weaker opponents first to get some victories and become stronger before fighting a
stronger opponent. For this reason, he argued that it is beneficial that the systematic land
titling programme has been implemented in areas where tenure is already secure.
This risk-aversion is also enshrined in the project appraisal document which suggests that
difficult areas will be avoided: “The project will not title lands in areas where disputes are
likely until agreements are agreed on the status of the land” (World Bank, 2002, p. 24).
In addition to the central policy choices, there is also a decentralised safety valve which
ensures that systematic land titling only travels to places which government feels comfortable
99
with. According to the relevant legislation68
, it is provincial governors who must allocate an
adjudication area and determine its boundaries, before initiating the work of officials of the
Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction to conduct the registration
process. At this stage, therefore, strategic choices may be made about project location on the
basis of the sort of vested interests and networks that order the economic development of
contemporary Cambodia. The assertion that risk-aversion (only taking the tenure security
programme to already secure lands) is only a temporary phase at the beginning of a project
whilst the project becomes „strong‟ should be treated with some scepticism. Cambodia‟s
systematic land registration resembles earlier titling processes also supported by the World
Bank in Thailand and Indonesia, where it has been argued that the main lessons learned were
“ways to avoid complex tenurial situations, as well as complex land types such as forests, so
as to be able to concentrate on reaching high production targets in non-contested areas” (S.
Williams, 2003, p. 8).
The logic of the intervention suggests that titling might improve tenure security resulting in
the promised benefits of improved agricultural productivity and poverty reduction. Research
carried out so far has suggested that while people are pleased with the process and often report
that the title gives them improved security, it has not impacted on the way that people farm
(Deutsch, 2006; McAndrew, 2007). A well-designed research project implemented by the
Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) incorporating a baseline study in five
districts, four where titling was to occur and a fifth which was to be a control, was due to be
followed up in 2007 (Ballard & Sovannarith, 2004). That study would, by virtue of having a
larger, more representative sample, have provided more valid results. Unfortunately, the
follow-up has yet to occur69
.
In interviews with cadastral officials at district (Interview 230), provincial (Interview 232) and
national (Interview 220) level I asked them if they could direct me to other locations where
systematic land titling had resulted in observable changes in agricultural practice. No such
places could be identified. This lack of impact is, of course, consistent with the geography of
tenure insecurity (found everywhere apart from smallholder agricultural regions) and the
geography of the systematic land titling intervention (found only in smallholder agricultural
regions). The one problem identified by the project document that is found in the areas where
the programme is being implemented is landlessness, but that, as already noted, is not a
problem that is caused by tenure insecurity and not, therefore, one that can be solved by
improving or formalising tenure security.
In the context of the scrupulousness with which systematic land titling has avoided
Cambodia‟s forests, and the key role that forests have played in Cambodia‟s elite politics, this
difficult and contested terrain does not seem a promising area for internationally supported
property rights interventions. However, community forestry is an intervention of a quite
different type, and we turn to that now.
4.4.2 Community Forestry
Community forestry has been implemented in Cambodia since 1991 when two international
NGOs established projects in Takeo and Kampong Chhnang provinces. By 2002, 57 projects
had been identified, and by 2005 the head of the national Forestry Administration listed 274
68
Sub decree on the Procedures to establish Cadastral Index Map and Land Register (MLMUPC, 2002) 69
The choice to focus on village-scale studies throughout the period of this research was partly informed by the
expectation that my village level work would be complemented by the CDRI larger-sample work.
100
community forestry project sites spread through 19 of Cambodia‟s 24
provinces/municipalities (Heng & Sokhun, 2005).
As Poffenberger (2006) has explained, communities were, at least in some places, managing
forest long before international agencies began advocating community forestry. He illustrates
this with two examples which indicate effective management over several decades. First, in
Ratanakiri province70
research showed how forest cover during a fifty year period had shown
little change apart from a rotation in the mosaic of land use systems thus demonstrating the
sustainability of the swidden management regimes of the native ethnic minority peoples living
there (Fox, 2002 cited in Poffenberger, 2006, p. 60). Second, in a village in Siem Reap
villagers primarily depended on fisheries, which in turn were dependent on hatcheries in
flooded forests on the northern banks of the Tonlei Sap lake. About sixty years ago forests
were cleared by farmers wishing to grow water melons. When this damaged fish stocks the
local community began organising to protect the forest and have done so up to the present day
(Poffenberger, 2006, pp. 67-68). However, whilst such examples of local management do
exist, the initiative to promote and formalise community management as an alternative to
centralised state control has initially come from international actors.
A diverse range of national and international NGOs as well as bilateral and multilateral
agencies were involved in supporting community forestry during the 1990s. Whilst focusing
on establishing projects with communities they also advocated for recognition and legitimacy
for community forestry management from the government. During the 2000s, after a new
Forestry Law was passed in 2002, this advocacy eventually resulted in the issuing of a
Community Forestry sub-decree71
in 2003 and a Community Forestry Prakas in 2006.
4.4.2.1 Geographical Distribution
The total land area devoted to community forestry is 367 943 hectares (see Figure 4-5), which
is 3.31% of the total national forest estate of 11,104,285 hectares (Forestry Administration,
2004, p. 3). The geography of community forestry is a patchy one, spread mainly through
forest areas, but also sometimes in rice field landscapes.
There are certain areas of concentration, which tend to reflect the presence of larger
International Organisations or NGOs, such as the cluster of projects in degraded forests in
Kampong Chhnang that were supported by the international NGO Concern Worldwide during
the 1990s, and the project sites in the flooded areas north of the Tonlei Sap lake in Siem Reap
province that were supported by a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation programme from
the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s.
What these scattered areas have in common, however, is that they are overwhelmingly in
degraded forest. In a review of the 57 community forestry sites existing at the time, Fichtenau
et al. (2002, pp. 25-26) found that none of the community forestry sites was in „undisturbed‟
forests, so all were to a greater or lesser extent „degraded‟, with 67% located in areas that
were defined as either „heavily degraded‟ or having „little or no forest‟. The secondary forest
which remains in the community forestry locations has been found to have very little
70
Ratanakiri is at the north-east tip of Cambodia, has low population densities, high forest cover and traditionally
large native ethnic minority forest-dwelling population. 71
Cambodian legislative practice is such that laws are not normally framed in full detail, but require subsidiary
legislation in order for them to be enacted. There is thus typically a hierarchy of formal regulation: laws, then
sub-decrees, then prakas, then guidelines
101
Figure 4-5: Community Forestry Areas, Cambodia, June 2009 (Source: Forestry Administration)
102
commercial value (McKenney, Chea, Tola, & Evans, 2004). Fichtenau et al. (2002) suggested
that there was potential for a far
larger proportion of Cambodia‟s territory to be allocated to community forestry and argued that
all forest land within 10 kilometres of a settlement be handed over to community management.
This proposition has not been adopted, and community forestry projects continue to be negotiated
on a case by case basis.
4.4.2.2 Explanation of the Geographical Spread of Community Forestry
A geography of community forestry that locates it on degraded lands is not unique to Cambodia:
Poffenberger identifies this as typical in Southeast Asia:
Most national community forestry programmes, at least in their initial phases, focus on degraded
forest restoration through natural regeneration or plantations. In other cases, projects are geared
towards community management of small-scale timber operations. Commercially and biologically
valuable forests, typically of older growth, have generally been retained by the state for industrial
use or placed under protected area systems (Poffenberger, 2006, p. 64).
Interestingly, from the point of view of the arguments in this thesis, Poffenberger points to the
contrast between host government and development industry actors in their follow up of new
legislation.
In terms of the impact of new policies and legislation empowering community forest management,
they appear to have had more influence in helping leverage donor investment in this sector than in
securing community rights to state forestlands. Many of the initial policies have been cautiously
framed, restricting community rights to income flows from forestlands (Poffenberger, 2006, p. 63).
The location of community forestry sites in degraded forests means that they do not promise
much impact on livelihoods and local economies in the short to medium term. The first fifteen
years is often seen as a preparatory phase to build up the resource such that significant incomes
can be derived from it.
This narrative of development, with the poorest people being allocated the poorest land and being
supported by the development industry to improve it has not passed without criticism or
contestation. It does, after all, directly contradict the literature consulted in chapter 2, which in its
milder formulations suggested that community based natural resource management (CBNRM)
would be more realistic in cases where communities were very dependent on the resource
(Agrawal, 2007), and in its more fundamentalist iterations builds on the idea that common
property regimes (CPR) are by definition indigenous and that interventions therefore facilitate the
continuance of already existent common property regimes resource and management systems
(Alden Wily, 2008, p. 45).
One critique of the tendency for community forestry to be implemented away from high value
forests came from the authors of a „Special Report‟ by researchers from CDRI, Cambodia‟s
leading independent policy research organisation, and the international conservation NGO the
Wildlife Conservation Society (McKenney et al., 2004). The authors of this report found that
there were enormous incentives for all actors to „cut and run‟. In other words, that given the
general insecurity of forest tenure it made more sense for people to cut down trees for immediate
103
economic rewards rather than to take the risk of managing them long term and seeing somebody
else cut them down. Their policy response in relation to community forestry was two-fold.
Firstly, they did not see economic value for communities in managing degraded forest, and
therefore proposed that communities should be allocated higher value forest and, crucially, be
allowed to harvest and trade timber on a commercial basis. Secondly, given the broader political
economy and the incentives to cut and run, they suggested that this so-called „commercial
community forestry‟ be piloted in places where there was exceptionally strong political support
from powerful actors (McKenney et al., 2004, p. 95).
A second critique came from researchers who had been looking at the role of harvesting resin
from hard-wood trees in people‟s livelihoods, and found that it was the central element of the
livelihoods of forest-dependent people in many areas of the country. Furthermore, that in some
places in the country there were informal tenure systems with households „owning‟ the right to
tap certain trees (Cock, 2004). The logging of resin trees had never been permitted under
Cambodian law, but concessionaires during the 1990s had flagrantly ignored this stipulation and
had been taking all of the hard wood trees from the areas where they had acquired logging rights.
Community forestry, particularly allied to community organisation and non-violent action, was
seen as a way for communities to resist the logging companies and to protect their access to resin
trees to which they had strong rights both by the letter of the law and according to established
cultural norms.
Community forestry projects have, however, in almost all cases been developed in cooperation
with the offices of the national Forestry Administration. Their location has been decided in
negotiation between NGOs, forestry officials and representatives of companies with economic
land concessions or forestry concessions in the areas. For such community activists, government
recognition and regulation of community forestry was a kiss of death because their short-term
objective was to resist the very companies who were being ushered in by the forestry authorities.
The communities and local NGOs with whom they worked would go to meetings with the
Forestry Administration and instead of being allocated the areas of forest where there were still
resin trees that they had requested, would instead be given degraded land. And, to the immense
frustration of the activists, neither the community representatives nor the NGO representatives
wished to alienate the Forestry Administration officials and gratefully accepted the degraded land
that they were given (Interview 254).
The similarities with the systematic land titling case become clear. Just as private titling has been
diverted away from the landscapes where elite interests are busily acquiring and dispossessing,
community tenure projects have also been similarly diverted, away from the high value forests
and towards the marginal lands. What is also clear given the contrast between the rather strong
form of property rights awarded under systematic land titling (i.e. full ownership) and the much
weaker rights in the community forestry regime (i.e. limited management rights for a limited
period of time, with regular review and the threat of withdrawal of those rights on inspection even
within that limited time), is that it is only appropriately diluted interventions that are allowed to
travel into what one interviewee called the „hot‟ areas.
104
4.5 The Relationship between the Two Geographies
4.5.1 Geographies of Evasion, and the Beginnings of Theory
Bebbington envisaged a three-step analytical process: having mapped out the immanent
geography (in which the problem of poverty and inadequate livelihoods was embedded), and the
intentional geography (in which the planned interventions were mapped out) there would then be
an analysis of the mutual interaction between the two. In this case, therefore, I have mapped out
the phenomenon of tenure insecurity in Cambodia, as a feature of the ongoing processes of
„immanent development‟, and I have mapped out the interventions of systematic land titling and
community forestry as examples of „intentional development‟ which set out to address the issues
of tenure insecurity.
An analysis of mutual relations between the insecurity and the interventions, however, does not
seem to show them mutually influencing each other. The pattern of tenure security interventions
is defined by (avoidance of) the patterns of tenure insecurity. There is no corresponding evidence
that patterns of insecurity have been influenced or modified by the tenure security interventions.
What we have seen, in fact, is a „geography of evasiveness‟ where the interventions have
systematically avoided the places where the problem of tenure insecurity is located.
We have seen a geography of tenure insecurity in rural Cambodia which indicates that
smallholder rice farmers are very secure in their tenure, but that almost all other land is insecure
and prone to competing claims and predatory land grabbing. We have also seen two tenure
security interventions, one aimed at securing private individualised tenure of agricultural and
house land, the other aimed at providing community tenure over forest land. The systematic land
titling has only travelled to places where tenure is already secure, namely smallholder rice
landscapes. Community forestry has only been implemented in places where the forest has
already been degraded. How have these geographies been accounted for in the project literature
of the respective interventions?
The titling component of the LMAP project was to improve land tenure security through issuance
of a million land titles, increase investment and generate greater efficiency of land use through
the development of land markets, improve tax collection and land use planning (World Bank,
2002). These benefits were anticipated from a programme which was justified in terms of its
ability to address “the overriding problem and the one with the greatest contribution to poverty”
in Cambodia, namely “land tenure security (and the associated landlessness)” (World Bank, 2002,
p. 4) and that this was related specifically to “suggestions that state agents such as the military
and politically connected people have dispossessed people of their land, which is being facilitated
by the lack of formal recognition of rights on those lands” (World Bank, 2002, p. 5. See also
section 4.4.1 above)
As we have seen, these statements are a lumping together of unrelated problems which occur in
quite different places. Rural landlessness was indeed prevalent and increasing throughout the sort
of agricultural smallholding regions of rural Cambodia where systematic land titling has been
implemented. However, it was not a product of tenure insecurity but of poverty, as was clearly
established by research into landlessness carried out in 1999-2000 that is cited elsewhere in the
LMAP Project Appraisal Document (Biddulph, 2000d). If rural landlessness had been the main
problem, then the programme might arguably have been being implemented in the right place, but
105
it would have been the wrong programme. The other problems mentioned: tenure insecurity,
restricted access to common property resources and dispossession of people by well-connected
business interests are, as we have seen, all problems which occur outside the agricultural
smallholder regions and therefore outside the places where LMAP has been implemented.
The World Bank, the major financier of the LMAP project, however, especially during the early
years of the research for this thesis, continually related the tenure security argument to
smallholder agriculture. For example, in its 2006 Poverty Assessment where it was suggested that
Cambodia needed a third engine of economic growth to complement the existing drivers of
garment factories and tourism. The poverty assessment suggested not only that smallholder
farming had the potential to be that third engine, but that the most important measure for enabling
smallholder farming to realise that potential was enhancing tenure security (World Bank, 2006, p.
88).
Community forestry, meanwhile, in so far as it is intended to extend rights to forests to people
who live in and near them, does potentially challenge elite interests. It requires the redistribution
of (at least) usufruct rights from powerful commercial interests and their partners within the
national political and military establishments, to local communities. However, progress with
approving community forestry initiatives was so slow and so partial that it would be difficult not
to interpret this as a form of quiet resistance on the part of the national leadership. Moreover,
where community forestry projects have been implemented, the role of the Forestry
Administration as both partner and regulator has led to the projects being diverted towards areas
which are relatively small and already degraded. So again, the intervention has been diverted
away from the places where its theoretical justification suggests it should be (forests which have
not yet been severely degraded and which offer livelihood possibilities), and instead diverted to
places where it cannot make much difference (areas where the resources are already degraded and
where the resource needs to be rehabilitated).
It is at this point that we encounter the central argument emerging from this thesis, which links
the geographies of evasion found in this chapter to the cases of misrepresentation in the early
chapter by means of the identification of a particular sort of development industry overreach.
Generally, the term overreach might be applied when an organisation attempts to implement
plans which it does not have the capacity or resources to carry out. In the specific terms of this
thesis, overreach by the development industry is defined in terms of its relationship to the
national elite and its political projects (understood in terms of the operation of a
shadow/developmental state). Systematic land titling is allowed to travel freely in the lowland
areas of Cambodia where there are no major accumulation projects by the political elite. In those
areas it is not in overreach. To the extent that land titling or community forestry, attempt to
generate entitlements to land which is coveted by the elite, they have to be resisted. The
resistance here involves diverting systematic land titling away from the places where the elite
have their projects, and diluting community forestry such that it is in such weak forms that it does
not present a threat. Meanwhile, however, the output-oriented management and reporting of the
development industry means that this resistance, which robs the interventions of the major
potentials claimed for them, is concealed by the fact that the outputs continue to be produced.
Land titles continue to be issued, community forestry sites continue to be registered, and all of
these are marked press releases ritually celebrating the interventions as successes.
106
These then are the beginnings of theory in relation to geographies of development intervention.
The development industry attempts to extend its reach beyond where the host nation political elite
is comfortable; the result of this overreach is not the cancellation or visible thwarting of
interventions, but rather a quiet resistance which involves them either being diverted away from
places where the elite and their clients have interests, or diluted such that they have little effect.
This geography of evasion – solutions missing the problems they are claimed to address – goes
relatively unremarked as a facade of success is constructed linking project outputs to a
misrepresented version of the lives and livelihoods of the people who are scheduled to benefit.
The village case studies in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 will provide a critical lens with which to view
this nascent theory. First however, I will illustrate the issue of overreach in relation to the land
sector in Cambodia with reference to my own earlier experiences, and also with subsequent
events relating to the LMAP project in the urban areas which are beyond the immediate empirical
scope of this thesis, but which help to illuminate its arguments and their relevance.
4.5.2 Applying a Geographies of Evasion Hypothesis
The implied hypothesis from the argument above is that if the development industry goes into
overreach (attempts to extend rights to people which conflict with the interests of the national
elite), geographies of evasion (comprising diversion, dilution and facades of success) will result.
During 1999 when working with the Oxfam GB Cambodia Land Study Project I accompanied a
colleague on a tour of informal settlements in Phnom Penh. People crowded onto the sides of
railway lines, on the public land by the entrance to pagodas, on rooftops of apartment buildings
and in large settlements by rivers and lakes. All of these communities were recognised up to a
point by the city authorities. They were organised into groups, and had village or community
leaders who were recognised by the state and who the government would deal with. What the
government did not recognise, however, was their permanent right to settle the land which they
occupied. Government officials stressed that this was State land and that people were living there
on sufferance. In the decade since that time urban tenure security has continued to be a front-page
issue in Cambodia, as one by one many of those informal communities have been displaced from
their land and more or less willingly resettled onto more or less suitable out-of-town sites. The
intentions of the (shadow/developmental) state were never in doubt.
Shortly after the completion of the field work for this thesis an NGO report called Untitled
(Grimsditch & Henderson, 2009), was issued which linked developments in these informal
settlements to the implementation of the LMAP project. A community settled in and around a
large lake near the centre of Phnom Penh had been scheduled to have their title registered by the
LMAP project. However, in anticipation of a land development deal struck between the
(shadow/development state) authorities and a private company, the community was quietly
removed from the schedule, an example of the geography of evasiveness described in this thesis.
The report was followed up by a request from the NGOs (COHRE, 2009) for an investigation of
the LMAP project, and of the World Bank support to that project for failing to uphold World
Bank standards in relation to involuntary resettlement and project supervision (Zoellick, 2009).
This prompted a World Bank commissioned external review of the project (Bekhechi & Lund,
2009) and a World Bank Management Response to the request (World Bank, 2009b).
107
Here, then, was a case of international development actors (in this case NGO workers in projects
with the urban poor) attempting to push a rights-based intervention into a place where powerful
figures in the shadow/developmental state would rather it did not go. The World Bank response
was partly to begin dismantling the facade: it no longer pointed to the project document‟s
ambitious claims, but rather to its ambiguities:
The project was to be a limited and phased in contribution to a very complex development
problem, although the Project Description in the PAD (Project Appraisal Document)
failed to make this clear (World Bank, 2009b, p. 26).
And began stressing the geographical distinctions that had previously been glossed over:
The Project was never envisaged, nor did it have the resources, to address all of the land
conflicts in the Project provinces (World Bank, 2009b, p. 26).
In addition to highlighting the limitations of titling, the Bank also reflected on the less successful
elements of the LMAP project. These were precisely the elements that involved extending the
reach of the programme beyond simply issuing title in dispute-free areas. LMAP had not made
progress with land management (which would mean taking official control of the State land
which, as we have seen, constitutes an insecure landscape of accumulation and dispossession in
the Cambodian countryside), nor had it made progress with legal assistance for the
disadvantaged, safeguards or community participation. Once the project attempted to go beyond
the landscapes where the shadow/developmental state was comfortable with its operations it had
floundered.
Nevertheless, the NGO report encouraged the Bank to try and ensure that rights were extended to
the people living in and around the Boeung Kak lake. What possibility was there that the
development industry might be able to resist the attempts by the shadow/developmental state to
divert it? I will answer this question indirectly at first by looking at the results of attempts to
achieve justice for groups threatened with dispossession, before returning to the cases in this
thesis.
In 2003 I conducted an evaluation of British Embassy support to a Legal Aid NGO and a Human
Rights NGO for their work in relation to land rights. As part of that evaluation I asked not only
those two organisations but all other legal aid and human rights organisations working in the field
for examples of cases of land disputes where the plaintiffs had successfully received back all of
the land that had been taken from them. There was just one such case. A land dispute in
Ratanakiri which after exceptional efforts by a range of organisations over several months,
involving lobbying the government via the king and various foreign embassies eventually led to
the Prime Minister ordering a senior military officer to return land to a native ethnic minority
community (Biddulph, 2003a). By 2008 a similar situation obtained. Little progress was being
made generally by human rights and legal aid NGOs in relation to land disputes, but there was
one outstanding case where a USAID supported NGO had successfully lobbied for “fair and just
compensation” for a group of 78 households who were due to be evicted from an island on the
Mekong (Blue & Underwood, 2008, p. 35). However, the evaluation of the programme which
supported them concluded that the main effect of the case was to ensure that the government
became more careful in ensuring that investors had a strong legal for evicting communities, for
108
example by issuing case specific sub-decrees supporting the investment. Generally, according to
the evaluation,
In cases where very ―powerful and wealthy‖ people from outside come in with
government issued documents, villagers can organize and protest, but the best they can
hope for is that the situation ―remains unresolved‖, while they continue to live on their
land as long as possible. There is little optimism or faith that ―powerless‖ people can
receive justice in the courts against more ―powerful‖ investors. They also said that when
very powerful outside interests are involved, local commune leadership is co-opted,
threatened, or ―bought‖ to insure [sic] cooperation with the investors (Blue &
Underwood, 2008, p. 31).
In other words, the cumulative experience of attempts by development industry actors to extend
rights to people in conflict with business interests connected to the shadow/developmental state,
reinforce the main findings and conclusions of this chapter. The geographies of evasion that see
interventions located away from the main problems they claim to address are rooted in a dynamic
where the development industry has ambitions to extend rights that the shadow/development state
is not prepared to enforce. Development industry attempts to try and combat the
shadow/development state projects are likely to be thwarted.
4.6 Summary
This chapter has contributed to the overall enquiry of the thesis into the relationship between
property rights interventions and rural livelihoods by investigating the relationship between the
geography of tenure insecurity and the geographies of systematic land titling and community
forestry.
Twice in its post-colonial history, Cambodia has been endowed with the trappings of multi-party
democracy, and each time a leader consolidated his power such that his rule became immune to
interruption by electoral means. In the patronage systems headed by Sihanouk and then by Hun
Sen, security, to the extent that it has been available to poor people, has come not from the rule of
law, but from the ability to at best be recruited into patronage networks, and at worst, at least
avoid conflicts with anyone better connected.
Post-colonial interventions, whether military or developmental have ultimately proven unfruitful.
The UNTAC intervention became emblematic of a tendency for international actors to promise
transformation, but to effect change at only the most superficial of levels. The peace promised by
UNTAC was only forthcoming five years later when deals brokered by Cambodian politicians
came to fruition. The democracy promised by the 1993 Constitution and the electoral political
system, much like its 1946 predecessor, has become a more distant prospect with time.
The current Prime Minister has consolidated power, including by allowing economic opportunity
to supporters and rivals on the condition that they ally themselves to him. During the 1990s,
forest management played a critical and contradictory role. On the one hand the destruction of the
forest resource, with negligible gain to the national treasury, was criticised, as was the way in
which the deforestation funded the conflict after international patrons ceased to finance the
guerrilla war of the 1980s. On the other hand, the general reorientation of the military of all
factions towards economic goals, and the way in which the current Prime Minister was able to
109
use the exploitation and distribution of rents to consolidate his power laid the ground for the
demobilisation of the Khmer Rouge and the conditions of peace, stability and growth that
followed.
Tenure insecurity in Cambodia has been shaped by the nature of the transitions that the country
has undergone, particularly the transitions from a State to a market economy, and from war to
peace. The transference of State land into private use has proceeded ahead of any legal regulation
that would allow such transfers. All land that might previously have been considered State land or
common land has become de facto potentially private land reallocated through neo-patrimonial
networks to behind-the-scenes shadow/developmental state actors. Poorer households settled on
such land are insecure in their tenure because they find themselves in competition with wealthy,
well-connected business interests who are able to mobilise local and/or military support for their
investments. The transition to peace has been geographically uneven: many parts of central
Cambodia have been at peace since 1979, whilst more remote forested areas, especially in the
north-west, were still host to fighting up to the mid to late 1990s. In these places, the combination
of displacement of civilian populations and the establishment of military interests has led to
uncertainty over ownership rights. Again, poor settler households are particularly insecure when
their interests are set against those of wealthy military commanders, who are again networked
into shadow/developmental state relationships.
By contrast, for smallholder rice farming lands that have been at peace since the early 1980s,
tenure insecurity has not generally been a problem. Possession has been secured by traditional
norms of inheritance and usage, and the existence of a market for land since the early 1980s
indicates that this possession is de facto ownership.
There has been some tendency for economically valuable land to become insecure, but again, this
seems to follow the distinctions above: so where land is communal or former State property it is
more likely to be taken from the possessor, but where the land has been inherited or distributed
by the authorities in the early 1980s, then it is likely to be purchased rather than expropriated.
The Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) of the Ministry of Land
Management, Urban Planning and Construction receives financial and technical support from the
World Bank, and the governments of Germany, Finland and (in the latter part of this research)
Canada. The systematic land titling component of that project aims to stimulate economic growth
by improving tenure security such that: farmers dare to invest more in their land, therefore
increasing agricultural productivity; farmers are able to use their land as collateral and therefore
access credit either for agricultural or other investment; the land market operates more efficiently
such that land ends up in the hands of the most efficient farmers.
Thus far, in rural areas, systematic land titling has only been implemented in smallholder rice
farming landscapes. The LMAP project director has explained that he is reluctant to begin the
programme in places where it might suffer reversals and difficulties. The procedures for
identifying implementation areas, whereby provincial governors make a request to the Ministry
for assistance in a particular district, also ensure that the programme is not implemented in areas
where it might prove troublesome for the authorities.
Community forestry has been implemented by a broad range of international development
organisations throughout the country since the early 1990s. These organisations have also lobbied
110
for government recognition of community forestry initiatives, leading to the adoption of a
Community Forestry Sub-Decree in 2003 and the issuance of a Community Forestry Prakas in
2006. Community forestry has been promoted as a means of maintaining „traditional‟ forest-
based livelihoods, especially in relation to harvesting of resin, but also enabling improved
management of degraded forests.
Efforts to support community forestry have recently concentrated on winning government
approval for all proposed community forestry projects. Community forestry projects are scattered
across the country in various provinces. This geography often reflects the operational areas of the
organisations who have supported community forestry. The common trend, however, has been for
community forests only to be approved in forests that are already degraded, and not in areas
where high value resin trees remain uncut. This is partly attributable to the Forestry
Administration directing communities away from high value forests which may be of short term
commercial interest and towards degraded forests.
When looking for the relationship between the geography of immanent development in the form
of tenure insecurity and the geography of intentional development in the form of the property
rights interventions of systematic land titling and community forestry, the relationship appears to
be one way. The pattern of tenure insecurity has influenced the distribution of the tenure security
interventions, but the tenure security interventions have not modified the patterns of tenure
insecurity. Overall, this could be characterised as a geography of evasion, with systematic land
titling being implemented only in places where tenure is secure, and community forestry
implemented only in places where forest has already been degraded. To the extent that national
authorities have channelled interventions away from areas where insecurity is a problem this
might be termed diversion, while to the extent that the interventions have been allowed but in
weakened form, this might be termed dilution. The reporting against indicators which show
progress but do not in fact represent the changes that they purport to represent might be
characterised as the production (or co-production) of a facade. The combination of factors
constituting a geography of evasion is initiated by development interventions going into
overreach, in other words attempting to extend their influence to places and issues where the
shadow/developmental state is not supportive of their agenda.
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5. Community Forestry in Bey village
5.1 Introduction
In the early months of 2003, a community forestry project was initiated in by a local organisation
I shall call the Better Lives Organisation72
(BLO) in a village in north-east Cambodia which I
shall call Bey. BLO is based in the provincial town of Kracheh, and initially received funding
from a small US-registered NGO called here Active Communities (AC). BLO‟s community
forestry projects were subsequently incorporated into an internationally-supported project co-
financed by the European Union and managed by the British NGO Oxfam. This chapter will
describe and analyse the community forestry project in Bey village. It will describe the
intervention as it was experienced in the village using the results of our interviews and surveys in
the village to inform the narrative. Perspectives from other actors in the story will then follow:
Cambodian and international NGOs, a multilateral donor organisation and the local representative
of the foreign company that has a concession in the district. Finally, I will reflect on the case in
terms of its contribution to our knowledge and understanding of community forestry in Cambodia
in relation to themes established earlier in this thesis, including how it develops our
understandings of the “geography of evasiveness” which started to emerge from the national case
study in Chapter 4.
Before focusing on the intervention, however, the village itself and its recent history will be
described in order to give insights into the livelihood trajectories of the villagers and the forces
and actors which shape those trajectories. These constitute the local geography of immanent
development onto which the local geography of intentional development will be mapped.
Trajectories and pathways are metaphors which are used in the literature on livelihoods to suggest
a balance between structure and agency in shaping people‟s livelihoods. As such they are
something of a statement of the obvious: of course people‟s livelihoods are not wholly
determined by outside forces, but of course people‟s livelihoods are not entire in their own hands
either. This statement of the obvious represents the striking of balance in the debate. The
livelihoods literature itself arises as a development of Chambers‟ (1983)„farmer first‟ and „putting
the last first‟ arguments, which are based on the idea that intervention needs to be better informed
by an understanding of the situation and of the poor and of their own knowledge and abilities.
The concept of „trajectory‟ or „pathway‟ simply redresses the balance by clarifying that people‟s
knowledge and ability alone are unlikely to be sufficient to change their economic situation
(Scoones, 1998, p. 10). The image of a path is particularly useful here, as a path can be imagined
in different landscapes: one might have an open view and be able to see where paths lead and
72
BLO is a pseudonym, as is AC.
112
make an informed and safe choice about which to take. On the other hand paths may be winding
and unpredictable as well as difficult and dangerous to leave. Without labouring the point further
I would suggest that one thing that is lacking in livelihoods literature is a sense of what particular
pathways might look like. In the experiences of the village of Bey it is possible to discern some
general lessons that might usefully be highlighted regarding livelihoods trajectories in landscapes
undergoing deforestation, a point that I will return to later.
5.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Bey
5.2.1 Modern history of a Village in Forest
5.2.1.1 Location
Bey is located in northeast Cambodia, in the north of Chhlong district, in Kracheh province.
Chhlong district town is located on the eastern bank of the Mekong river about 240 kilometers
from Phnom Penh and about thirty kilometres short of the provincial town of Kracheh, and about
20 kilometers from the district town of Chhlong.
Bey is one of the remoter villages in the district accessible by four-wheeled vehicle only in the
dry season. It is also remote within the commune as the commune office is about ten kilometres
south of the village, not on the routes used regularly by the villagers to travel down to the
Mekong, and barely traversable during the wet season. There are two other settlements in the
area, which officially constitute one village. One of them, which I shall call „Pram‟, is about two
kilometres south-west of Bey, the other - „Pram Toich‟ - is about six kilometres away. At the
beginning of the research period Pram Toich barely existed, but by the time our work was
complete in 2009 it contained about 40 households.
5.2.1.2 1950-1970 Pre-War Lives and Livelihoods
Fifty years ago Bey was a village of 15-20 households found along the banks of the river Bey. At
night villagers were fearful of elephants and tigers (Interview 115). They were also afraid of
bandits who might raid the village. To ward off these threats a fence was built around the village,
fires were lit and maintained all night, and villagers took it in turn to patrol the perimeter fence.
Recalling those times, none of the older villagers can ever remember a time when they were
raided by bandits, but they do recall villagers‟ dogs being taken by tigers (Interview 93, 109).
Unlike today (when radios and televisions and even the occasional karaoke machine can be heard
in the village), it used to be quiet at night, with only the sound of somebody playing a traditional
three-stringed instrument (Interview 89).
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Figure 5-1. Map of Cambodia Showing Districts Where the Case Study Villages are Located
While physical security was a concern, food security generally was not. The forest and the river
at that time provided abundant animals, fruits and fish (Interview 115). There was little farming
done in the village: in order to obtain rice villagers mainly traded forest produce such as resin,
animals and illicitly cut wood with traders down on the Mekong. Such farming as was practiced
took place in an area to the east of the village – this was often swidden farming, with small areas
of land being cleared and burned and then planted for just a couple of years. Some rice would be
grown but mainly people traded rattan, resin, vines and leaves for rice that was imported to the
district from Battambang province (Interview 12). Rattan was abundant then compared with
today, and was possibly the most important source of income ahead of resin, (Interview 13, 31).
The forest was dense and from the Mekong, fifteen kilometres away, all the way to the village,
the road was overshadowed by tall hardwood trees, which villagers recalled with some nostalgia
(Interview 12, 31). It was not a good road and when it rained it became a stream (Interview 109).
While some villagers say that there was no trading of timber in those times and that it was only
cut for local use (Interview 109), others say that there was always some trading of timber, but that
cutting was by hand and therefore not on a large scale (Interview 85, 97). Although the main
access road was hardly more than an oxcart track, forestry officials could drive along this road in
an old jeep left by the French. The forestry officials were a rare example of the reach of the state
extending to the village. However, villagers cutting timber for sale would evade these officials in
their vehicles by following narrow oxcart tracks that wound through the forest (Interview 89).
114
The location along the river banks prior to the 1960s had been partly to have access to water and
partly because the access to road, which was little more than a track, was used by wild animals,
including elephants, which the villagers did not want to lead into the village area. In the late
1960s a senior official close to Prince Sihanouk encouraged the relocation of all settlements to the
road, promising that the road would be built properly and there would be development73
.
However, the 1970 coup occurred before that promise could be fulfilled (Interview 93).
This relative isolation from the wider society was to change dramatically over the years, as first
war and then machines and markets transformed the physical and social landscape to produce the
village that was the subject of my research at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
5.2.1.3 1970-1994 Conflict and Its Aftermath: A local history
According to where people lived in Cambodia before and during the 1970s, their experience of
civil war and of the Khmer Rouge period was radically different. People from Phnom Penh and
its environs refer to the Khmer Rouge time as being 3 years, 8 months and 20 days. This covers
the span between 17 April 1975, when resistance forces led by the Khmer Rouge took Phnom
Penh and 7 January 1979, when the Vietnamese supported the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge.
In the north-eastern province of Kracheh, where Bey is located, the transition to Khmer Rouge
control was early, and the population was already wearing the distinctive black uniforms
demanded by the Khmer Rouge long before 1975 when the population of Phnom Penh welcomed
the child soldiers who proclaimed revolution and victory over Lon Nol and the Americans
(Interview 108).
After 1979, furthermore, when much of southern Cambodia was relatively peaceful, the forests of
Kracheh remained immersed in conflict. Just two or three kilometres east of Bey, Khmer Rouge
battalions were based in the forest. When they launched raids against the district town, villagers
from Bey were often co-opted as foot soldiers (Interview 69). Meanwhile, the government
military were also regular visitors to the village. In common with many other such villages in
forest fringes throughout the country, the villagers had to learn to host both sides, and to deal
with the consequences of being fully trusted by neither. Soldiers would interrogate and beat
villagers, with forces on each side trying to make sure that they were getting honest answers to
questions about the movements of the other (Interview 108).
During the 1980s the population of the village varied between about twenty and thirty
households. Of these about a dozen remained in place throughout those years, while the
remainder rotated, villagers successively leaving the village to join the Khmer Rouge, but then
after a time leaving the Khmer Rouge and handing themselves into the authorities at district, and
then later perhaps returning to the village again. Meanwhile, trade between Bey and the villages
on the Mekong continued. Oxcarts would travel up to the village carrying fish and prahok74
, and
would travel back down to the river laden with forest products. Traders going out to the forest
73
It seems safe to assume that there would have been a security aspect to this as well as a development aspect: that
government wanted populations on roads where they were easily monitored and accessible rather than in remote
forests where opposition militaries might organize. 74
A form of crushed, salted, fermented fish. Ubiquitous in the countryside it is considered to be both essentially
Khmer and to be poor person‟s food.
115
would carry rice with them, hidden from view so that government soldiers would not see it. Then
when out in the forest they would leave bags of rice well in front of the places where they were
cutting leaves or wood, this in the expectation that the Khmer Rouge soldiers would take the rice
and in return let them work uninterrupted (Interview 108).
Following the failure of the United Nations peace process to bring peace throughout Cambodia,
Bey continued to be insecure. As late as early 1994 a villager trod on a land-mine just east of the
village and died from his injuries. In mid-1994 the Khmer Rouge units based in the forest near
the village finally surrendered to the district authorities in order to be reintegrated into
mainstream society (Interview 108).
The deputy village chief also arrived in the village in 1994, taking up his appointment there as
soon as he moved and in many respects becoming the de facto village chief. This was probably
because the authorities down at the river wanted to consolidate their influence in the village by
placing somebody trusted in a position of influence in the village75
. Even those who are most
implacably opposed to him and accuse him of serving only himself and not the community,
acknowledge that he is the most literate and capable person in the village (Interview 64).
Meanwhile, two Khmer Rouge commanders, both originally from neighbouring Kampong Thom
province, settled in the village at the end of the conflict and are prominent figures in village life.
Their popularity and respect amongst other villagers is indicated by the fact that both men were
elected to serve on the lay committee for the village pagoda in 2008, coming first and third in the
election (Interview 71). One, Loke Peit, was the only private medical practitioner in the village
until 2008, so had been invited into nearly every household in the village over the years. As a
youth he had been one of the soldiers who entered Phnom Penh in 1975 to first liberate and then
evacuate it. He learned his medical skills when he was posted away from a fighting unit on the
border with Vietnam to command a medical unit, where he learned informally from the soldiers
under his command. He is married to a cousin of the deputy village chief, indicating that even if
old allegiances have some influence, it is also possible to transcend, or at least blur, them
(Interview 11). The other former Khmer Rouge commander, Chan, built a house slightly outside
the village, though recent migration into the village and the expansion of the village area means
that he is now surrounded by neighbours (Interview 64). He has been the leader of the village
Community Forest project since shortly after its inception, being elected in 2003 and re-elected in
2007. He also provides health services through being a village volunteer in an anti-malaria
programme – for which he receives a monthly fee the equivalent of 12.5 USD. Villagers who
suspect they have malaria get a blood test from him and if it is positive he can treat them
immediately, as several testified (e.g.Interviews 6, 18, 45, 54). Another Khmer Rouge soldier had
defected from the Khmer Rouge earlier after her husband had, without telling her, left the
movement, taken another wife and become a government informer. She had initially struggled to
gain acceptance in the village, her residence being vigorously opposed by some of the older men
who have since died (Interview 22). Nevertheless, other villagers befriended her, and she is now a
75
He was by no means new to the village. He and his father used to travel through it to cut leaves and timber and
trade them in pre-war times. Indeed, it was on a journey back from the village in 1973 that his father dropped him to
do some work on a rice field and he watched as his father continued his journey and was killed by an American
fighter plane (Interview 108). The pattern of a milder, village chief being slightly peripheral compared with a more
competent, better-connected figure (usually but not necessarily the deputy) is not universal but is certainly common,
as is also reflected, for example in the village of Buon and in the village studies in Hasselskog (2000).
116
popular and respected figure, and was also amongst those elected to the first community forestry
committee in 2003 (Interview 71).
5.2.1.4 1994-2006 Peace and Development
Throughout its modern history as a village in forest, Bey had previously had a relatively stable
relationship with both the forest, and with the state as a somewhat remote custodian of the forest.
After the uncertainties and challenges of war, however, peace brought a new set of uncertainties
and challenges to the village. The forest‟s permanence was challenged, and the state‟s role, and
especially that of the officials responsible for forests, became far more ambivalent. The main
manifestation of this, which influenced not just Bey, but the whole of Chhlong district and part of
neighbouring Snoul, was the government signing a forest concession agreement with a joint
Soviet Union-Cambodian venture called Casotim (Cambodia Soviet Timber76
). The industrial
scale logging which followed transformed livelihoods in the village. The succession of new
actors and activities associated with the logging over that period are described below. One
consequence of the logging was that the road to the village was no longer in the shade of forest
(Interview 41). New villages, mainly populated by Cham settlers from along the Mekong, were
established along the road, and areas of the degraded forest were claimed for agriculture both by
these new settlers and also by other Cham households who remained on the river.
5.2.2 Livelihoods Shaped by Deforestation
5.2.2.1 Loggers and Rent-seekers Transform the Landscape
During the initial period after peace broke out change was gradual. Many former residents came
back to the village, which brought it back to its pre-war population of about thirty households.
Trade between Bey and the villages on the Mekong began to intensify as oxcarts could move
without fear. One visible change was the arrival of very large oxcarts which were used for
transporting large hard-wood tree trunks out of the forest. Apparently, these had huge wooden
wheels, up to two meters in diameter, and were pulled by as many as five pairs of buffalo. They
were mainly owned by Cham people who lived near the Mekong, though members of the Khmer
majority also had such oxcarts (Interview 108).
The major changes, however, were initiated when the Casotim company became operational in
the area. Casotim had obtained a 120 000 hectare forest concession covering all of the forests of
Chhlong district as well as a portion of neighbouring Snoul district. Initially, it only had eight of
its own trucks operating in the area. Each of these might carry 10-15 cubic meters of wood per
journey, and make 4-5 journeys per day. Within a year or so, however, the logging operation had
opened up. Anyone with a tractor or truck that could carry felled trees from the forest to the
Mekong was able to pay a fee to Casotim to go into the forests, cut wood, and then sell it to the
company. As many as fifty locally owned tractors and trucks participated in this business
(Interview 108).
This relatively free local trade continued for the last years of the 1990s with the Casotim
company, local business people and villagers apparently unregulated. In about 2000, however,
76
I am indebted to one of my interviewees for pointing out to me that this name was in fact an English acronym .
117
there was change as other institutions became active out in the forest. First amongst these were
the military and the Forestry Administration (FA)77
. Villagers‟ perception was that both the
military and the FA worked for the concessionaires. In the case of the military, the ties with
villagers were sufficiently strong (including soldiers who married into the village) that villagers
knew that the military received two salaries: one from the ministry of defence and another from
the logging company. For the villagers, these soldiers were known simply as the „Casotim
soldiers‟. Villagers did not know for sure that the Forestry Administration officials received
payments from Casotim in the same way, but they assumed that the relationship was similar
(Interview 108).
These institutions played the role of informal regulators and tax collectors. Anyone operating in
the forest was now supposed to have permission otherwise they risked having to pay a fine or
having their equipment confiscated. The local police were soon active in the same practice, and
finally also the „Gendarmerie‟ or „PM‟ – French-trained “military police” units.
Amongst our interviewees the fees that people paid to be allowed to cut and transport wood
varied. The lowest reported monthly fee was by a household that reported paying 10 USD per
month to the military and nothing to the police apart from small voluntary payments of 3-5 USD
“because I have known them for years and they are like relatives” (Interview 112). The highest
was reported by a household who reported paying 25 USD per month to the military and 25 USD
per month to the PM (Interview 43). The deputy village chief, reporting the general rates,
suggested that they were even higher (50 USD per month to the military, 20 USD to the PM and
10 USD to the police), and that these were just the fees for villagers; that traders from the
Mekong had to pay much higher rates (Interview 108). On occasions a villager would have their
chainsaw confiscated by the Forestry Administration, or by the police or military. In these cases
the chainsaw could often be reclaimed by the owner who paid a fee and could be back in the
forest cutting again within a couple of days (Interview 99). The amount that had to be paid to
recover a chainsaw if it was confiscated varied from as low as 50 USD (Interview 77) and as high
as 100-150 USD (Interview 104). Notwithstanding the variations from household to household,
the fees were experienced as fairly predictable, but also unfair, especially in that police and
military never charged or fined each other (Interviews 26, 101).
Following the onset of activities by these institutions in about 2000-2001, came another
significant change to the local timber economy. Coinciding with a moratorium on commercial
logging in 2002, the logging trucks ceased their work and the industrial scale transport of huge
trunks ended. This was not, however, an end to the logging, but a signal for its continuation by
other means (Interview 108). Five local business men made agreements with Casotim, and as a
result were able to place a total of ten sawmills in the forest east of the village (Interview 101).
From that time, instead of a stream of heavy duty trucks carrying huge logs, there was a flow of
sawn planks on smaller improvised trucks or on oxcarts. Locally, this seemed to be understood as
being because there were no longer sufficient big trees for the industrial scale logging to
77
The Forestry Administration was until 2003 the Department for Forestry and Wildlife at the Ministry of
Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries, but was renamed the Forestry Administration and became more autonomous
following the passage of the 2003 Forestry Law. I recall occasional patrols of rifle-bearing officials in near-white
uniforms passing the minefield where we were working in late 1993 in Krakor district of Pursat province, and being
told by my Cambodian colleagues that these were forestry officials (or mei prey as they are colloquially known).
118
continue, and therefore the processing of smaller trees via the sawmills in the forest became
prevalent (Interview 96, 108).
When our research began in 2006, this was still the state of affairs. Oxcarts passed through the
village every day: we never attempted to count them systematically, but perhaps between 15 and
30 oxcarts every day, occasionally more. Sometimes they travelled just one or two at a time,
sometimes in long convoys of eight or ten.
The landscape in which the village was set had thus been under transformation in the years of
peace prior to our research beginning. In 1994 Bey, was clearly a village in forest. At that time
the villages along the Mekong were beginning to gain the character of logging and timber trading
villages, but the forest frontier was essentially still along the river bank. The phase of industrial
logging, however, led to a degradation of forests. Hard wood trees, including the resin trees
which had been central to the livelihoods of many of the villagers who grew up in the forest, had
been removed from the landscape. When we arrived in 2006, there were large tracts of cleared
agricultural land along the road to the village, and much of the forest was scrubby and low.
Villagers and outsiders seeking commercial timber were already in 2006 having to travel further
and further to the east of the village to find suitable trees. Demand for timber was still the main
economic driver, and land prices were still remarkably low in comparison to lowland Cambodia.
However, the deforestation was taking its toll: Bey was no longer unequivocally a village in
forest. Whilst already in 2006 villagers were reporting that all of the good quality wood had
already been taken (Interview 96), by 2009 the flow of oxcarts and trucks had almost ceased and
villagers working in logging were heading to the neighbouring province of Mondolkiri in order to
find work (Interview 29).
5.2.2.2 2004-2008: Demographic Transformation – a trickle becomes a flood
During our village censuses in 2006 and 2008 we asked when each person in the village was
born, and when they first came to the village. By this means we were able to gain an impression
of how the village‟s population had fluctuated over the years. During the twenty-five years from
1975-2004 an average of 2.1 new households were formed each year (either through marriage or
through immigration of new couples). The steady trickle of households coming into the village
did not seem to have been matched by a flow out: the deputy village chief could only recall two
families having left the village (both to go and live down on the Mekong) in the 12 years that he
had been keeping records (Interview 96). However, during 2005-6 there was a sudden
acceleration in household formation with 19 new families established in the village during the
twenty months before our research got underway (January 2005-August 2006). During that same
period, 31% of all households in the village reported occupying new house land and 48% of all
households built new houses. So not only were new household moving in to the village, but
existing households were rebuilding and often relocating their houses.
By August 2006 there were 86 households in the village. At that time only 48% of Bey‟s adults
were born in the village, whilst 36% of adults were members of households that contained no
adult members born in the village. This was a situation that had evolved over time. During the
course of the research the influx continued. When we repeated our census in 2008, the village had
grown from 83 to 137 households (a 65% increase in just two years). Only three of these new
households were formed through marriage of existing villagers – the remainder were all new in-
119
migrants. This is reflected in Figure 5-2 which classifies village households according to the
birthplace of the adults in the village. The number of households where all adults had been born
in the village remained constant at 23, but this represented a decline from 34.8% to 16.8% of the
village population. Meanwhile, the number of households consisting solely of adults born outside
the village rose in absolute numbers from 14 to 75, and as a proportion from being the smallest
group within the village (21.2%) to the largest (54.7%). Villagers commonly spoke in favourable
terms of the increased population saying that having more people in the village made it „happier‟
(Interview 21, 80, 85, 87, 110).
Source: Field Data, Village Censuses, Bey 2006 and 2008
Figure 5-2: Origins of Households in Bey in 2004, 2006, 2008 by Birthplace of Adults.
The source of migrants into the village has changed over time. Those adults born outside the
village but moving to it in the quarter of a decade prior to 2004 were almost all from within the
district: either from the nearby village of Pram, or from one of the villages on the Mekong.
Virtually all of the immigrants who came after 2004 came from neighbouring Kampong Cham
province. The three types of villager, then, original villagers, pre-2004 migrants from within the
district, and since-2004 migrants from Kampong Cham, each have quite different backgrounds
and abilities.
Firstly, there were the „original‟ villagers born in Bey. The village had not previously had a
school. Their educations were poor, and whilst they had a history of trading forest products for
food, they did not have a history of being involved in business. Their comparative advantage was
in the forest where they knew what was available in terms of timber, animals and other non-
timber forest products. Most of these „original villagers‟ had grown up in the old village centre
0
20
40
60
80
2004 (n=66)
2006 (n=83)
2008 (n=135)
All adults in HH are native to village
Mix of native and in-migrant adults
All adults in HH are in-migrants
120
between the road junction and the eastern stream, although a number of them have recently
moved out of the centre of the village to either Bey Toich to the east, or to the Casotim road west
or south of the village.
Secondly there was the „first wave‟ of immigrants, who were part of the steady trickle into the
village up to the mid-2000s. They had grown up in villages along the Mekong, where there were
schools. In addition to being better educated, many had grown up in business-oriented
households, and specifically had been involved in the timber trade. In contrast with the „original‟
villagers they are entrepreneurial – constantly looking for opportunities to buy and sell at a profit.
The half a dozen little trading stores in the village are all run by in-migrants, and not by original
villagers.
Table 5-1: Location of Adult Residents of Bey, 1-3 August 2006
Location Frequency78
Percent
In or near village 186 92
Beyond village area but within province 12 6
In another province (not Phnom Penh) 2 1
In Phnom Penh 2 1
203 100
Source: Field Data, Village Census 1-3 August, 2006.
This is reflected in Table 5-2 which shows the main source of income reported by each household
in a questionnaire administered in our penultimate field trip in late 2008.
Thirdly, there was a „new wave‟ of immigrants who had been part of the sudden flood into the
village since 2005. They come from neighbouring Kampong Cham province and their intention
has been to buy land and clear it for agriculture. Some were poorer households who had been
forced to look for a cheaper place to live having come upon hard times in their home districts
(e.g.Interview 15). Others were better off households, often late middle-aged couples who had
left their land at home to their adult children and had come to the village with surplus capital and
perhaps adult labour in the form of more adult children, so were well-set to make a new start
(e.g.Interview 3). Unlike the first wave immigrants (some of whom had been regular visitors to
Bey since the 1960s and knew the forest extremely well), the new wave from Kampong Cham are
not familiar with the local area, and are not used to moving around in the forest and harvesting its
resources.
Villagers themselves were very aware of the differences between them: the original villagers‟
comparative advantage at gathering NTFPs, the early migrants‟ comparative advantage at doing
business and the recent migrants‟ advantage at smallholder farming (e.g. Interviews 51, 85).
78
N= 204. Missing information = 1.
121
Whilst there was never really an expectation that the original villagers would become business
people, they did, as we will see, develop the ambition to learn from the in-migrants and to
become capable farmers.
5.2.2.3 Livelihood Activities During the Research Period
This section describes the livelihood activities of villagers during the study period, and provides
detail regarding the uneven effects of the changes in opportunity available to villagers.
Table 5-2: Main Source of Income Reported by Household in Bey village, October 2008
Households formed before
August 2006
Households formed
August 2006-2008
All
households
Reported main income
source:
Sub-Total % Sub-total % Total %
Transporting and
Cutting79
wood
37 45.1 7 12.3 36 25.9
Agricultural labour
hire
16 19.5 29 50.9 45 32.4
Cutting wood 7 8.5 1 1.7 8 5.7
Selling own produce 5 6.1 1 1.7 6 4.3
Retail trading 4 4.9 3 5.3 7 5.0
Wages (police, NGO) 1 1.2 0 0 1 0.7
Selling desserts 1 1.2 0 0 1 0.7
Private medicine 1 1.2 1 1.7 2 1.4
Savings prior to
migration
0 0 7 12.3 7 5.0
Motorcycle taxi 0 0 1 1.7 1 0.7
Left village 4 4.9 0 0 4 2.9
Missing 6 7.3 5 8.8 11 7.9
Never existed80
1 1.2 0 0 1 0.7
Not yet moved in 0 3 5.3 3 2.2
Totals 82 99.8 57 100.0 139 99.7
Source: Field Data, Land and Livelihood Survey (2), October 2008.
79
Of the 36 responses, 29 mentioned only transporting wood while 7 mentioned either cutting on its own or cutting
and transporting wood. 80
One household was in the process of moving in August 2006 and thus had two houses. As a result we recorded it
twice, as household 47 and then as household 75. This error was identified and rectified in the census update in
October 2008.
122
Before considering the specific activities, it is worth noting that while many of the villagers come
from further afield, once they are settled in the village their livelihoods have become
overwhelmingly local. The „village census‟ information which we gathered in early August 2006
served to illustrate this. Only 2% of Bey adults were out of the province at the time of the village
census, and fully 92% were in or near the village at the time the census interviews took place.
5.2.2.3.1 Timber-related Livelihood Activities
The cutting and transporting of wood was the major source of income for most households in the
village of Bey during the period of our research, as was evidenced, at least during 2006-8, by
regular traffic of oxcarts laden with planks. Our hosts in the village, the deputy village chief and
his wife, were amongst the leading timber traders. When we first met them they flatly denied any
involvement in logging. However, their house is on the main road through the village, with an
open front with a shop and a little wooden platform where women might chat and joke, or men
might smoke and drink and joke. In the course of our first week, men involved in transporting
timber either employed by or in partnership with our hosts often popped into the house to discuss
deals on their way through81
(Interview 100). The pretence of non-involvement quickly, and
without comment, evaporated (Interview 96).
Involvement in the timber trade took various forms, with varying degrees of economic reward. At
the top of the village timber business hierarchy were traders, who either bought timber, or hired
other villagers to cut and transport wood for them, and then sold, often to order, to other traders
located in the villages by the Mekong (Interviews 153, 154). One step down from these wood
traders were chainsaw operators either cutting wood and selling it themselves, or, more often,
working as day labour for traders. A further step down from that were people with oxcarts who
earned money transporting wood from the forest through the village and down to the villages on
eastern bank of the Mekong (see Photo at Figure 5-3). Finally, at the humblest level were people
without any capital equipment. They could either work as an assistant to a chainsaw operator (and
were wholly dependent on somebody calling them to come and work with them), or could work
transporting wood, by borrowing somebody else‟s oxen and oxcart and splitting the money fifty
percent with them (Interviews 15, 120).
As already noted, informal regulation of the informal timber trade was significant in shaping the
opportunities for villagers. Business skills and some financial capital were not sufficient to
guarantee business success, as the following case illustrates:
Kone Kmeich was born in Bey village in 1984. He is the son-in-law of Kim Nary in one of our
case study households. He is the main income earner for the household, mainly through his work
transporting wood which he does with his own oxcart. He is also a capable chainsaw operator. In
late 2006 he bought a chainsaw, for 240 USD.
81
„Interview‟ 100 was my short notes on observing one such conversation, and not an interview as such.
123
Figure 5-3: Villager with an oxcart load of wood in Bey, January 2008 (Photo: Robin Biddulph).
In order to make a business of operating the chainsaw he needed to hire other people to work with
him both cutting and transporting, to provide them with food and cigarettes and also to pay for
the fuel for the chainsaw. He could cut about 0.6 cubic meters per day, which meant that he could
make a profit of approximately 52,800 riels (or 13 US dollars) per day (see Table 5-3).
Table 5-3: Calculations of Profitability for a Chainsaw Owner-Operator in Bey 2007
Costs per cubic meter (riels) Income per cubic meter (riels)
Machine operators 60,000
Transportation 60,000
Fuel 42,000
Food, drink, cigarettes
etc
50,000
Total 212,000 Sale price 300,000
Source: Field Data, Interview 24
124
However, after he began operating the chainsaw for a time he had it confiscated twice in a short
period of time. On the first occasion, it was the police who took it and he had to pay 400 000 riels
(100 USD) to recover it. On the second occasion, in early April 2007, the military took it and he
had to pay them 300 000 riels (75 USD) to recover it. After these experiences he decided that it
was not worth the risk and the insecurity so he sold the chainsaw and reverted to the less
profitable business of transporting wood or working as a chainsaw operator for others (Interview
24).
Table 5-4: Timber Incomes in 8 Case Study Households, Bey village 2006-7
HH Household background and description % from
timber
2006-7
Other key
income
sources
4 Moved to village 2006 from Kampong Cham in order to
farm cleared forest. One of a group of related households.
Comfortably off. Intending to farm.
0% Profit on
move (71%)
16 Married couple moved to village in 1998 following
defection from Khmer Rouge.
0% Medical
practices
(66%)
28 Young couple with three children moved to village 2006
from Kampong Cham in order to farm cleared forest.
Relatively poor.
0% Profit on
move (62%)
31 She is single woman from neighbouring province. Main
earner is her son-in-law who was born in the village and
cuts and transports wood.
70%
43 Both in their forties. Were born in the village and have
always lived there. He uses their oxen and cart to transport
wood.
68%
56 She was born in the village but her husband, who she met
in western Cambodia, was born in Siem Reap and moved
into the village in 1986.
38% Agric labour
22%
Resin 23%
65 A young couple with two small children. They both came
to the village as young children, their parents are business
oriented (her father is deputy village chief).
83%
74 He is born in the village whilst she is from a timber-
trading village on the Mekong.
78%
Source: Field Data, Income and Expenditure Survey of 8 Case Study Households
125
The importance of timber livelihoods during the early part of our research can be seen from the
proportions of household income reported from this source by the eight case study households in
early 2007 (see Table 5-4 below). Of these eight households, the four who have adult male
members who were born or brought up in the village are the four households where the majority
of reported income in 2006-7 came from cutting and transporting wood. In the hybrid household
where it is the woman who is native to the village and her husband comes from outside they
reported only 38% of their income coming from timber. The three other households, where no
adult household members had been born in the village, reported no income from timber.
The trend of new-arrivals not being involved in timber trading continued throughout the study
period. In January 2008, fifty-two (62%) of the 84 households who were interviewed, reported
incomes from cutting or transporting wood. By this time, however, the in-migrants from
Kampong Cham who had arrived by 2006 had had a further 18 months in the village. Now,
almost half of them (7 out of 15) reported incomes from cutting or transporting wood82
.
When the results of the land and livelihoods questionnaire that we administered in October 2008
were disaggregated according to when households were formed in the village (before or after
2006), and whether they contained adults born in the village, the same pattern was confirmed. As
Table 5-5indicates, households that were new to the village were not immediately participating in
the timber trade; households who had been established in the village for two years or more or
contained a native villager were far more likely to be engaged in timber trade activities.
Table 5-5: Households reporting Timber as Main Income Source in Bey village, Cambodia, 2008
#HH reporting timber as
main income
Total # HH
responding83
Households formed before 2006 37 (51%) 72
Post-2006 households containing existing
villagers
6 (60%) 10
Post-2006 households containing only
migrants
1 (3%) 39
Total 44 (36%) 121
Source: Field Data, Land and Livelihood Survey (2), October 2008
There were fluctuations in activity from visit to visit. Our penultimate trip in late 2008 seemed to
coincide with a major timber order suddenly chainsaws were in open view and there was sawing
going on throughout the village. On our last trip, however, in early 2009 we barely saw any wood
being transported. While extenuating circumstances may have played a part - the financial crisis
82
Households 6, 10, 28, 50, 59, 93, 94 reported incomes from timber. Households 3, 4, 11, 13, 22, 23, 49, 91
reported no incomes from timber. 83
121 out of a possible 135 households (90%) responded to this question.
126
globally and a case of foot and mouth affecting oxen in the village locally - however it seemed
possible that the long-predicted exhaustion of local timber was now taking hold and that a
permanent decline in timber activities was finally beginning to occur.
5.2.2.3.2 Farming own land
The village has rice paddy fields in its immediate vicinity and also to the east of the immediate
village area. These have gradually been expanding with the village population, and are farmed
every year. The soil is good but the rice farming is rain fed and therefore vulnerable to the
exigencies of the weather: when the rains are suitable for the paddy in the centre of the village,
they are too much for the paddy in the east; when the harvest in the east is good, there is too little
rain for the fields in the centre of the village. Crop land which does not flood is known as
chamcar in Khmer. The villagers used to farm chamcar on a shifting basis in the forests to the
east of the village. After a lull during the 1980s when there was little farming outside the
immediate village area (Interview 108), agriculture began to resume with more clearing of
permanent plots. Increasingly, with interest in land and farming going hand in hand with the
degradation of the forest, households in the village have claimed larger tracts of chamcar
especially along the roads to the east of the village. It is rare now to find a household in Bey
where the members do not regard their future as tied up with their ability to acquire and farm
agricultural land.
As we have seen, though, this is a relatively recent break with the previous ways of earning a
living in the village where agriculture was basically a complement to forest-based activities. This
was certainly the case during the study period, with the majority of households owning rice land,
chamcar or both (see Table 5-6 below).
Table 5-6: Reported agricultural land holdings in Bey village, January 2008.
Reported agricultural land holding by type # Households %
Rice and Chamcar land 37 42%
Rice only 19 23%
Chamcar only 20 25%
No agric land reported 5 6%
Total responses 81 100%
Source: Field Data, Land and Livelihood Survey (1), January 2008.
In our October 1998 Land and Livelihood Survey (2), representatives of all available households
were asked about the main livelihood activity for their household. Only 6 of the 120 respondents
gave agriculture as their response. In 2009, however, when households were asked about their
hopes and expectations for a livelihood in the future, all respondents said that agriculture was
their key hope/expectation.
127
One household‟s experiences have been particularly influential in stimulating people‟s ambitions
in relation to agriculture. They came to the village in 2005 with labour and capital to spare and an
intention to farm. In 2007 they planted 1.8 hectares of cassava, and made a profit of 1,800 USD.
Prior to this the idea of growing cash crops had been there, and some of the new households had
made a start with soya beans and other crops. However, there had been concerns that even if a
decent crop was produced it might not be possible to get it to market. The experience of that
household in 2007 demonstrated that large profits were possible. Suddenly, the vast majority of
villages, both newcomers from farming backgrounds in Kampong Cham, and long-term residents
with little or no experience of farming, were stating their intention to grow cassava.
Figure 5-4: Cassava ready for planting in Bey, 2008 (Photograph: Robin Biddulph).
Transforming forest, or degraded forest, to farm land does not happen overnight. Even cassava,
which can be grown without completely clearing the existing vegetation and without ploughing
the fields, requires significant labour. And families can only labour on their chamcar land if they
have another source of income or food to ensure that they can feed themselves and send their
children to school. This was illustrated by the responses to our questions about how much
chamcar land each household owned, and how much it had under crop. The average landholding
claimed after the 2007 harvest was 2.0 hectares, while the average area reported to be under crop
was 0.21 hectares; at the time of the 2008 harvest, for the same 81 households the respective
averages were 2.16 and 0.54 hectares. In other words, households had increased the proportion
that they farmed from about a tenth to about a quarter of their reported holdings. So clearing of
agricultural land had increased but most of the land in villagers‟ (informal) possession still had
not been cleared.
128
The relationship between smallholder agriculture and farming in the village is reflected in the
experiences of the eight case study households. Buying agricultural land was usually part of the
entry of new households into the village. In this sense it was easier to access this form of
livelihood than to become engaged in timber related activities (where social networks and
knowledge of remote areas were key). For households such as HH04, who came with capital,
they were able to start clearing land and farming quite quickly; for poorer in-migrants such as
HH28 it was necessary to engage in other activities to solve day to day cash flow and food needs
so the progress in starting to farm was somewhat slower.
The increased focus on agriculture within the case study households is clear from the changes
through the year (see Table 5-7). Six of the eight households increased the amount of land under
cultivation between the end of 2007 and the end of 2008. The two households who did not
increase land under cultivation, did nevertheless buy more agricultural land in the course of that
year: these were both small households relying, for lifecycle reasons (i.e. mothers were at home
with small children), on the labour of one man involved in the timber industry.
Table 5-7: Case Study Households in Bey Village Land holding and farming, 2007 and 2008.
Origins of adult HH
members
HH
number
Rice land
owned
Chamcar owned:
chamcar farmed
2007 (ha)
Chamcar owned:
chamcar farmed
2008 (ha)
All adults born in
village
HH43 1 0.5 : 0 1.5 : 0.5
Some adults born in
village
HH56 0 3:0 3 : 0.2
HH74 1 0:0 1 : 0
HH31 1.5 6 : 0 6 : 2
No adults born in
village but local
HH65 0.3 0.8 : 0 2 : 0
HH16 0 1 : 0.5 2 : 1
No adults born in
village
HH04 1 3: 1.8 5.5 : 1.8
HH28 0 4 : 0 4 : 1.5
Source: Field Data, Land and Livelihood Survey (1) January 2008, Land and Livelihood Survey (2) October
2008
A central element of smallholder agriculture as a livelihood strategy is the inherent risk in an
activity where there is a gap of several months between the investment of effort and the return on
that investment. Following the success of the cassava crop in 2007 there was a rush to cassava in
2008 as villagers attempted to benefit from the 1000 USD per hectares that seemed to be
available. Unfortunately for them, and countless others throughout the region, the price of
cassava fell (Interview 92, 161). In Bey it fell from around 550 riels in 2007 to around 210 riels in
129
2008. At this level a profit was still possible, but far from the sorts of levels that had been
anticipated and according to some it was not even possible to get 100 riels per kg at market
(Interview 140). Furthermore, because the price was low, and because it is possible to leave
cassava in the field after it is ripe, many did not harvest their crop until quite late in the hope that
the prices would rise again. However, this meant the risk that the harvest would be damaged if
there were early rains, and that was precisely what was happening during our final visit in
February 2009.
The risks intrinsic to smallholder agriculture are not confined to the unpredictable vagaries of
markets and weather. We were with Kim Nary when she went to her chamcar for the first time for
six weeks. Her daughter had been giving birth to Nary‟s second grandchild and Nary had been at
home looking after her. On the way to the chamcar Nary was telling us about the excellent
pumpkin crop she had that year, and how it would be ready for harvest: when we got there all of
the pumpkins had been stolen (Interview 27). In addition these uncertainties, which are more or
less inherent to smallholder farming, are the uncertainties related to the competition for land in a
situation where all farming activity is strictly speaking illegal. This will be discussed more in the
section on the “Competition for Land” which follows.
Overall, then, we found that while smallholder farming was not yet an important source of
income for many households, and was a difficult and risky endeavour, it was here that people saw
their futures. Deforestation and forest degradation had meant that there was little future in timber
related activities. Villagers hoped, therefore, that they might be able to establish themselves as
smallholder farmers producing cash crops in a transformed landscape. Our visit to one household,
which had arrived at the village from Kampong Cham in 2002, so three or four years earlier than
the other newcomers, showed that for a household with capital, and with agricultural experience,
and with land with a stream running through it, that this might be a viable option. Whether such a
prospect would have been realistic for households without farming experience, and whether it
would be realistic on land not endowed with a reliable water source is uncertain.
5.2.2.3.3 Hiring Out Agricultural Labour
While smallholder farming figured high in villagers‟ aspirations and expectations, but low in
terms of actual incomes for most households, the opposite was true of agricultural labouring.
Villagers did not consider themselves to be agricultural labourers, nor was it the future that they
envisaged for themselves. It was, however, an important source of income for many households.
This was demonstrated both in January 2008 when 72% of households reported income from
hiring out agricultural labour, and by the survey in November 2008 where 45 out of 120
respondents (38%) said that agricultural labour had been the most important livelihood activity
for their household during the previous six months.
As with other livelihood activities, there was considerable variation according to the background
of the household. New in-migrants to the village were more likely (59%) to report agricultural
labour as their main household income, than households that were already formed when the
research began in 2006 (22%).
The experiences of another case study household husband Panny and wife Panna illustrate some
of the changes in agricultural labour during the study period (Interviews 15-22). They moved to
Bey in July 2006, just two weeks before our first visit to the village. During their first six months
130
in the village, they reported that their main source of income (62%) had been the money they had
got from selling assets when they moved. However, agricultural labouring (29%) was their only
reported earned income (with the remaining 9% of their reported income being money given to
them by friends when their children were sick)84
. During the first year or so in the village, they
mainly worked on land near the village that belonged to outsiders who were clearing forest and
planting there. In early 2008 wife Panna had begun to work for the head-teacher who had claimed
a large area between Bey and the neighbouring village and was working it, or so he claimed, on
behalf of one of the Prime Minister‟s daughters and two of her high-ranking friends. Panna said
that the head-teacher had threatened villagers, saying that only his land was legally owned, and
that if people tried to work on their own land that he would report them to the police and the
soldiers for working on State land, so they must only work on his land. At this time, Panna was
actually acting as an intermediary for the head-teacher, collecting wages from him and
distributing them to everyone who worked on his land. By the end of the year the head-teacher
was using external labour – young men trucked direct out to the plantation in the middle of the
night – and Panny and Panna had become less reliant on agricultural labour because husband
Panny had accepted an offer of work – returning to his former role as a policeman in Kampong
Cham province, which meant that he was away for about half of the time, but that he brought in
most of the household‟s income through earnings related to that job. While agricultural labouring
dominated their income at first, the family seemed to be succeeding in its ambition to establish a
smallholding. Initially growing soya beans on their house land, they also bought and planted an
area of chamcar opposite their house, growing soya beans on it in 2007 and then cassava in 2008.
They intended to interplant rubber with these crops and gradually become smallholder rubber
farmers. For this household, then, with the benefit of their farming experience, as well as a new,
non-local income stream, agricultural labour had indeed seemed to serve the temporary purpose
of enabling the household to cope until they could fully establish as smallholder farmers.
At the beginning of the research, agricultural labour was something that was carried out beyond
the immediate confines of the village. People (like Panny and Panna above) would work on land
that was being cleared mainly by Cham settlers who were converting forest nearby. Within the
village, most households who were embarking on chamcar farming did so using their own family
labour, and mutual assistance – i.e. a group of households pooled their labour and took it in turns
working on each other‟s land (e.g. Interviews 3, 16, 19).
As increasingly large areas were cleared during 2008 the price of agricultural labour rose quite
dramatically – doubling from about 7000 riels to 15000 riels per day. With labour being scarce,
the head-teacher introduced two other solutions which may give some clues as to the future in the
terms of households‟ engagement in agricultural labour as a livelihood activity: first the use of
threats of violence (under the cloak of a claim of legality) to force people to work on a certain
plantation; second the use of temporary imported labour at cheaper prices (Interview 17).
While no household saw its future as largely dependent on agricultural labouring during the
research period, this could change. Smallholder farming, wood trading and various other
livelihoods are all aspired to, whilst agricultural labouring was seen as a short-term fix, resorted
84
These figures do not include the husband‟s occasional income from working as a chainsaw assistant (fetching and
carrying for a chainsaw operator in a team in the forest). This happened very rarely, and at that time, new to the
village and uncertain about admitting to illegal activities he preferred not to tell us about it.
131
to in order to solve food and cash-flow shortages while waiting for the harvest or other work.
However, many households gave agricultural labour as their primary source of income, and one
possibility is that this ends up having more long-term significance. However, during the study
period conditions have been favourable for agricultural labour: there has been quite a large
demand with new land being cleared, and the area is still considered somewhat wild and poor and
therefore has not attracted so many migrant labourers. These factors are likely to change.
5.2.2.3.4 Gathering and Trading Non-Timber Forest Products
Traditionally, non-timber forest products (NTFP) have been an important source of income for
villagers in Bey. While there had always been some logging, and also some agriculture in the
village, it was the gathering and trading of non-timber forest products that were reported as
traditionally comprising the main source of food and incomes for villagers.
First and foremost amongst these, as we have seen, were the harvesting of rattan and tapping of
resin from hard wood trees. Villagers used to be able to collect resin all year round and to sell it
either by taking it down to the Mekong, or by selling to traders who came to the village.
The assistant village chief and her husband were both born in the village. She told us that when
she was young there had been thirty or forty households in the village, and it had been a walk of
five or six kilometres to the resin trees. Today, however, she said it took about four hours to get
to an area where some resin trees could be found. In 2006 she collected some resin, and said it
was possible to collect between 5 and 10 kg per day, and to sell them for 700 riels per
kilogramme. However, she said that it was hard work to carry 10 kilogrammes of resin back and
that 7000 riels (less than 2 US dollars) was the rate for agricultural labour at the time, and that
was much easier, as well as less risky because sometimes when she went out to collect resin she
could only get 2-3 kilogrammes in the day.
She emphasised that this was different from the situation in the past. Then the trees had been
much nearer and some men could carry as much as 20 kilogrammes home every day. In this area
there had never been any defined ownership of trees or of tapping rights to specific trees, people
just used to go out and tap the resin (Interview 80).
Likewise, a 71 year old man, also born in the village recalling even longer back:
At that time there were strict laws which were enforced. People were not allowed to go into the
forest and cut the forest. The forestry officers did not allow that. But people were allowed to cut
from the forest within about three kilometres from the village to build houses, but not to trade
timber. Villagers were allowed to look for resin and could easily get this, and rattan and leaves to
make roof material. Not like today when everything is difficult to find. As a boy he would go with
his parents to collect resin. They might get 3-5 kg in a day, sometimes even as much as 10 kg. At
that time a kilogramme was worth 3-4 riels. (Interview 109, Author‘s field notes, not
transcription)
However, the cheu teal trees that could be tapped for resin were amongst the hardwood trees that
were so attractive to the various logging interests that have been active in and beyond the village
during the past twenty-five years. It is the transformations wrought by logging which have led to
the situation where a journey to collect resin is now much longer and yields much smaller
rewards. For villagers who have grown up in Bey, resin collection has changed from being their
132
primary income source to becoming a secondary resort when there is no work available cutting or
transporting timber.
To the extent that gathering of NTFPs is still an activity in the village, it is one that is
predominantly carried out by villagers who were born or grew up in the area. The one case study
household that has reported a substantial income from gathering non-timber forest products was
HH56, where the wife was a native of the village and her husband had come back to the village
with her. They reported that 31% of their income in the twelve months to spring 2007 had come
from NTFPs, comprising 23% from resin and 8% from Treang85
.
In another case study household, where both adults were born and brought up in the village, the
husband explained that he used to collect resin, but that he did not do so any more because all of
the trees had gone (Interview 30).
Members of both the two case study households who had migrated from Kampong Cham
province, had attempted to go out and collect resin. Their comparative disadvantage in this
quickly came apparent as they went out on the long trips, collected almost no resin and came
back sick with malaria. Panna, in HH 28, explained that she went with „old‟ villagers, who were
each able to collect 8-10 kilogrammes on the trip, but that she was not even able to collect 2
kilogrammes and that she was sick for three days afterwards (Interview 15).
In the village census at the beginning of August 2006 only one of the 198 adults in the village
was reported to be collecting NTFPs on the day of the interview. As mentioned above, this result
is partly biased by the fact that rice transplanting was underway and a third of adults were busy
working in the fields, nevertheless with a further third of adults at home either doing domestic
work, resting or recovering from illness, it remained the case that there were over sixty adults
who were neither in the rice fields nor at home, but only one of them was engaged in NTFP
collection.
The „livelihood matrix‟ in the Land and Livelihood Survey (1) in January 2008 gave a more
comprehensive view of how many households engage in NTFP related activities. Of the 84
households who were interviewed, only nine reported having taken any part in NTFP collection
during the previous six months. It seemed, therefore, that it was both a small and dwindling
proportion of the village who participated in collecting resin and other NTFPs.
In the Land and Livelihood Survey (2), in late 2008, only 2 of the 120 responding households
reported resin collection or NTFPs as their main livelihood activity. It was striking that while so
many of the houses in the village had been improved during the course of the research, and
motorcycles, televisions and DVD players proliferated, these were two households which still
looked extremely impoverished (insert photo HH79). They were also households that were beset
by problems of alcoholism and domestic violence (Interview 123). In follow-up interviews in
early 2009 to discover the extent of their resin incomes they doubted whether resin was in fact
quite so important and thought that they probably earned more from agricultural labouring.
Overall, then, there was a clear trend. NTFPs in general, and specifically resin and rattan had
been an important part of villagers‟ livelihoods several decades earlier. At that time food had
85
Source: Income and Expenditure Survey of 8 Case Study Households, March 2007.
133
been plentiful, and resin could be traded for rice for those who did not grow it, and for cash for
other requirements. In recent times deforestation, especially during the 1990s had ensured that
there were very few resin trees left, and that it was a longer journey to get to them. Only a small
proportion of villagers now collect resin, and the households that have this as a significant source
of income are amongst the very poorest in the village.
5.2.2.3.5 Trading land
Nobody at any stage reported to us that they personally traded land in the village. On the other
hand, many people were willing to testify that many or even most of their fellow villagers had
been engaged in land trading.
However, there is at least one household, whose members having settled in the village bought a
large tract of land (stretching from opposite the school all the way to the stream at the entrance of
the village – so a front of about 700 meters along the road) extremely cheaply and has since sold
it off at a significant profit (Interview 4). There were likewise oblique references to „people‟ who
had been marking off land and selling it to outsiders and earning very large amounts of money
by doing so86
.
In order to discover more we focused a little more attention on the economies of households that
had been able to build expensive houses (see Photograph at Figure 5-5). There were 7 households
with houses either complete or under construction that were worth upwards of 5,000 USD and in
some cases clearly well over 10,000 USD), there were again denials that they personally had had
any involvement in the purchasing and selling of land. Rather they suggested that “everyone” else
in the village had been doing that, and that the only reason that they did not all have fine new
houses was that some people knew how to save and invest money, while others just knew how to
spend it (Interview 51). One senior villager (who had not, as yet, invested his money from timber
and land trading in a large new house) was terse on this subject, saying simply that anyone who
had a large house had been trading land (Interview 108).
86
It was fairly clear in many cases who was being referred to, but given the extent to which villagers chose not to use
names, it would not seem appropriate to speculate in print.
134
Figure 5-5: House worth 7000 USD in Bey Village, November 2008 (Photo: Robin Biddulph)
5.2.2.4 Livelihood Activities in a Deforestation Trajectory
We can conclude this detailed account of livelihoods in Bey by returning to the idea of livelihood
trajectories or pathways raised in the introduction to this section. The changes in livelihood
activity and the demographic changes in the village can be related to the process of deforestation
that has been in progress during the years leading up to and including research project. Table 5-8
below is an attempt to show how some of the specific issues in Bey might be abstracted to
provide a more generalised theoretical model of how deforestation87
affects livelihoods. It
captures the logic and dynamics of a process whereby a market for timber attracts new actors,
transforms the role of the State, and places the local economy in a much wider context. It is no
longer characterised by its remoteness but by its centrality to an extraction process.
87
This dissertation is not the place to develop this idea further, however, it can be noted that the framework applies
particularly to deforestation that is driven by economic incentives which attract actors from beyond the local area
(i.e. the profits that can accrue from the sale of timber, or from the post-forest exploitation of land, or most likely
both). The Deforestation Trajectory that I suggest here would not have the same explanatory power in cases where a
low value, marginal forest is being consumed by local people without being directly driven by non-local market
forces and the arrival of non-local actors.
135
Table 5-8: Deforestation Livelihood Trajectory suggested by experience in Bey 1960s – 2000s
Phase Structural Process Local Livelihood implications
1.Pre-
deforestation
Pre-existing dynamic
relationship between the
community and the forest
resources.
A range of possibilities, but naive
assumptions that „forest-dependent‟
communities are non-monetised and
subsistence oriented should be
avoided
2.Timber
boom/NTFP
decline
External actors begin cutting
on a larger scale. The implied
threat to the forest resource
creates a strong incentive for
villagers to deforest.
Opportunities in timber trade depend
on relations with external actors. May
be greater of less than pre-
deforestation.
NTFP decline, quite possibly to a
point where NTFPs cannot sustain a
livelihood.
3.Turn to
agriculture
As forest is degraded, first-
movers identify agricultural
possibilities and make initial
claims for land.
Locals may not have a background in
farming and may not be able to take
advantage. In-migration by
agriculturalists may shape
opportunity through both
demonstration and competition.
4. Land boom/
Competition for
Land
As agricultural potential is
proven, land prices rise
rapidly. Land speculation
accompanies the transition to
agriculture.
Outsiders with capital and a business
mindset may benefit more than locals
from land trading. Locals may
unwittingly sell cheaply.
5. Shakedown
(reterritorial-
isation)
Competition for land,
including between plantation
and smallholder interests,
works out, alongside the
process of establishing
whether farming is sustainable.
Secure livelihoods within agriculture
(as labourers or smallholders) may be
possible, but may also be threatened
by dispossession in the competition
for land or by rapid deterioration of
virgin soils.
Source: Author
The terms of incorporation might vary dramatically. We have witnessed in Bey how poor
villagers were able to participate in and (at least in the short term) profit from the timber boom.
Le Billon (2002) has suggested that the opposite happened, and I myself did field work in a
village on the opposite side of the Mekong to Chhlong district town in 1997 where rather than
being co-opted into the timber harvesting, villagers were shut out by armed security guards and
lost access not only to timber but to the NTFPs. What the trajectory suggests, though, is that the
136
defining feature for local livelihoods is less the timber boom than the competition for land that
follows88
. We complete the discussion of the immanent development context of Bey village by
looking in more detail at the competition for land in and around Bey, and how that affects the
future prospects of the villagers who live there.
5.2.3 Prospects Explained: The Competition for Land
5.2.3.1 Introduction
The competition for land in Bey began long before the research for this project started, and was
far from complete by the time it finished. However, notwithstanding the element of smoke and
mirrors that inevitably attends such „shadow‟ market activity, we did manage to gain some
insights into the ways that some of the actors operate, and how tenure insecurity was created and
experienced. I (eventually) was able to interview members of the provincial authorities, district
forest administration and the local concession company representative which gave me access to
information that would have been far beyond the reach of most villagers. On the other hand, I
assume that this understanding only scrapes at the surface of this competition, and that –
especially amongst the more entrepreneurial and well-connected villagers – there will have been
issues that were common knowledge which nevertheless eluded us.
For local people, the competition for land was one that they participated in, but with a strong
sense that other actors or forces could quickly come into play and crush any gains that they had
made. Emblematic of this were the signs that people had put up on the road to the east of the
village to claim land. What all of these had in common was that the name of the claimant was
never legible. Villagers had to walk a narrow line. On the one hand they wanted to assert a claim,
but on the other hand there was the constant threat that a „rule of law‟ or „public good‟ argument
could be mobilised to define their particular claim as illegal leaving them open to retribution.
Such is the balancing act, for villagers, of dealing with the shadow/developmental state.
The remainder of this section first discusses some of the main actors in the competition for land,
and how they appeared (or didn‟t) on the village scene, there is then a brief discussion of an
illuminating case that we heard about just a few kilometres north of the village, before a
concluding discussion draws together some of the themes in the immanent development of Bey.
5.2.3.2 The Vietnamese Company
Following initial familiarisation visits we arrived in Bey to begin research in earnest on the 26th
July 2006. In a coincidence that would shape the whole project, and which particularly
overshadowed the first half of the project, forestry officials held a meeting in the village on our
first morning at work in the village, 27th July 2006. Having obtained permission from the village
chief to attend, I sat amongst the villagers as a Forestry Administration official presented a map
of the village. On this map all land within five hundred meters of the access roads west and south
88
It has become commonplace to argue that deforestation is not driven by demand for timber, but by demand for the
post-forest land-use (e.g. Grainger, 2008). This may be true where there is a particularly lucrative post-forest land use
and/or the prospect of good governance of the forest resource. However, as McKenney et al. (2004) have
convincingly argued, in conditions of poor governance, the timber resource itself is more than sufficient to explain
the incentives to „cut and run‟.
137
of the village had been shaded. The official explained that this was forestry land and that all
families resident on this land (about thirty of the village‟s 82 households at the time) were illegal
occupiers. They would be required to leave it in order that the forest could grow back. This, they
explained, was simply them implementing the Forestry Law on behalf of the nation and its
people.
Chan, the former Khmer Rouge commander who is the head of the village‟s community forestry
group asked questions during the meeting. The forestry official, Mr Muntrei Cheu tried to object
to one person asking all of the questions. However, the other villagers, previously silent,
responded firmly that they liked Chan‟s questions and wanted him to continue with them. Chan
asked why the Forestry Administration was just concentrating its efforts on the poor people who
live along the road, but was not doing anything about the big people in the forests who had
sawmills and who destroyed a lot of trees. Mr Muntrei Cheu promised that he would be
systematic and that in time he would also go after people further from the road. Chan asked what
rights the Casotim company had in the area. Cheu responded that he had only been in his job for
two months so was unable to answer the question.
Meanwhile, even while informing the villagers that they were to be evicted from their land, Mr
Muntrei Cheu repeatedly maintained that „the State‟ cared for them and wanted to look after
them. He held up a government document on land redistribution as evidence that the State cared
for them (see Photography at Figure 5-6). The Sub-Decree on Social Land Concessions is a legal
document subsidiary to the 2001 land law which enables the state to divest itself of certain
categories of land and redistribute them to poor people. The villagers‟ inevitably asked if there
was land available for them to move to, and his answer, (equally inevitably) was no. But he
argued that they should not be without hope, because the sub-decree should give them hope as it
showed that the State cared89
.
This eviction threat can be interpreted as being the local manifestation of an initiative from the
Prime Minister in May 2006. In May 2006 the Prime Minister had issued an edict and made
speeches (Sen, 2006, p. e.g.) to the effect that he wanted to make sure that powerful people would
not be able to exploit the nation‟s forests. He was fed up of hearing that his officials had been
targeting poor people and he now wanted them to go after the big people involved in encroaching
on State forests. The forestry official cited and distributed the Prime Minister‟s edict, but, as
Chan pointed out in the meeting, its logic had been reversed. The action being taken was one that
targeted the poor (villagers living along the road) and ignored the wealthy (business men running
sawmills in the forests).
One could read this sympathetically as the Prime Minister being frustrated in attempts to lead a
fight against corruption in the state apparatus. Or one could read it more cynically as the Prime
Minister making political capital of appearing to defend the poor, while in fact maintaining his
89
The irony of this situation was not lost on me. Working both through Oxfam GB and through the German advisory
team at the Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction I had been involved in the preparation
of the Social Land Concessions Sub-Decree. Social Land Concessions had been envisaged as a means by which poor
people, who had missed out during the grabbing of former state land both by government officials following the
transition from communism and by military following the arrival of peace, might yet be able to claim back some
small part of this land. It had certainly not been intended by any of its international supporters that it should be used
to placate people who were being dispossessed by the State as it sought to reassert its claims.
138
own position through the very practices of enabling the rich to dispossess the poor. What was
indisputable, however, was that the formal intentions outlined at national level became
transformed in the course of their journey to the village. So Social Land Concessions, being
officially an instrument by which to distribute land to poor people, became an instrument to
placate them when they were to be made landless. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister‟s edict to target
wealthy encroachers became an instrument to target the poor.
Figure 5-6: Forestry Official holds up the Social Land Concession Sub-decree at the 27th
July 2006 meeting in
Bey village. (Photopgraph: Robin Biddulph)
In early 2007 villagers reported that a Vietnamese company was seeking to obtain an economic
concession to establish a plantation in the area. Company staff were reported to have been in the
village for the first time on 22 January 2007, and to have made several subsequent visits in order
to conduct soil testing (Interview 57). This gave rise to much anxious speculation in the village.
Community Forestry activist Long Chan reported that they had promised that only land six
kilometers from the village would be taken by the company, (though he saw them carrying out
tests within 200 meters of the village). Rumours began to swirl. Another villager had heard that
they would be granted an initial 1000 hectares which would potentially be expanded to 40 000
hectares, and furthermore that the plan had been that they would pay a rent to the government of
1000 USD per hectare per year. However, he also reported that their soil tests had only identified
300 of the 1000 hectares as suitable for rubber (Interview 8).
In time it became apparent that the two stories – the one of the Forest Administration seeking to
allow the forest to grow back for the good of the nation, and the other of the Vietnamese
139
company looking for a site to establish a plantation – were in fact one story. During interviews at
the Forestry Administration office in the provincial town, I sought to find out about progress in
relation to the proposed evictions. Villagers had protested and these protests were to be
investigated. In February 2007 I was told that similar processes had occurred in over 100 villages
in 21 communes in the province, but that no investigations had yet been completed (Interview
208). By September 2007 it was explained the investigations had now been abandoned because
the Vietnamese company was no longer coming. In other words, far from reclaiming the forest for
the nation and enabling it to grow back, as Mr Muntrei Cheu had claimed, the intention had been
to negotiate a concession with the Vietnamese company (Interview 210). The prospect that the
Vietnamese company might move in had in the meantime created a general sense of insecurity
about land holdings (e.g. Interview 1), and also in some cases caused people to not clear and plant
their land for fear they would soon lose it (e.g. Interview 30).
In summary, what this case started to show was the way in which the apparent good intentions of
national policies and legislation could easily be transformed into instruments by which the path
could be smoothed for non-local actors hoping to win control over the land upon which villagers‟
hopes were pinned.
5.2.3.3 The Casotim Company and the Okhnyaa
‖They say it is Casotim, Casotim land, but then we see big people coming in and farming that
land‖ (Interview 149)
During the years of intensive logging villagers occasionally used to see Russians in the village,
but this never happened in the course of the study. It was only the presence of Russian
representatives at occasional meetings about community forestry, and in company documents that
I saw at the Forestry Administration offices that gave evidence that there was still an international
involvement and that Casotim was not simply a front for local business interests90
.
For villagers the identity of Casotim was closely related to the identity of the man who was the
company representative in the district. He was a local man who many villagers knew: some in-
migrants from the Mekong had been to school with him before the Pol Pot times (Interviews 103,
107); others knew him from when he drove a truck through the village in the 1990s (Interview
71). Since then he had become what they referred to as a „big person‟ (neak thom) with the rank
of Okhnyaa. Okhnyaa is an honorary position bestowed by the Cambodian state to wealthy
benefactors who have contributed to national development. The contribution should be at least
100 000 USD and normally be in the form of infrastructure. Implicit in becoming an Okhnyaa is
the informal understanding that one‟s business interests will be protected. According to the Bey
village head-teacher, the Casotim district representative had paid 200 000 USD in order to obtain
his rank (Interview 158).
90
This was a possibility that had occurred to me, and was also suggested by a villager (Interview 13). The Active
Communities director, commenting on this text, recalled a TV broadcast in 2003 showing a Russian businessman
meeting with Cambodian officials. He said that even at that time, when other logging concessions were in the process
of producing forest management plans, there was speculation that Casotim‟s intention was to convert its logging
concession into a land concession.
140
When I interviewed him in 2008, the Okhnyaa shared the company‟s plans for developing the
land within the concession area (Interview 218). CASOTIM had applied to the government in
2007, and received approval in 2008, to convert 15,000 hectares of forest to plantation over a ten
year period. The official correspondence and the attached maps and plans showed a series of ten
1,500 hectare plots, which would be developed one per year. The seventh of these was within two
kilometres of the eastern boundary of Bey village, and would effectively dispossess most of the
villagers of most of their agricultural land.
During the course of 2007-8 a number of villagers had already been driven off land that they had
claimed to the east of Bey by „Casotim soldiers‟. These soldiers had threatened villagers with
rifles and had taken their motorcycles, water containers, knives and machetes. Villagers had to
pay the soldiers in order to recover this equipment the following day (Interviews 4, 25, 26, 37,
81). One of our case study families was such a household: they had bought three hectares of land
about six kilometres east of the village, but having been driven off the land once they did not dare
to reoccupy and farm it again. Here were cases, then, which perfectly matched the narratives used
to justify programmes of systematic land titling in chapter 2: insecurity of tenure was restricting
agricultural investment and productivity. With secure tenure these households would have
invested more, produced more and been better off.
In response to questions about villagers‟ occupation of land for farming, the Okhnyaa replied that
the company was prepared for villagers to claim up to five hectares per household. Although he
was sceptical as to whether most households would be capable of farming as many as five
hectares. On the other hand, he expressed extreme disapproval of land speculation. He confirmed
a story that we had heard of the newly-elected commune chief claiming and selling off plots of
land for about 500 USD each in the area of the hamlet of Pram Toch. He declared his intention to
take the commune chief to court over this and to ensure he got sacked as a result91
.
This would seem to suggest that villagers might have some chance to acquire the smallholder
plots which they hope for. However, it is important to note that the only formal communication
with the concession company tends to go through the Forestry Administration, who are much
more hostile to the idea of forest lands being converted to smallholder agriculture. Likewise, that
(as the case of Kang Cheung below demonstrates), if the plantation development does proceed
according to plan there is likely to be a variety of actors converging on Bey in order to both claim
land and to judge the claims. The outcomes of such a process would be difficult to predict and
would not necessarily support the interests of the current villagers.
5.2.3.4 The Head-Teacher ... and The South Korean Company?
Young, educated, enthusiastic and charming, as well as being large and powerful by Cambodian
standards, the head-teacher of the 3-room village school became a controversial figure in the
competition for land. Reasonably popular when we arrived, particularly amongst the younger
men in the village with whom he used to drink and go on motorcycle trips, he gradually became
extremely unpopular, both for the way that he neglected his teaching duties (e.g. Interview 49)
and for his business dealing.
91
The court case took place during the following month but no judgement had been issued when our research
concluded in March 2009.
141
He also had some experience with foreigners. He claimed to have been close friends with his
English teacher, an international volunteer called Ursula, in the provincial town, and he had also
received support from an Italian NGO to set up a handicrafts workshop in his home village on the
Mekong. He was solicitous of me and keen not only to establish a relationship, but also for the
rest of the village to see that he had established a relationship with me. Amongst his strategies to
woo me were to present me with the telephone numbers of the Casotim representative, and also of
the older brother of the Prime Minister (but on the strict instruction that I was not to use the
latter!). He had believed that he had been on his way to becoming a rich man through a logging
deal with the Prime Minister‟s brother, but that went bad and now he was restless and ambitious
for another opportunity.
In mid-2007 the head-teacher had been rumoured to have been arranging to sell land in the
village area to a high ranking woman (with the title „Excellency‟), and had spent 11-15 August
2007 surveying land with a GPS and marking it (Interview 67). By January 2008 an area
rumoured to be 2000 hectares had been marked and was being cleared. Some wealthy looking
ladies had been to visit in two expensive four wheel drive vehicles, accompanied by military
bodyguards on motorcycles. During our fourth visit, a group of angry villagers from the next
village arrived at the house of the head of the community forestry committee while one of us was
interviewing him. They represented 40 households who had been dispossessed by the head-
teacher‟s plantation, and were seeking his help to present a letter of complaint and a petition
saying that they had acquired this land three or four years before the head-teacher, and that he had
no right to steal it from them (Interviews 14, 69).
When I interviewed the head-teacher later during that visit, he claimed that the „excellencies‟
were a daughter to the Prime Minister Hun Sen called “Srey Neang”92
, a first cousin to the Prime
Minister‟s wife Bun Rany called „Nai‟ and another high ranking lady called „Toch‟. He said that
they were in the process of making an agreement with the Casotim company. Regarding
villagers‟ complaints, he argued that villagers in the area were ignorant and did not understand
that all of the land belonged to Casotim, and that anyone who cleared or traded that land was
violating the rights of the company. Furthermore, that if the „excellencies‟ came and carried out
plantation farming that this would be good for the villagers because they would build roads and
factories and therefore all of the inhabitants would benefit from development (Interview 158).
During the last days of our final field visit we heard that in the end the „Excellencies‟ had chosen
another area of land to do their plantation, and that the one that had been cleared was owned by
the head-teacher. We had no way of knowing what the truth was at this stage in a prolonged game
of smoke and mirrors. Our information was no better than that of the villagers themselves. What
was clear, though, was that the teacher, whether acting in his own interests or in the interests of
wealthy outsiders (who may or may not have been who they claimed they were), had succeeded
in occupying and farming that 2000 hectare plot, and in the process had deprived the forty
complainants from the neighbouring village of their claims to smallholder plots.
92
The Prime Minister does not have a daughter named Srey Neang, although I do not know if one of his daughters
has this as a nickname.
142
5.2.3.5 Cham Settlers
Settlement of former forest by communities of Cham people is a feature of the landscape in
Chhlong district. The national road from Kampong Cham province to Chhlong is lined with
houses that have been built on land which was forested a decade ago. The tracks from the
national road out to Bey are likewise dotted with new Cham villages. At the time of the research
no Cham households had settled in the village (although one Cham woman had married a Khmer
man there), but one plot had been purchased and cleared prior to occupation in the centre of the
village (Interview 61), and nearby Pram village was said to have a large Cham population
(Interview 157).
During the research period Cham people had already established claims to large tracts of land to
the north of the village. Villagers noted that Cham people did not get driven off their land by
Casotim soldiers in the way that they did and suspected that Cham organisations had done deals
in order to secure their tenure (Interview 25). On the other hand, there were also rumours that
Casotim was going to reassert its own claim and that the Cham settlers would be forced off the
land (Interview 140). There was some conflict between Cham settlers and the villagers of Bey.
On one occasion the deputy village chief recruited the assistance of local military units to try and
address land conflicts at the northern border of the village (Interview 101), while villagers
complained that any time that their cattle – which traditionally are allowed to roam free during
the rainy season – strayed into newly-occupied Cham areas that they would be cut with knives
and sent back (Interviews 43, 51)93
. Having said that, there did not appear to be any generalised
ill will between Bey villagers and Cham people. On one occasion there had been fighting at a
festival at the pagoda and one of the village youths was injured by a young Cham. The next day
the Cham youngster turned up in the village in order to pay compensation, which everyone
seemed to think was correct and attracted no negative comments or remarks.
In addition to the already established Cham settlement, there was also a rumour circulating that a
new Cham village for about 900 households would be established about 10 kilometers east of
Bey (Interview 103, 157). In one case a household from Bey who had claimed land near there had
it taken from them on the grounds that it was for the new village (Interview 143).
As far as we could discover, the Cham who had acquired land near Bey had not settled in the area
but were still based in their home villages, mainly along the Mekong. It was unclear how they had
managed to negotiate their presence in these places, but it did seem that they often fared well both
in individual conflicts and in terms of their ability to remain on the land which they settled. The
Casotim representative was evasive regarding the Cham, not being able to give any explanation
as to why the company permitted them to settle (Interview 218). However, to have settled as
extensively as they had seemed to imply a degree of either political connectedness or economic
reach or social cohesion that would make them imposing rivals in the competition for land in the
area of Bey. Their presence was yet further evidence that the green forest on official maps should
not be seen as spaces of nature, but that they might often be staked out in privatised plots by
private agents exploiting informal links to the authorities.
93
The Active Communities director pointed out that grazing of cattle on forest land is an important element of
livelihoods in many parts of the country: while in Bey cattle‟s importance mainly related to transport of timber and
some agricultural work, in other parts of the country trading of cattle was a key income source.
143
5.2.3.6 The Case of Khang Cheung
We learned of a case just a few kilometres north of Bey which reinforced our understanding of
just how difficult it would be, even with the appropriate political will, to take meaningful action
on behalf of the local poor. This concerned local people‟s attempts to resist a plantation
development by Casotim, and the way that a national intervention was undertaken94
.
When we heard about it, the case had been the subject of a preliminary investigation, but was far
from closed. It began in mid-2007 when four villagers, who were part of a small settlement that
would fall within a plantation planned by the Casotim company, succeeded in forwarding a
petition to the Prime Minister. Our informant was a former government official who had been
directly involved in the affair. He explained that the Prime Minister had responded by ordering
that villagers who had agricultural land in the area should be allowed to keep it. An
interdepartmental provincial working group under the provincial governor was then despatched to
the site in order to identify all households who had land there. At first, local people refused to
cooperate. This reluctance was unsurprising given that the Forestry Administration officials who
had drawn up the forms had headed them “Names of the people who have illegally stolen the land
of the State”. After some heated discussions within the provincial team the process was made
more settler-friendly and, using Geographic Information System and survey equipment from the
provincial land department, they proceeded to register 438 households to 281 plots (some plots
were multi-household as the provincial team did not have time to do a detailed survey).
This result, however, became a source of some controversy. When officials later examined the
438 household names they discovered that only 15 of them were on the original protest letter
submitted by the four leaders. It was argued that somebody must have been selling land illegally
on a large scale. A follow-up investigation was therefore due to investigate who had been buying
and selling the land, with a view to punishing any speculators. Our informant, meanwhile, was
sceptical about the rights of the settlers as a whole, saying that when he had driven past this site
just four years previously, there had only been two or three houses there. Clearly, then, it
remained possible that the legitimacy of any of the claims could be challenged, and that a witch-
hunt for land speculators could become the means by which other actors could overturn the
results of the provincial work-team‟s survey and ultimately dispossess the current settlers once
the Prime Minister‟s attention had moved on to other matters.
This ongoing, inconclusive case provided indications of what might be expected if villagers‟
rights to land they occupied in Bey were ever to be investigated. Firstly, of course, the hostility of
forestry officials to any activity that implied that the forest would be transformed to another use
meant that villagers were unlikely to receive support from that quarter. Secondly, the uncertainty
caused by an absence of any trustworthy, respected source of information. In such a case, it
would inevitably be the existing networks and relationships between village authorities and
higher authorities that would determine outcomes. If such a circumstance arose in Bey, it would
undoubtedly be the deputy village chief whose interpretation of history would be definitive. His
long-term allies, and those who had successfully ingratiated themselves with him through
business dealings, would have a better chance of having their possession recognised; those who
had alienated him would have little chance. Thirdly, whatever immediate effect high level
94
This section is based on material from Interview 193 with a Kracheh provincial official 29th
October 2008.
144
interventions had, there was a strong likelihood that the prevailing business and political relations
would be able to reassert themselves with time. Decisions can always be modified and
renegotiated once „higher levels‟ are paying less attention. Arguably this is integral to the sort of
neo-patrimonial governance that obtains in Cambodia. Clients deliver on the major priorities of
their patrons (elections, security etc) and in return are allowed a reasonably free hand to manage
economic opportunities in the territories allocated to them.
5.2.4 Reflections: Mediating Actors and Factors in the Competition for Land and
Livelihoods
5.2.4.1 The Role of the Forest Administration
The Forestry Administration did not evict the villagers of Bey, despite the threat at the meeting
on 27th
July 2006. However, by holding that meeting they did contribute to a sense of insecurity
amongst the villagers. If nothing else was achieved, the villagers were at least reminded that
„their‟ land did not belong to them, and that they did not have the right to live in the forest.
At the same time as keeping people‟s tenure weak, the Forestry Administration also served as a
buffer between the companies who were operating (or potentially operating) concessions in the
area, and others who might criticize or resist them. Hence that first meeting was not in fact to
protect the forest, but to enable a smoother path for the Vietnamese company which was
preparing plans for a plantation. Regarding Casotim, Forestry Administration officials claimed
complete ignorance – as when Chan questioned Mr Muntrei Cheu about Casotim‟s rights in the
area, and Cheu replied that he had only been in his role for two months so could not answer the
question. Likewise, when I was at the Forestry Administration office in the provincial town I was
told that Casotim‟s operations were suspended and, at the Forestry Administration office at the
district town I was always told that the Casotim district representative was away in Phnom Penh,
or that they did know where he was.
To the extent that I did wish to build relationships with the Forestry Administration officials, my
efforts were undermined as they were rotated every two or three years. So just as I was unable to
develop the personal relationships that I would have needed to achieve my aims, villagers would
also have been frustrated if they had been similarly strategically oriented and wished to win over
the officials or in some way hold them to account.
The Forestry Administration had not been a major driver of the changes that had occurred in Bey,
but the stories of chainsaws being taken from villagers and then returned to them again for cash
the next morning were perhaps illustrative of the sort of role that institution has been able to play.
5.2.4.2 Indigenous and Forest-dependent, but not Ethnically Different
Political ecology and social movement literature is replete with examples of attempts to support
indigenous people to resist the loss of their livelihoods and ways of life (e.g. Brysk, 1996;
Colchester, 1993; du Monceau de Bergendal Labarca, 2008). The destructive effects of the
exposure to market forces are commonplace, as are the difficulties faced by indigenous people
who are not experienced in the ways of thinking associated with entrepreneurship and investment
and competition when they are suddenly exposed to competition with outsiders well-versed in the
ways of capital and markets.
145
Just such differences are apparent in Bey. A way of life has already been utterly transformed, and
remains in rapid and uncertain transformation. The people least able to cope are the people who
have lived in the village since their parents‟ and grandparents‟ times. Their comparative
advantages are in finding trails in the forest, in identifying resin trees and tapping them, in killing
and capturing forest animals. These become less and less useful „advantages‟ when the hardwood
trees have been cut down, the rattan harvested and most of the animals long-since vanished.
However, there is no linguistic or ethnic marker to distinguish the people who are indigenous to
Bey from the outsiders who have come in and commoditized and traded the environment and the
social relations, so the transition/loss is less visible. Unlike the native ethnic minority areas
further north-east in Cambodia, nobody comes to Bey in order to catalyse or support a movement
to preserve the indigenous culture or relations with nature. We did not collect systematic
information on this, but certainly the three households where we chanced upon severe problems
with alcohol and domestic violence were all households containing adults who had grown up in
the village.
In Bey‟s modern history, and particularly in the experiences of the people who were born and
have lived all of their lives in the village, one can certainly recognise a transition from Rigg‟s
(2006, p. 190) „old‟ poverty (marked by isolation from the world and therefore missing many of
its benefits) to „new‟ poverty (marked by engagement with the broader world which includes a
new dependence on non-local factors and the loss of local resources and the self-reliance and
safety net that they could provide).
5.2.4.3 ‘Community’ and how it mediates change
At village level, some of the most influential villagers are in quite bitter conflict with each other.
In particular, the head teacher, the Hun-Bun household (deputy village chief and wife), and the
community forest activist Long Chan, all have considerable animosity towards each other95
.
These are the locally powerful actors whose immediate interests are relatively visible.
Each of these figures is more or less popular, but one does not get a strong sense that the
divisions between them are more widely reflected in the village population. One could quite
easily envisage a situation where blood could be spilt as a result of the conflicts between these
men/couples. On the other hand it was not the personal element of these conflicts that would
make them significant for the political economy of change in the village.
In addition to being in conflict with each other, these men/couples are also aligned with
competing outside interests. The head-teacher is looking to attach himself to large scale
plantation interests – international companies and (not unrelated) senior national politicians, and
to be part of the sort of development that would transform the local people into primarily
agricultural labourers. Because he has no family in the village and the option of returning to his
home village or to the provincial town where he was trained, he can afford high-risk liaisons with
powerful outsiders that might be locally unpopular. The deputy village chief and his wife each
have children who live in the village and it is their home. Their interests li.e. in profiting from
95
The other notably influential household, Sitha-Navy, who led the influx from Tbong Kmum district of Kampong
Cham, profited hugely from land deals and have been involved in land conflicts with other villagers, appear to have
finessed other actors such that they do not become embroiled in open conflict in the same way.
146
gradual change – they broker logging deals, and now they are the first point of contact for
newcomers seeking to purchase land and move into the village. And as the trusted representative
of State and party in the village they are well-positioned to safeguard their interests and
opportunities in this respect. Proud and outspoken, the former Khmer Rouge commander Chan is
prepared to openly criticise and challenge anything which appears to destroy the forest, and
anything which he regards as corruption. He objects strongly to the business dealings of the other
men/couples. In interviews he reserves the right to keep his political views confidential, though
others associate him with opposition party activism. He has likewise been the contact point for a
series of non-governmental interventions in the area involved in malaria prevention, credit and
savings activities and (as we shall learn in Part 2) community forestry. He is unlikely ever to have
influence with the authorities but could well become a focus for, and indeed a generator of,
resistance to initiatives that dispossess villagers, as was seen in the villagers‟ enthusiastic support
of his questioning of the Forestry Administration officials during our first morning in the village.
Given that these men/couples are likely to mediate any major initiatives from outside, the shifting
politics of their relationships and the way in which they mobilise alliances in the village will be a
feature of any future change. If nothing else, it is important to understand that any initiative
supported by one of these men/couples is likely to be bitterly opposed by the other two, using
whatever resources they can muster.
5.2.5 Immanent Development and Livelihoods in Bey in Summary
Bey is a village that for most of its history would have been experienced and understood as a
village in forest. In recent decades, and especially since 1994 when peace came to the village,
external actors have initiated a process of deforestation in the village. That process of externally-
driven deforestation has been the structural factor that has shaped the livelihood trajectories of the
villagers living in Bey. It has facilitated a decade and a half of economic boom for the villagers.
This has particularly benefited newcomers to the village who are more business-oriented and
better able to reinvest profits, but even original villagers celebrate the larger population and
increased wealth saying that the village is happier than before and that they would not wish to
return it to its former state even if they do miss the large trees and the abundance of wild food.
The price to be paid for the increase in wealth has been an increase in insecurity. As the forest
landscape becomes transformed into an agricultural landscape villagers in Bey have long since
stopped having the possibility of a NTFP-based livelihood, and with logging opportunities now
also dwindling they are pinning their hopes for the future on being able to become smallholder
farmers. At the same time various companies and rent-seeking officials are jostling for position
and making claims to land, so that no villager in Bey can be sure that their current claims to
agricultural land will be respected. It was into this context that a community forestry project in
the village was first initiated in 2003.
147
5.3 Intentional Development: Community Forestry in Bey
5.3.1 Introduction
As we have seen, processes of deforestation and competition for land have dominated livelihood
trajectories during the recent economic boom in the village of Bey. We began our research in the
village in July 2006. Three and a half years before that, a community forestry project was
established in the village. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to that project. We begin by
re-tracing the story of the community forestry intervention as it was experienced in the village
from early 2003 to the completion of our field research in March 2009. We then turn to the non-
local actors who have been involved in supporting or facilitating the project in various ways,
including the small Cambodian NGO which we shall call the Better Lives Organisation (BLO),
the small international NGO that we shall call Active Communities (AC), as well as the
international NGO Oxfam GB and the main donor during the research period the European
Union. Finally the implications of the case will be reviewed in relation to both community
forestry in Cambodia, and to the broader arguments about development geography in this thesis.
5.3.2 View from the Village: The Story of Community Forestry as Experienced in Bey
Community forestry was introduced to the village of Bey by two members of staff of the
Cambodian NGO BLO , an older man and a younger woman. The older man was a former
teacher, as Chan, who later became the head of the village‟s community forestry committee
recounted:
Teacher Rien came and told us about the benefits of forest products and about the disadvantages
of damaging natural resources. He came often. He came every month or once every two months
depending on the situation. Sometimes he stayed for a night, and sometimes he was busy with
other work and just came during the day96
. (Interview 71, Author‘s translation).
The BLO staff organised a group to “cultivate ideas” (pchour kumnet) and generate interest in
community forestry in early 2003. This informal group was led by the village authorities. Later in
2003 a community forestry committee was elected comprising three men and two women. Long
Chan was the head of that committee.
From the time of this NGO-facilitated election the community forestry project was somewhat
controversial and divisive. The tensions were not so much created by the community forestry but
rather represented a re-working of existing conflicts. The influential Deputy Village chief was not
present for the election and later claimed that it was not a proper election but just an appointment
by BLO (Interview 101). He asserted, furthermore, that the project could not happen because it
allowed the community forestry committee to arrest people, whereas he believed that the only
villagers entitled to arrest people were village authorities such as himself (Interview 97).
Meanwhile, Chan was resentful when the BLO staff presented the deputy village chief with a
camera to assist with project implementation.
They gave it to (deputy village chief) Hun because he was a local authority and had the role of
advisor to the community. So they gave it to him. But actually we wanted it to take pictures of
96
But compare Interview 54 in 2007 when Chan said that BLO staff never stayed in the village.
148
violations, but he did not give it. To tell the truth, we never got to touch it at all (Interview 71,
Author‘s translation).
During the following two years, there was relatively little project activity in the village. In early
2006, however, funding was obtained from the international NGO Community Forestry
International for the marking and mapping of the boundaries of the community forest. On 17th
April 2006 Chan mapped the boundary using a handheld Global Positioning System device, but
was not accompanied by either BLO staff or by officials from the Forestry Administration
(Interview 71). The readings that Chan took were submitted to Community Forestry International
in Phnom Penh who in turn produced computerised maps and sent them back to BLO and the
village. These maps provided the inputs to subsequent discussions about the community forestry
project in Bey.
The community forestry project site marked by Chan was to be a shared responsibility of Bey and
Pram villages. The site was six kilometres to the southeast of the village. It was 1145 hectares,
and the boundary over 12 kilometres long. In the wet season it took over an hour to get to the
community forestry site by motorcycle. In the dry season, just to walk to and from the site took
two to three hours, and to patrol the boundary was a full day‟s walk. Villagers‟ own agricultural
fields and logging activities were mainly to the east of the village, whilst their work as
agricultural labourers took them mainly to the north and to the west of the village. In other words,
the community forest was not on any of their regular routes and was not, therefore, an area with
which villagers were familiar or which they could easily monitor. Asked about this location over
two years later in 2008, Chan, the head of the Community Forestry committee in the village
explained:
About this, I am not disappointed with myself because at the beginning I never had any training in
this question. What I did was according to the ideas that came from the local authorities. They
said it should be a good distance from the village so that it didn't overlap with villagers' land. We
didn't want people's rice and chamcar to be in the forest. We wanted them separate. And I went
along with that. And it is a good idea, but I did not think about the fact that an area a long way
from the village would be difficult to defend, which means that we can lose that area now
(Interview 71. Author‘s translation)97
.
Our research in the village began in mid-July 2006. At that point, shortly after the mapping of the
site, there was a sense of expectation around the project in the village. In August, Chan reported
expecting a meeting on 2nd
November to give official approval to the project (Interview 64).
When we returned for a brief visit on 5th November 2006 it had not occurred, but villagers were
then expecting a meeting the following day to approve the project (Interview 21), and were
already talking about the details of patrolling routines that this would involve, with themselves
and the neighbouring village sharing the duties, and everyone being required to carry out one
patrol per week.
97
The Active Communities director provided the following written comment on this quote: “This gets at a contentious issue. FA wants to say communities shouldn’t get large areas because they can’t manage them. Nowadays, since anything outside a CF is fair game for concessions, people try to get as large an area as possible. Not that the CF area in Bey was well selected, just that it would be unfortunate to conclude that the FA is right and CFs should be small and near the village”.
149
In practice, these expectations were not to be realised. The November meetings never happened,
and on 9th
January 2007 there was a meeting attended by members of the Forestry
Administration, representatives of Oxfam and of BLO. Chan was present. He reported that the
Forestry Administration officials had recommended that only proposals for community forests
not located within commercial concessions be submitted. They argued that it would be better this
way, because there were too many complications involved in conducting negotiations with
concessionaires, so it was better to begin where this is not an issue. According to Chan, Oxfam
and the communities agreed to this advice because they did not want to risk everything getting
stopped. After four years of prevarication, his frustration was apparent.
We have done everything according to the advice of Oxfam, and especially BLO. But when we
submit it they always say that we have not got it right. Then it has been a year since we submitted
our plan and it has been silent. Forestry Administration officials say it is maybe because
provincial people don‘t really understand what community forestry is.
Whilst Chan was weighed down by the failure of the authorities to approve the community
forestry project, he also found progress in the village difficult. In the year to September 2007,
Chan reported only actually making two patrols of the boundary of the community forestry area
(Interview 65, 67). While the official membership of the Community Forestry initiative was 316
adults from 144 households in the two villages, with 177 of those members coming from Bey,
Chan said that only a few of the members in Krouch were active in the beginning (Interview 71),
and that ultimately he was the only one who was absolutely committed. He related this to a lack
of understanding on the part of other villagers regarding the benefits, as well as to a lack of time
on his part to disseminate information and understanding to his fellow villagers (Interview 67).
Chan interpreted the community forestry project as giving him a mandate not only over the
community forestry site, but also with regard to the implementation of forestry law anywhere in
the forest. During 2007 he reported two sawmills to the Forestry Administration, giving them the
names of both operators, who were from Kenchor village on the Mekong. He also reported
having confiscated two chainsaws from people he found using them in the forest and handed
these into the Forestry Administration. However, as far as Chan could tell, his reports and actions
never led to any action on the part of the Forestry Administration (Interview 67).
In May 2008, Chan started to hear reports that the land at the community forestry site had been
marked off into plots by the commune chief who was selling them at between 400 and 500 US
dollars per plot. In an interview in October 2008 he said that he had heard nothing from either
BLO or Oxfam for a long time, and that as far as he was concerned the project had now failed
From 2003 to now it has been five years. At the beginning, for me, I had hoped that we would
succeed, because we told people about the benefits of natural resources. Especially that there are
many things that are already growing and we do not need fertiliser for those. I am very sad. I have
worked really hard. I have neglected all of my personal interests in order to stop violations. But
the leaders, they don‘t want to have anything to do with this at all. I am very sad, but I still have
the idea that if they can start this again I would try. We can call it failure. It is failure (Interview
71. Author‘s translation).
Later in 2008 there were two meetings held at the commune office, one an annual review of
community forestry activities initiated by Oxfam and BLO, and the other a meeting hosted by the
commune chief. In both cases Chan did not receive his invitation until after the meeting had
150
occurred. He was sure that this could not have been coincidence, and that they did not want him
there. At that final meeting the commune chief had proposed that the community forestry project
at Bey be cancelled and this was voted through (Interview 74). Chan questioned whether the
commune chief had the right to take such a decision, but given the lack of support he had been
able to muster in the community and the lack of interest from the NGOs he was not planning to
dispute it. He retained the hope that the NGOs or the authorities might take up their interest again,
but for the time being he regarded the project as finished.
5.3.3 Community Forestry in Bey: Meanings and Interpretation
As may be apparent from the above narrative, the story of community forestry in Bey was, at
village level, largely the story of one man‟s struggle. For most villagers „Community Forest‟ does
not mean an area of forest land protected by the community. Rather, the words are a synonym for
Chan. Whenever we asked the question “Where is the community forest?” the first response was
inevitably to be told where Chan was that day or to be told where his house was. To some degree
this was complemented by Chan‟s own self-identification98
: the first time I met him he introduced
himself with words to the effect of “Who are you? I am community here. I need to know
everyone who comes and goes”.
In early visits there was some enthusiasm expressed by other villagers for community forestry,
partly reflecting anger at the appropriation of timber and land by outsiders, and sadness at the
disappearance of the forest. In 2006 the head of one of our case study households, who also sat in
the first Community Forestry committee (2003-7) told us that the community forestry was very
important and that the forests must be protected otherwise there would be no forest left for her
children and grandchildren. In this respect she mentioned the way that „people‟ were just marking
off trees and land and selling them. However, when asked how her family and other families in
the village would be able to make a living if they were not able to cut wood, her response was
that it would be impossible (Interview 24). Hers was one of our case study households and our
knowledge of the household economy confirmed this dependence: her son-in-law worked as both
a chainsaw operator and a transporter of wood, and it was his incomes from this that were the
major source of incomes for the household. They did have agricultural crops, but, at the time of
that interview their rice crop had been destroyed by excessive rains, whilst two years later much
of their chamcar crop had been stolen whilst she took care of her daughter around the time of the
birth of her second grandchild.
To the extent that other people could say any more about community forestry the information
tended to be sketchy. In early 2008 the assistant village chief said that there were maybe four to
ten people in it, but that she did not know anything about it (Interview 81). An older man thought
there were maybe 10 members (Interview 109). One villager had never heard of it at all, though
her neighbour came along and explained by saying that she had heard of it, but that it was
something for men that was talked about at meetings and she knew no more than that (Interview
120). People did seem to know that it had not really worked: “Everyone cuts there now”
(Interview 126) and “Community forestry has gone quiet. We haven‟t heard anything for months”
(Interview 140).
98
To put this in some context, it should also be noted that he never again spoke with such brazen self-importance,
and that alcohol had clearly loosened his tongue prior to this unexpected encounter (Interview 63).
151
Given that during the six years from early 2003 (when community forestry activities were
introduced to Bey) to early 2009 (when our research ended), that there was almost no activity by
any villager apart from Chan, it is unsurprising that the story of community forestry in the village
is so much one about him, and that he is almost its only narrator. He is also the one person in the
village whose livelihood has been significantly influenced by community forestry. Not because of
the community forest itself (which even he rarely visited), but because of compensation he
received for attendance of training courses and meetings over the years. While not lucrative, it
had been the main source of reported income for his household (himself, his wife and seven
children) during the first half of the research period.
While there was unanimity about the strength of Chan‟s character and commitment, his two main
enemies/rivals in the village, the deputy village chief and the head teacher, both alleged that Chan
became corrupt and started to sell off the community forest land (Interviews 101, 158). We could
not get these allegations corroborated by anybody else, but as we shall see, for Chan personally,
becoming involved in the community forestry activities also meant becoming involved in
personal conflicts.
During the research, Chan referred to his right to not discuss his personal political affiliations
when I raised these with them (Interview 71). Having a reputation as being an opposition party
activist can put somebody in a position of risk, especially if they are outspoken. It seemed to me
from my very first meeting with him in the village that Chan‟s involvement in community
forestry was giving him the platform and the confidence to be outspokenly critical of the
authorities. If any of the professional people I encountered involved in community forestry, either
with donors or NGOs, had been killed I would have been extremely surprised. Whereas I saw it
as quite possible that Chan might meet precisely such an end99
.
As the community forestry initiative stagnated, Chan moved on. For a time he got work with a
Cambodian NGO called PADEK who were establishing savings groups in the district. At the time
of our final visit he had stopped that as he found that the allowance and the petrol money
provided by the NGO barely covered his costs. He had been sick for a month so he had not been
active with any work when we last met him (Interview 74). It seemed that he was recuperating
and would be moving on to new challenges, with the community forestry being something which
had never really taken off and had died a death. On the other hand, as we will see, the community
forestry project in Bey and other villages like it have an “aid chain” behind them populated by
organisations and individuals whose endeavours depend on community forestry being a credible
and worthwhile enterprise. Chan‟s energy and engagement has effectively constituted a one-man
operation sufficient to maintain the impression of community forestry in Bey these past years,
and he may yet be called to service again. The remainder of this chapter reviews the experiences
of some of the other agencies involved in supporting community forestry in Bey.
99
Neither were such fears unrealistic. The mid-term evaluation of the “Promoting Community Forest in Cambodia”
project which provided financial and technical support the community forestry in Bey and 132 other Cambodian
villages from May 2005 gave prominence to an active community forestry leader who had been shot dead a few days
after collecting signatures from other villages for a petition to protest against a local land grab (O'Leary, 2007).
152
5.3.4 Community Forestry Actors from Beyond the Village
5.3.4.1 The Cambodian NGO Based in the Provincial Town100
The direct supporter of community forestry in Bey was the Cambodian non-governmental
organization Better Lives Organisation (BLO). BLO was established in 1997 and recognized as a
national NGO by the Ministry of Interior in 1998. During the early years of its existence it
received funding from the international NGO Australian Catholic Relief. BLO had originally
been established by former staff members of Australian Catholic Relief, when the latter
organization switched from being an implementing agency to a funding partner for local NGOs.
Their original community development activities had been health and agriculture related and
included the promotion of self-help groups. It first extended these activities to Bey village in
2002.
Central to BLO‟s identity as an NGO is the idea that its staff work closely with communities. In
October 2008 we witnessed part of a training programme where the director talked with young
field workers about the importance of spending time in communities, of listening to people and of
dressing and acting in an appropriate manner when out in the villages. As we have seen, however,
the presence of BLO in Bey, even at its most intense, had never been more than one visit every
one or two months, possibly including some overnight stays. During the research period our six-
monthly visits made us a significantly more frequent visitor than the NGO, notwithstanding its
good intentions to be close to the people and to have grassroots involvement.
In September 2007 the director explained that BLO had the aim of ensuring that every village
received at least one visit every month, but that this was difficult to achieve because BLO had
only two community forestry staff members who were responsible for two districts, supporting a
total of 49 villages, formed into 28 different community forests in 9 different communes. Even if
the two workers had worked separately, and had spent every day doing field work (neither of
which was the case) they would not have been able to spend a day in every village each month. In
order to alleviate the staffing pressure BLO divided the communes into „indirect‟ communes and
„deep engagement‟ (see chomroe) communes. Damrei Pong was a „deep engagement‟ commune.
The director intended to look for ways to provide more resources so that there could be better
support for the communities but these never came. In fact, BLO staff said that they had been
unable to visit the village at all for “4-5 months” during 2008 as a result of a funding delay from
Oxfam (Interview 204).
Somewhat in contrast with our experiences in Bey, the BLO director suggested that community
forestry had been a powerful movement for villagers to protect their livelihoods during the early
years of its implementation. He gave as an example of this the fact that in the two communes
where BLO worked in Chhlong district (namely Damrei Pong where Bey is located, and
neighbouring Kampong Damrei), that the community forestry leaders had confiscated between
twenty and thirty chainsaws in the year to September 2007.
100
Where other citations are not provided, this section is based on Interview 203 with the director of BLO and the
field worker Kru Bong Rien on 21st September 2007.
153
While the BLO saw the example of confiscation of chainsaws as an example of progress, it could
also be seen as instructive in other ways.
Echoing complaints that we had heard from Chan in the village, the Better Lives Organisation
(BLO) director explained that one of the problems was that the authorities only ever confiscated
chainsaws from normal villagers but that military and police who owned chainsaws never had
them confiscated. When he had made this point to the authorities they responded by saying that if
BLO made lists of everyone including police and military who had chainsaws, that they would
follow up, and that they would confiscate from the police and the military first. BLO complied
with this suggestion and collected reports from community forestry committees in the villages
where they worked of all holders of chainsaws. In other words, it seemed that rather than being an
agent to assist or empower communities, that the NGO was effectively providing surveillance of
the local community for the forestry authorities101
. This small example encapsulated some of the
tensions implicit in a project such as community forestry being regulated by the State, in a
situation where so many of the State actors were involved in predatory economic relations with
the poor people living in „communities‟. The Active Communities (AC) director, who had acted
as an advisor to BLO, explained that he had encouraged the confiscating of chainsaws by
communities as an advocacy ploy. If the community forestry groups confiscated chainsaws this
would be a way of demonstrating that they were capable forest managers, and this could be
contrasted with the inactivity of the Forest Administration. As we saw, however, the tendency for
BLO to seek accommodation and partnership with the Forestry Administration meant that this
(potentially antagonistic) approach was discarded in favour of an alternative where BLO
effectively placed itself (and by implication, the communities it represented) in a managerial
hierarchy under the forest authorities in a relationship that was quite different to that which AC
had intended. So like Craig‟s (1997) antibiotic pills, the confiscation of chainsaws travelled to the
intended location, but like the instructions for the antibiotics, the advocacy strategy was discarded
and replaced by other local ideas and concerns regarding how such a device might be most
effective.
The issue of BLO‟s presence in the village (or lack of it) and its activities are all in the context of
the organisation having a relevant strategy. As we have seen, villagers in Bey, far from being
dependent on preserving forest had, throughout the research period and for some years before
that, been dependent on incomes from cutting forest, and latterly from converting forest land to
agricultural cropping. The BLO director accepted our analysis of livelihoods in Bey, and asked to
compare it with the other 48 villages where BLO was providing support for community forestry,
he estimated that “60-70%” were characterised by situations comparable to Bey. In the other 30-
40%, however, NTFPs were more prominent in village livelihoods. He gave as an example of this
a village which BLO had treated as a „model‟ village since 2005, namely Veal Konseing in
neighbouring Kampong Damrei commune. There he said that resin tapping was a key source of
revenues and villager-logging was not a significant issue. He said that because the community
forest area was one where the villagers tapped resin every day in large numbers that they were
able to monitor their community forest without excessive extra effort and had a strong incentive
to do so. This picture, however, was counterbalanced by the Active Communities (AC) director
101
There was no reason to expect the FA to honour their promise to do this, and we have already seen the example of
the Prime Minister instructing the FA to halt forest encroachment by rich and powerful people, and them then using
this edict against poor people on behalf of company interests.
154
who was familiar with both the villages in question, and with community forestry projects
throughout Cambodia, and said that while Veal Konseing was initially more receptive to forest
protection activities, that a lot of villagers there were also involved in logging (Interview 254).
The above account of BLO‟s role suggests a rather dismal experience. The apparent „community
forestry‟ in Bey was in reality one person fighting a lonely and losing battle. Community forestry
was not attuned to local circumstances and even had the area of forest been protected it would
have been completely marginal to the issues that will actually determine villagers‟ futures. To the
extent that the village was a „community‟, it consisted of three groups with different backgrounds
all competing to make the most of a highly insecure situation. Within this there were some
serious conflicts which would potentially shape the future livelihoods of the people living in the
village and future generations. There was, in other words, plenty of work for anyone committed
to community organisation. The presence of BLO clearly did not represent such a commitment. It
effectively worked through just one person in the village (one who was party to and indeed
vulnerable to intra-village conflicts) and was simply letting social and economic relations in the
village take their own course. Given the overall personnel resources of BLO devoted to
community forestry during the project period (2 people for 49 villages) and the director‟s verdict
that local economies in 60-70% of those villages were similar to Bey it is difficult not to conclude
that the organisation‟s impacts overall in its work with community forestry must have been
similarly dismal.
Table 5-9: Better Lives Organisation’s Community Forestry Funding 2004-8
Years Amount
(USD)
Donor Reason for funding.
2004-
5
Just
under
10 000
Community Forestry
International (CFI)
To support work in 28 villages in 2 communes
2003 27 000 Canada Fund
2004 20 000 Oxfam via CFI and
the Power to
Communities (AC)
Funds released against expenditure on a 3-month
rolling basis so he is not sure exactly how much
was given.
2005-
6
34 000 European Union via
Oxfam GB
As part of the EU Protecting Tropical Forests
project. For work in 9 communes.
2006-
8
70 000 European Union via
Oxfam GB
As part of the EU Protecting Tropical Forests
project. For work in 9 communes.
Total 161 000
Source: BLO Director’s Estimates (Interview 203)
155
However, the general point made by Blaikie (2006) – that CBNRM tends to be more successful in
reproducing itself than it does in achieving its stated objectives – seemed to apply to BLO.
According to the BLO director, the organisation had received in the region of 161 000 US dollars
for community forestry work in up to 49 villages work during the five years 2004-8 (see Table
5-9).
s a result of the credibility that BLO built up in its work supporting community forestry in those
villages during this period, it had also received further funding in order to expand the scope of its
work, being allocated a further 80,000 USD being due from the East West Management Institute
to support work with the Prey Long protected forest in the west of the province, and a 27 000
USD from Canada Fund to support work with ethnic minority community forestry groups in
Kracheh102
.
5.3.4.2 The Cambodian NGO/donor: Footloose and Flexible
One of the prime movers behind the community forestry initiatives in Kracheh and indeed behind
the community forestry movement in Cambodia in general was Active Communities (AC), a
small non-government organization (NGO) focusing on empowerment and community
organization103
. Being funded by private donations from the United States, the organization was
somewhat more flexible and less burdened by the nature of the „partnerships‟ with donors than
either BLO or the other organizations involved in supporting community forestry in Bey.
AC had become interested in forest action as a response to the impacts on rural livelihoods of the
activities of companies holding logging concessions. It saw a particular opportunity in
documenting the livelihoods of resin tapping households in Cambodian forests, and using these as
the basis for advocacy work which would challenge the activities of companies which routinely
(and illegally) cut resin trees in their concession areas.
As a result, AC sent field workers to forested areas throughout Cambodia in order to identify
communities that were highly dependent on resin tapping in order to support them in protecting
their livelihoods. In 2002 the AC director had visited Damrei Pong commune, where Bey is
located, and may even have visited Bey. He judged that it was not a promising area in which to
pursue community forestry because the resin trees in the area had already been logged and as a
result the villagers were now more interested in cutting down trees than in preventing the cutting
of trees. In the course of their investigations, AC had, through its field workers, also come into
contact with BLO and had been particularly impressed with the engagement and abilities of
Samnang, who was the BLO director during the research period, but had at that time been a field
worker. As a result, AC supported BLO to become more involved in community organization
around forestry issues in areas where resin tapping was still an important part of people‟s
livelihoods.
102
AC director (and BLO board member) comments: “Probably no one was ever impressed with BLO’s work in Chhlong, and it has been their work in Sambor and other areas that has allowed them to get funding. Plus the fact that there aren’t any other decent NGOs in Kratie doing any better on land and livelihoods rights”.
103 This section is informed principally by interviews 253 and 254 with the AC director in January and October 2008
respectively. Interview 254 was recorded digitally.
156
There were a number of ironies and contradictions involved in the AC support to BLO and the
way in which events played out. One was that the fact that Samnang became the director of BLO.
The BLO Board of Directors104
, who did not have the same confidence in other staff members at
that time, sought to ensure that he remained engaged in the field, and supported the appointment
of an older, more administratively oriented staff member as director. This did not, however, work
out, so that the original reason for AC confidence in BLO as a community organisation, namely
Samnang‟s talent and commitment as a field worker, was lost quite early. Another irony was that
as BLO got more funds they expanded to include Damrei Pong in their target areas despite the
original AC judgement that the area was not promising.
The largest irony, however, was that AC assisted BLO and several other organizations to work
with Oxfam GB and secure EU funding for a major project which came to be called Promoting
Community Forestry in Cambodia. At around the time that funding was successfully secured,
though, the AC director came to the conclusion that community forestry was not an effective tool
for promoting community interests. This conclusion related to the way in which community
forestry had become an officially sanctioned movement, with government approval and legal
recognition becoming the key milestones for everyone involved in community forestry105
.
For the AC director, this orientation towards official recognition meant that instead of responding
to community priorities and community needs, that community forestry actors were instead
responding to Forestry Administration priorities and waiting for their approval (FA):
Then the FA started to get involved and to say that CF was a good thing. Then these maps started
to come out which showed CF areas and concession areas. These were official maps from the FA
and everything that wasn‘t CF was the company. Since that time I have been saying ‗stop doing
community forestry‘. There came a point when I thought that community forestry was not the thing
to do. So I said to Samnang that CF is not good, and he listened and said OK but continued to do
it. I had been involved in designing the project106
in late 2004 but by the time the project had come
on line in mid 2005 I had concluded that CF was not the thing to do. I switched from thinking that
CF was a strategy for communities to get forests from the companies to thinking it was a
government strategy to get forests for the companies (Interview 254).
And,
The more you do community forestry the more it is implicitly recognising it is a state forest. I think
CBNRM has got to start with the idea of intrinsic rights and that this is your forest, and CF starts
with the opposite, this is not yours you‘ve got to ask us for it (Interview 254).
104
The BLO Board included the director of AC 105
The AC critique was to some extent confirmed by an interview with a forestry academic working with one of the
donor agencies in Phnom Penh notwithstanding the fact that he saw developments in a more positive light. When
asked if there was any evidence that community forestry had succeeded in either its goals of improving livelihoods or
of protecting forests, he replied not. On the other hand, he compared it to community fisheries and other CBNRM
initiatives and said that it was relatively successful in having achieved legal recognition, with a law having passed
and a sub-decree and guidelines to enable the implementation of the law, and with a number of the community
forestry sites well on the way towards being formally recognized by the government (Interview 174).
106
The reference here is to the EU/Oxfam GB “Protecting Tropical Forests” project.
157
This dissonance between the apparent objectives of community forestry and what it actually
achieves in terms of normalisation, pacification and extension of government reach, is a theme
which calls to mind the conclusions of Ferguson (1994) and Foucault (1979) mentioned in the
introduction of this thesis and to which we will return at the conclusion107
.
As the relatively nimble AC turned its attention away from providing formal support for
community forestry, other organisations, with a far greater weight of bureaucratic relations to
bear and much more limited ability to change course arrived on the scene. These were Oxfam GB
with its head office in Oxford and the European Commission with its headquarters in Brussels
and regional office in Bangkok. The EU became the key funding source for BLO and the
community forestry in Bey during the research period by means of the 5-year (2005-10)
European Union project “Promoting Community Forestry in Cambodia” implemented by Oxfam
GB.
5.3.4.3 The International NGO Sub-contracting and Co-financing 2005-9
Oxfam GB had been present in Cambodia throughout the 1980s and, through the publication of
the book Punishing the Poor (Mysliwiec, 1988a), had been instrumental in highlighting the
poverty impacts of the international isolation of Cambodia. Through the 1980s then, Oxfam had
close relations with the government and carried out project activities that might normally be
associated with major bilateral donors, such as the improvement of clean water infrastructure in
the capital. In the early 1990s Oxfam moved to a more traditional NGO role, which at first
included direct implementation of its own projects, but rapidly moved to a role as an organisation
which on the one hand supported the development activities of Cambodian NGOs (dubbed in the
recent lingua franca of the development industry “partners”) and on the other hand engaged in
policy advocacy activities.
In May 2005 the 5-year European Union project “Promoting Community Forestry in Cambodia”
was initiated, with Oxfam GB as the executing agency providing support to seven Cambodian
local NGOs involved in providing direct support to community forestry projects (EC, 2005). This
support was complemented by the international NGO, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) which
provided volunteers mainly to support the identification and marketing of commercial non-timber
forest products from the community forestry sites. The project budget was 1,623,529 Euros, co-
financed by the European Union (77%), Oxfam GB (20%) and VSO (3%) (Interview 138; Oxfam
GB, 2005).
During the research period and the years preceding it, there was continuity in the main actors
involved in community forestry in BLO (where both the field worker-teacher and the director
were constant), and AC (whose director likewise remained in place). The same continuity of
personnel did not obtain further back in the chain. During the course of the field research
(between July 2006 and March 2009) there was an almost complete turnover of relevant staff at
Oxfam GB, as well as an in-country reorganisation. The country director changed, and so did the
programme manager and the programme officer with overall responsibility for the European
Union community forestry programme. Meanwhile, responsibility for providing support to BLO
107
Precisely these same Foucauldian/anti-politics dynamics have been discussed in relation to NGO interventions in
similar contexts by Bryant (2002)
158
was decentralised from the Phnom Penh office to a new provincial office which opened in May
2007 with new programme officers and assistants. In early January 2009 a new programme
officer who would be responsible for providing support to BLO was employed. As researchers,
then, we were no longer tracing the experiences and learning of individuals following a process
(as we had been in the village and with the smaller organisations), but instead were meeting a
series of people who were each beginning a process of getting to know the people above and
below them in their own organisation‟s hierarchy, as well as the organisations and communities
that they were to be working with. In the absence of continuity of personnel, and especially of
leadership, the project document was of necessity of central importance.
Of interest for this thesis, and especially in the light of our research in Bey, is the central
assumption of the EU/Oxfam project document that community forestry constitutes a win-win
solution that is both good for the people and good for the forests. It allows for no possibility that
what is best for local people‟s livelihoods and what is best for sustainable forest management
might in some circumstances be in conflict with each other. Because there is no
acknowledgement of this possible conflict of interests, there is no need to identify a priority.
Accordingly the project documentation simply alternates between them. The EU implicitly
prioritises forests locating the project within a “Program on Tropical Forests and other Forests in
Developing Countries”. The project summary on the other hand gives more weight to the “target
group” of “poor forest-dependent men and women and communities, including indigenous
groups”, who are described in the following somewhat caricatured terms:
Forest-dependent people in Cambodia are among the poorest of all sections of society in one of
the world‘s poorest countries. Although they are resilient and resourceful, their capacity to forge
their own livelihoods has been eroded by the insidious loss of control they once had over
resources traditionally managed by them. This project will support the processes of knowledge-
and skill-gaining, and empowerment that are needed to promote management of forested areas by
communities under a newly-enacted framework of law (Oxfam GB, 2005, p. 4)
The project objective by contrast switches primacy back to the forests:
The overall project objective is ―Sustainable management of forests in Cambodia, based on full
community participation‖ (Oxfam GB, 2005, p. 4)
But this switches back to an apparent people-first orientation under the „specific objective‟:
The specific objective is ―Improved livelihoods for forest-dependent women and men based on
sustainable and productive use of forest resources‖ (Oxfam GB, 2005, p. 4)
The project approach to both forests and people is thus fundamentally instrumental. The forests
are not just a natural or social or cultural „resource‟ in their own right, but must also provide
sustainable livelihoods for people living in them. Meanwhile, „the people‟ are not just people who
are to realise goals in their own terms, but they are framed as “forest-dependent” people who will
“sustainably manage” the forests.
Not only are „the beneficiaries‟ framed up as locked in a mutually beneficial relationship with
forests, but their livelihoods are also framed as being of a particular type:
Many of the people targeted by this project live within forestry concessions. All depend on forest
products. Some depend on forest products as their main livelihood option; for many the resources
are second in importance only to farming. The most important product is liquid resin, which
159
community members tap from huge resin trees. Other important products include hard resin
(dammar), wild fruits, mushrooms, palm leaves, honey, vines, rattan, and bamboo. Most of these
products are collected in a way that is sustainable and does not damage the forest. Forests are
also important to the local culture and as habitat for wildlife (Oxfam GB, 2005, pp. 6-7).
People are thus not only “forest-dependent”, but their livelihoods are underpinned by activities
which do not harm the forests. Such a framing of the people clearly fits well with the problem
formulated above, namely “the insidious loss of control they once had over resources traditionally
managed by them”. However, as we have clearly seen, this framing excludes the villagers of Bey,
not to mention the 30-35 more villages (out of 49) where BLO worked where the “resources
traditionally managed” in the form of resin trees had long since been harvested, leaving villagers
with short-term livelihoods based on logging and longer-term possibilities dependent on the
agricultural opportunities in a post-deforestation landscape. As such, this misrepresentation of
forest communities as overwhelmingly NTFP-dependent provided no guidance to development
workers further down the chain in terms of how to react when meeting forest-dwelling
communities whose livelihoods were not, and could not be, be based on NTFPs.108
The corrosive effects of this misrepresentation were apparent in the interview responses. When
Oxfam programme officers were presented with the situation in Bey and asked what they thought
their response should be in a situation where villagers‟ livelihoods would not be improved by
community forestry their responses were somewhat similar. One said that he did not know what
the alternative would be and he would have to discuss with other members of the team, but on
further reflection said that many villagers were short-sighted and that “If we tell them how
valuable forest is, they understand and want to protect the forest” (Interview 185). Likewise, the
programme officer newly responsible for cooperation with BLO who said that if people reported
a lack of potential for NTFPs from the forest that Oxfam people might be able to look more
carefully and find that actually there was potential (Interview 186). In other words, if the realities
of the people did not fit with the reality of the project document, then the response of the
development workers was that the people‟s realities must be altered. It is perhaps not irrelevant to
point out that the new programme officer had been working since the beginning of January 2009
and she was not due to make her first visit to a community forestry village until some time in
March. So even relatively „low‟ in the aid chain, at a decentralised provincial office,
administrative and bureaucratic workloads seemed to take priority. Interviews with the first
Programme Officer to have responsibility for the EU project, and with other Oxfam staff who had
been present during the debrief of the first EU monitoring mission indicated that much of the
Oxfam workload for supporting community forestry actually involved managing the
administrative and financial reporting of the local partners (Interviews 181, 184).
5.3.4.4 The Donor: Control Orientation Revisited
The European Union staff member in Phnom Penh responsible for the Promoting Community
Forestry project stressed that he was not a technical officer and that the EU was not a technical
agency, so that they relied on periodic monitoring visits in order to get technical inputs.
108
Comment from AC director: ”It might be interesting to look at how this misrepresentation came about since I was
part of that. We were looking for resin tapping, and found it and learned about it. We didn‘t ever try to learn about
the situation in communities‖.
160
First EU monitoring mission occurred in 2008 and looked at progress in relation to three sets of
outputs: training; legal approval; livelihood improvement. It reported that there had been
abundant training, that legal recognition had not been achieved to the degree expected and that
targets should be revised, and that there had been no livelihood outputs. It also found that much
of the reporting required had not been carried out, and that there was a lack of clarity regarding
the division of responsibilities between Oxfam and the European Union for uploading of reports
(Interview 184).
Both of the Oxfam programme managers who successively had responsibility for the
management of the EU co-financed programme spoke of the difficulties in cooperating with the
European Union, and specifically of the fact that authority was not delegated to Phnom Penh, but
that almost all decisions had to be referred back to Bangkok or even Brussels (Interviews 181,
182).
Printed on the inside cover of the successful application for EU funding for the “Promoting
Community Forestry in Cambodia” project is a message from the EU to potential applicants
Omissions cannot be rectified; if any information or document is missing, your application will be
rejected (Oxfam GB, 2005, p. 2).
This seemed to provide a vivid illustration of just how little flexibility the European Union
allowed itself for responding to situations which differed from those set out in the project
document109
. The aid chain may be seen as a hierarchical arrangement with the donor at the top
exercising control and authority via the conditional release of funds. The control from the top
may be more or less personalised. In other words, the project document may be used to adjudicate
each decision. Alternatively a degree of personal discretion may be allowed to enable response to
unexpected factors. It is the latter which was called for by Porter et al. (1991) in their critique of
“control orientation” of project management in 1970s and 1980s development projects. In this
case it appeared that a control orientation was, of necessity, the default setting. Having neither
technical expertise, nor an in-depth knowledge of conditions on the ground, the EU donor was
only in a position to process financial reports and output reports that corresponded to the
assumptions and logic of the project document. We did not find any indications that either Oxfam
or BLO had registered the dissonance between the livelihoods and relationships depicted in the
project document and those found on the ground, much less sought to respond to them. However,
it is worth noting that even if they had seen a problem and attempted to take initiative that the EU
office in Phnom Penh would, for organisational reasons, have had the greatest difficulty in
responding to requests to amend the approaches in the project document. This was, in other words
a vivid illustration of the sort of dynamic pointed out in our brief sampling of institutional
economics perspectives in chapter 2. With both supply and demand originating in the donor
countries, incentive structures tend to be oriented in that direction, exacerbating the inherent
problem of feedback loops between „beneficiaries‟ in places like Bey and the citizens of EU
countries who ultimately demand and pay for the interventions.
109
The AC director recalled that the first Oxfam staff member responsible for the project always said ‖We have to do
exactly what is in the project document. The EU won‘t let us change. The EU is notorious this way‖.
161
5.3.4.5 Encountering the Concessionaire – Or Not
Whilst the aid chain for the community forestry initiative in Bey stretches back from the village
to Brussels via the BLO office in Kracheh provincial town, the Oxfam office in Kracheh, the
Oxfam office in Phnom Penh, the EU office in Phnom Penh and the EU office in Bangkok, a key
actor determining whether or not a community forestry project in Bey is feasible or not is the
Casotim company. Without company agreement, a community forestry project would not be
implementable.
In 2008, Oxfam staff supported a Cambodian partner NGO in Stung Treng province to negotiate
an agreement with a concessionaire to allow 4000 hectares within his company‟s concession to be
allocated as a community forest. The Oxfam programme officer reporting this saw it as an
appropriate way for Oxfam to engage (Interview 184). This did not, however, reflect the general
experience presented by Oxfam staff, who depicted a set of relationships which placed
themselves, and indeed the communities, at several steps removed from the companies in general,
and Casotim in particular.
According to one of the Kracheh programme officers “We don‟t have any contact with the
company because this is the responsibility of the Forestry Administration” (Interview 185),
adding that the relationship between the Forestry Administration and the NGOs was the
responsibility of the RECOFTC110
office established within the provincial Forestry
Administration office. This sense that negotiating with the concessionaire was someone else‟s
responsibility was familiar from other interviews. Chan in the village had never attempted to
contact Casotim because he said that was BLO‟s responsibility (Interview 71). BLO meanwhile
explained that they had had limited contact with Casotim because that was a Forestry
Administration responsibility (Interview 203). Somehow, then, the community deferred to the
local NGO, the local NGO deferred to the international NGO, RECOFTC, situated in the Forestry
Administration office, RECOFTC deferred to the Forestry Administration. In this constellation
there was no clear role for Oxfam to engage directly, although programme officers regarded
themselves as supporting and cooperating with BLO and RECOFT (Interview 185). One of the
Oxfam programme managers expressed some frustration that in some cases the Forestry
Administration seemed to be aligned with the concessionaires and to be trying to keep the
community forestry actors at a distance (Interview 181).
In 2007 there had been some dialogue with Casotim. Meetings had been arranged and documents
submitted in May 2007. According to the BLO director there was a “90% chance” that Casotim
would approve the community forestry sites approved in the concession area. Time passed,
however, and no reply was forthcoming. Without the network of relations which encumbered the
actors in the aid chain I could potentially approach Casotim directly for interviews.
The Casotim company‟s head office in Phnom Penh was Monivong #100. This placed it in a very
prominent and affluent area, south of the Wat Phnom monument that gives the capital its name
and north of the Independence monument. Located opposite the office of the World Bank, the
110
Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asian and the Pacific (RECOFTC) is an international NGO
which received a contract to support the legalization of community forestry. RECOFTC have an office in Phnom
Penh in the national Forestry Administration, and during the course of the research they established their Kracheh
provincial office (Interview 131).
162
Casotim office was also the former Czechoslovakian embassy. Whenever I went there it appeared
deserted and I was not able to contact anyone. I managed to make one mobile phone call to a
Casotim employee who gave me an email address, but I never received a reply to the mails. In
this sense, then the company was not readily accessible.
Having failed to either engage substantially with Casotim nationally, or to gain a proper
introduction at district, however, I finally decided to take a chance on meeting the Casotim
representative at home. It is worth noting that it was difficult to find a motorcycle taxi who would
take me to his house. The first ones I approached were afraid of the reaction from his security
guards if they took me there. An experienced Cambodian researcher in Phnom Penh also
expressed concern for my safety if my research started to incorporate the business interests of
concessionaires and timber traders. For me, of course, there was no particular danger associated
with such an interview. However, it is important to note that for people living and working
locally there would have been a more tangible calculation of risk when attempting any form of
engagement with a forest concession company.
Having approached him in the street between his home and the Casotim compound and secured
an interview I asked him whether Casotim would be agreeing to the community forestry in Bey.
His answer was a flat no. Casotim would not permit the establishment of a community forestry
site in the area of the village, and did not recognize the one that had been proposed (Interview
218). There was therefore a very stark contrast in the research results between that which was
reported by various NGO and FA interviewees, namely that Casotim were very difficult to
contact, that the answer was uncertain, but that it would probably be yes, and the findings when
the Casotim representative was interviewed, namely that he was rather easy to access, that the
answer was not at all uncertain, and that it was no. There was likewise a stark contrast between
the way that the community forestry actors and Casotim represented the state of communication:
the NGOs waiting for a reply whilst the Casotim representative said that it had already been
given. The practical consequence of this difference was that it remained possible to rationalise
continued support for community forestry activities in Bey and other villages in the company
concession area.
5.4 Conclusions and Implications
5.4.1 Bey and Cambodian Community Forestry
During the research, two lines of argument were identifiable amongst community forestry
practitioners. One might be said to come from an „activist faction‟ who believed that rights to
forest should be grounded in established use and practice, and that communities should assert
these rights with the support of NGOs and without waiting to be guided by government. To some
extent these practitioners saw community forestry as a means of resistance, which in the short
term might slow or disrupt the destruction of forests by predatory non-local interests, and in the
longer term might build a sense of entitlement and increase people‟s capacity more generally to
organize resistance against powerful outsiders. A more technically oriented „diplomatic faction‟
were looking at partnerships with government, and seeking to safeguard community forestry by
recruiting the government as the ultimate supporter and regulator of community forestry. Their
assumption tended to be that there was little hope for them to influence the management of high
value forests in Cambodia, that the decline of the forest resource would continue, but that
163
community forestry presented an opportunity to create some enclaves of exception where the
mobilisation of local resources and incentives could create the long-term potential for pockets of
community managed forest on currently degraded forest land.
In Bey, community forestry had been introduced by followers of the activist approach, but by the
time our research commenced, the project had been incorporated into the EU project managed by
Oxfam, and a diplomatic approach characterised the support offered. While Bey is far from being
a flagship case for either approach it may be noted that an „activist‟ rejected it as a community
forestry site from the start, whilst „diplomats‟ then nurtured it, and notwithstanding the
information from the Casotim representative and Chan suggesting that the project had neither a
present nor a future, it remained on the list of projects that was being prepared for approval by the
community forestry section of the Forestry Administration in Phnom Penh.
In some respects, Bey would seem to be a representative case, but in other respects it seems likely
to prove less representative. As we saw in chapter 4, the location of the community forestry site
in low value, degraded forest which cannot currently contribute greatly to livelihoods is likely to
be rather typical. The observation from the BLO director that most of the villages which BLO
support are similar – in terms of villagers relying on logging more than NTFPs – also suggests
that Bey is not untypical in that respect, although it should be noted that he thought there were a
large minority of villages which were more NTFP oriented in their use of forest.
That there was so very little meaningful support for community forestry in the village may well
be an exception. Interviews with the AC director, the experiences of community forestry
documented elsewhere in Cambodia (Bradley, 2009), and the feedback I received when I
presented to a gathering of community forestry activists and researchers in Phnom Penh in March
2009 suggested that even in the absence of a strong short term livelihood motivation,
communities do sometimes mobilise around forest protection and management. Oxfam
programme officers had likewise been able to give examples which sounded far more relevant
and successful than that in Bey, although the sense was that these were somewhat exceptional.
The new programme manager had seen a project in Kampong Thom province where there was
regular patrolling, but this was the only such example he had seen (Interview 182), and one of the
new programme officers had been in a village where villagers could collect 30-45 litres of resin
per day, worth 6-9 USD, but again that there were very few villages where such opportunities
existed (Interview 185). Overall, the new project manager believed that the benefits of
community forestry would not come for the current generation, but that villagers expected
community forestry to benefit their children (Interview 184).
However, the fact that a community forestry project could be sustained as a „live‟ project for six
years when only one person in the „community‟ was engaged does raise the question as to
whether some of the other 300 community forestry initiatives in Cambodia are of a similar nature.
Notwithstanding the apparent „cancellation‟ of the project by the commune chief111
, the project
remained on the list of those being forwarded for approval at national level (Interview 172)
indicating the potential for local flimsiness to be counterpointed by national level durability.
111
Who, we must recall, was facing a court case where he would be accused of selling this land, so seemed to have a
personal stake in the cancellation of the project.
164
A final reflection relates back to the literature. As we saw, there is little debate about the validity
of assertions that common property regimes and community based natural resource management
arrangements are feasible in certain circumstances. The key, according to the literature, is to
identify where those circumstances might exist, and how they might be nurtured. Major themes in
development literature suggest that close attention to livelihoods is now a cornerstone of
development practice (Scoones, 1998). Despite this, what we found was a development
organisation reproducing precisely the same „forest caricatures‟ criticised by Walker (2004) and
Murray Li (2002) elsewhere in the region, and which, echoing the 1990s case studies (Ferguson,
1994; T. Mitchell, 1995; Porter et al., 1991) in the introduction involved a complete and
fundamental misrepresentation of the livelihoods of the people. It seemed that the incentives to
produce the sort of policy simplifications which Ostrom found so abhorrent were simply too
great. These were exacerbated in a system whereby a lack of personal accountability (with staff
turnover in the EU and Oxfam meaning that nobody in place at the beginning of the project was
left at the end) was replaced with an attempt to make all accountable to the very project document
that exemplified and embodied the misrepresentations. Mosse‟s more cynical suggestion that
policy is not implemented but reproduced was much in evidence, however, his more optimistic
corollary, that new spaces for unexpected effects and local appropriations would be opened up
was absent. Rather, there was the frustration and disappointment felt by Chan in the village, and
the futile assertions of young field workers that their response to the mismatch between the
livelihoods of the villagers and the livelihoods inscribed in the project document would be to
„educate‟ the villagers about valuing their environment.
5.4.2 Bey and Geographies of Evasiveness
In chapter 4 we saw how there is a tendency for „solutions‟ in the form of tenure rights
interventions to avoid „problems‟ such as tenure insecurity. The broad argument was that the
political economy of Cambodia ensures that interventions that might challenge the status quo are
carefully diverted and/or diluted. Diverted such that they only travel to places without ready
opportunities for elites to extract significant rents, and diluted meaning that if they are allowed to
travel to places where elite rent-seeking takes place, that they will travel in diluted form, free of
any potentially transformative content.
In Bey, then, we focused on a case in the forests. These being a renowned provider of opportunity
for elite moneymaking interests, the national case suggested that we would find diversion and
dilution here in order to ensure that those interests were not opposed. That proved to be the case.
Community forestry had been stripped of its potentially radical content. This was the frustration
of the AC director who found that government regulation of community forestry as well as
enabling the state to replace the communities as the prime movers, undermined the possibilities of
villagers opposing elite interests.
Integral to this was the way in which the community forestry sites functioned as spatial
containers. Effectively, by focusing on community forests within boundaries, the authorities were
able to delegitimize community concerns over the rest of the forest. Rather than working towards
a conceptualisation of forest resources as public resources for everyone‟s good, community
forestry created a sense that people‟s rights over forest were only exercised within the boundaries
of the community forest, and that the Forestry Administration as the agent of the state had all the
rights over the remaining forest.
165
A second, more everyday issue, was that the detailed work required to fulfil the community
forestry criteria effectively absorbed the energies of those people who were potentially political
active and might have galvanised opposition to elite economic interests in forest areas. At
meetings, Chan did not spend his time discussing how the „community‟ could gain control of
sufficient forest and land to make a substantial and sustainable contribution to their livelihoods.
Rather, he and the NGO staff spent their time learning to fulfil steps one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven and eight in the community forestry guidelines. The mid-term evaluation of the
Promoting Community Forestry in Cambodia project was critical of the way that the government
complemented the 2003 Community Forestry Sub-Decree with the 2006 Community Forestry
Prakas and then refused to recognize measures taken towards achieving legal recognition from
prior to 2006, thereby requiring all communities to start the process again (O'Leary, 2007). This
form of bureaucracy might not have assisted the intended goals of improved livelihoods and
sustainable forest management, but it certainly achieved the sort of unintended goals that
Ferguson (1994) argued were served by development discourse, namely the extension of
bureaucratic state power. The business of energies being poured into the measuring and planning
of the detailed movements of every day life resonates perfectly with the logic of Foucault‟s
(1979) prison which inspired Ferguson. The sorts of detail that would be required after legal
approval, in the form of forest inventories and management plans suggest that community
forestry would continue to contribute to the bureaucratisation and de-politicization of everyday
life.
5.5 Summary
Fifty years ago the village of Bey was principally inhabited by people born and brought up in the
area, and whose livelihoods were largely sustained by non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which
were both traded and consumed. The logging of the 1990s transformed local livelihoods. NTFPs
were no longer abundant, and villagers instead became dependent on labouring in the timber
industry. There was some trading of timber in the village too, but it was principally people
migrating into the village from trading villages on the Mekong who took advantage of trading
opportunities. Overall, the years since peace came to Bey in 1994 have been a period of economic
boom. Villagers were pleased about the changes. They regretted the disappearance of the
beautiful tall hardwood trees and the abundance of food and wildlife, but none of them would
turn the clock back from today‟s „happier‟ times to those more impoverished, isolated ones.
However, the increased wealth has come at the price of insecurity, and villagers in Bey are
generally extremely uncertain about their future prospects. Recently, opportunities for logging
have declined as the forest resource is depleted. Attention has now turned to exploiting the forest
as agricultural land. Since 2004 the population of the village has more than doubled as a result of
households from agricultural areas of Kampong Cham province moving in to buy or claim farm
land. At the same time, outside companies have established links with various local actors to try
and establish claims to agricultural land. If successful they may extinguish villagers‟ claims to
land. The company holding a concession in the district while making deals with other companies
has expressed its interest in principle in allowing villagers to have 5 hectares of agricultural land
per household. Other experiences nearby suggest that any such allocation process will be
uncertain and heavily mediated by the conflicting agendas of outsiders.
166
A community forestry project was launched in the village in 2003 by a local NGO which
facilitated the election of a community forestry committee. The NGO, despite a commitment in
principle to community development, has never been more than an occasional visitor to the
village. One villager, Chan, was elected head of the community forestry committee. He has
advocated community forestry, and attended meetings and trainings outside the village from 2003
to 2009 to support him in that role. He never succeeded in mobilising other villagers. A proposed
community forest site was marked in April 2006. It was 6 kilometres remote from the village in
an area not visited by villagers in their everyday lives. Chan never succeeded in establishing
regular visits of patrols of the site. The NGOs supporting and financing community forestry and
the Forestry Administration reported asking the local concession company to approve the
community forest site. During the research they reported that they were waiting for a response.
The representative of the company reported that it would definitely not approve the site. During
May 2008 the commune chief was reportedly selling off parcels of land in the community forest
site for up to 500 USD each. Chan began to report that the project had failed. At the end of the
year the commune chief, at a meeting to which Chan did not receive an invitation, secured a
decision from the commune council to end the project. Chan judged the project a failure, even
saying that he himself had failed to win a single supporter to it.
An international NGO has supported the community forestry project since 2005 as part of a
programme supporting 133 villages in 7 provinces. The multilateral donor supporting the project
has no technical staff in-country and relies on monitoring visits for technical support in
overseeing the project. The community forestry project is grounded on a conception of the
community more or less as it was fifty years ago before the forest resource was depleted and the
local political economy transformed by the activities of non-local actors. NGO worker
explanations as to how they can respond to this mismatch centre on the idea of teaching villagers
to value their environment. Activists responsible for promoting community forestry have become
disenchanted with its lack of effect. At the conclusion of this research in early 2009 the project at
Bey remained on the list of projects being submitted for approval at the national Forestry
Administration, and actors involved in community forestry measure current progress in terms of
legal recognition of projects and anticipate that livelihood benefits from community forestry will
follow much later. Interviews suggest that within the donor project there are many villages with
situations that broadly resemble Bey in terms of non-NTFP livelihood and the identification of
poor quality forest remote from the village; some villages however have livelihoods that are more
NTFP-oriented and have functioning community forestry activities.
The promotion of community forestry in a form that is regulated by the government at every step
tends to weaken its potential to enhance villagers‟ tenure rights at the expense of elite outsiders.
By contrast, it absorbs the energies of villagers who might potentially have provided resistance,
and implicitly extends the reach and legitimacy of the bureaucratic state. These processes
correspond with the concept of dilution introduced in chapter 4. The location of the community
forestry site likewise provides a local example of the diversion that was seen at national level.
167
6. Systematic Land Titling in Buon Village
6.1 Introduction
The fourth chapter of this thesis showed how tenure security interventions have been diverted and
diluted in Cambodia. Systematic land titling was diverted away from areas prone to tenure
insecurity, and into smallholder rice farming landscapes where tenure was already secure.
Community forestry was admitted into the generally insecure forested landscapes, but only
approved in diluted form (minimal rights awarded and minimal approval), and also, as we saw in
chapter 5, diverted away from places where powerful interests might be engaged. The current
chapter will take a closer look at a village where systematic land titling has been administered. By
examining changes in the context of local livelihoods, it will be possible to critically reflect on
the conclusions in chapter 4. Is it really villagers‟ lived experience that tenure insecurity is
elsewhere, and that the benefits that titling is intended to generate were already available de facto
before titling? Or does formal titling actually generate more effects and possibilities locally than
is expected after the national analysis in chapter 4. Following the approach outlined in chapter 3,
I will first present the livelihoods of people in the village, and set those in the broader political
and economic context which shapes them (immanent development), before then describing the
villagers‟ encounter with the systematic land titling intervention (intentional development) and its
consequences.
Underpinning the argument of chapter 4 was the idea that a resource rich area creates a landscape
where powerful actors and interests compete. To the extent that those same powerful actors also
have the opportunity to influence development interventions, they will make sure that any
intervention which might challenge or disrupt their interests will be either diverted away from the
resource rich area, or re-worked such that it serves rather than opposes their interests. Chapter 5
gave us insights into the livelihoods of poor people in such an area. On the one hand they faced
the dangers of dealing with raw power. On the other hand, they faced the uncertainty of not
knowing which actor would appear on the scene next, and of working out the truth behind the
claims and connections of that actor.
According to our findings in chapter 4, a village in rice fields is not resource rich. One would not
expect it to attract outside actors who create a sense of danger and uncertainty for local
inhabitants. Instead, one would expect something that comes nearer to mimicking the supposedly
timeless tranquillity of the peasant village. In many ways this is exactly what we encountered in
Buon. While rumours in Bey would revolve around new plans to redraw the map of the village
and exclude people from the land, in Buon, the few rumours that circulated tended to be about
marital infidelity or behaviour at the pagoda at festival times. In the context of Cambodia
scholarship this is in itself of interest. Many accounts of recent Cambodian history reflect refugee
experience which was dominated by displacement and trauma prior to escape to a third country.
Other accounts have, on the basis of quite limited evidence, tried to construct arguments about the
nature of „community‟ or social relations in Cambodian villages (Ovesen, Trankell, & Öjendal,
168
1996). Presented with the relatively tranquil political and economic landscape of Buon, I will
therefore take the opportunity to spend a few pages setting the scene in Buon. This may provide a
little more background than is strictly necessary to contextualise and support the arguments of
this thesis but may make a modest contribution to empirical understandings of life in a
Cambodian rice field village in the 20th
and early 21st century.
The chapter thus begins by describing the village of Buon, it then describes the livelihoods of the
villagers and the factors which affect those livelihoods, and finally it describes the villagers‟
encounter with the systematic land titling programme which was implemented in the village in
late 2005 and early 2006.
6.2 Immanent Development: Lives and Livelihoods in Buon
6.2.1 Setting the Scene
6.2.1.1 Modern History of Buon
For as long as anyone can remember, Buon has stood in its current location, with the pagoda to
the north of the two ponds, Trapeang Toch to the southeast and Boeung Buon further to the south.
The oldest people in the village, who were born in the 1920s and 1930s, know that their parents
were born in the village and that there was „always‟ a pagoda there. At that time there were not
more than thirty houses in the village, and according to one account only about ten (Interview
369). These houses were in two clusters around each of the ponds. Much of the land in the village
area was forested, and the area between Trapeang Toch and the pagoda was particularly thick
with bamboo. Unlike many other parts of the country, people did not recall fearing elephants and
tigers at that time. However, packs of wild dogs were a danger to people caught on their own –
one older man recalled being having to seek refuge up a tree whilst waiting for assistance
(Interview 383), while an older woman explained that children used to be afraid of the spirits in
the forest (Interview 271).
The village was by no means isolated. The market at Chambok, which today is a 15-minute
motorcycle ride away could be reached in a couple of hours on foot, so whilst it was a journey
that had to be planned it was by no means beyond the reach of the villagers who used to both buy
and sell there (Interview 357). Today a journey to the national capital of Phnom Penh can be
achieved in little more than an hour on a fast motorbike or a couple of hours by minibus, whereas
then it took a day and a night travelling by oxcart (Interview 314). There were likewise trips to
pagodas and other sights located mainly on the hills dotted about the otherwise flat landscape.
Often these were trips by elephant. It was possible to hire elephants that were kept a few
kilometres from the village at Phnom Sroung for excursions. Each elephant had a wooden
platform and parasols, and eight or ten people could sit on one of these. The village chief‟s
mother, recalled one such trip when one of the elephants shied in fear, causing the girls on top of
it to fall off; her brother-in-law, born in the village in 1927 remembers the processions of
elephants and being scared of the creatures even though they were chained together; another
woman, born in 1938, remembered going on trips with twenty or thirty elephants to the pagoda at
Phnom Chiseav and staying there for two or three days to work with the monks (Interviews 314;
369; 357).
169
When the older people were young, the abundance of nearby forest meant plenty of readily
available food: fish and frogs that could be collected from ponds and from the water in the rice
fields and abundant vegetables and fruit (Interviews 357; 369). Families had sufficient rice land,
and if a newly married couple needed more it was simply a question of clearing more from the
forest.
The forest also provided a place of refuge. Older villagers described tax officials coming to the
village to collect taxes and the villagers, on hearing of their arrival running away into the forest in
order to avoid paying any tax (Interview 383). Other tales of taking refuge had a harsher danger
associated with them, as one old woman recalled French colonial troops and Cambodian
resistance fighters going through the village looking for each other, and her sister hiding in a well
every time the resistance fighters came because of her fear of being raped (Interview 314). On the
other hand, we did not learn of any particular instances of violence by soldiers during those
earlier phases of low level war in the 1940s, and another older woman interviewed said that the
soldiers of both sides past through without event (Interview 357).
If the decades of the early and middle part of the twentieth century seem to carry somewhat of a
romantic flavour, with stories of elephant trips and tax evasion and wild dogs all told with a glint
in the eye, this changes when the events of the 1970s and 1980s are recalled. First came the
bombing of the Cambodian countryside by the Americans and by the Phnom Penh government
which they supported112
. One of our case study households have a pond in their garden which was
created by an air-dropped bomb. Another bomb at that time landed in the pagoda killing a monk
and a novice and destroying one of the buildings (Interview 290). Even this, though, pales in
comparison with what was to follow during the 1975-79 period of the Khmer Rouge rule. Shortly
after Phnom Penh was captured and evacuated in 1975, Khmer Rouge cadres, mainly boys and
young men in black uniforms, were despatched to Buon and began sorting the population into
„true‟ peasants, and “17th
April people”, the latter being people who had not supported the
revolution before its victory on 17th
April 1975. Most villagers fell into the latter category and
were sent away to a work camp called „55‟, which was in the eastern part of the province in Prei
Kabas and Angkor Borei districts. During that time of sorting the population, villagers were also
taken away quietly in the evening, three or four at a time and executed just north of the village
(Interview 290). Those who remained in the village were joined by 17th
April people from
elsewhere and worked alongside them on irrigation canals. According to one villager, there
cannot have been any point to these except to keep people busy, because they were never
connected to any water source and have never been used for irrigation either then or since.
Husband and wife in that interview recalled the weddings that the Khmer Rouge used to organise
with twenty or thirty people married in the same ceremony, forced to accept the partner given to
them by the revolution. She said that as a dark-skinned woman she was glad to have married a
lighter skinned man who would not have been a match for her otherwise, and they both smiled at
the fact that they had remained together for thirty years. But she also said that she felt sad every
time she heard wedding music and regretted that she had never had a traditional wedding herself
(Interview 365).
112
The definitive account of the United States‟ illegal bombing of Cambodia is given by William Shawcross (1979) .
The early chapters of Francois Ponchaud‟s (1978) contemporary account of the Khmer Rouge regime also contain
survivor accounts of the bombings.
170
It seemed that it was not uncommon for villagers sent to „55‟ to try escape and return to the
village (Interview 290, 325). The Khmer Rouge running Buon were mainly people they knew
from other nearby villages so they were not killed, but allowed to visit briefly before being sent
away to join other work camps. Villagers‟ overall experience then, was of a mixture of rigid
control, occasional humanity as well as unpredictable brutality. One woman recalled cases of
Khmer Rouge cadre killing pregnant women and eating their foetuses, as well as eating their
victims‟ livers. When the Khmer Rouge were driven out in January 1979 there were no violent
retributions by villagers against the local Khmer Rouge. One explanation for this was that most of
them fled to the north-west of the country (Interview 383), but another interviewee said that one
of the „people who ate people‟ still lived in the area (Interview 290).
These defining experiences are remembered by a declining proportion of the population. Only
26% of the village population were born before 1970 and would therefore have had much
memory of the Khmer Rouge times113
. After 1979, peace came to Buon and the surrounding area.
So, very much in contrast with the situation in Bey where villagers were part of Khmer Rouge
raiding parties into the early 1990s, and where as late as 1994 a villager was killed by a mine in
the village area, Buon has been safe and secure for thirty years. This does not, of course, mean
that the village escaped the influences of the guerrilla war that was sustained by the Khmer
Rouge and its international supporters during the 1980s. Many of the men in the village were
conscripted into the army or to build defences in malaria forests on the Thai border. The assistant
village chief recalled how her husband returned from this work with such bad malaria that he was
unable to work for three years and she was left with the entire work of taking care of their young
children and supporting the household alone (Interview 340). Much worse was the story of the
woman, now in her seventies, whose anger and grief were still apparent as she recounted how the
partially decomposed body of the last of her four sons, (all of whom died young) was brought
back to the village, and how other villagers kept it at the pagoda for several days without telling
her because they found it so horrific (Interview 395).
According to villagers, the past ten years have seen significant changes in the appearance of the
village. Houses are larger and better constructed, there are more businesses with more goods for
sale, and people have more and newer, better motorcycles and bicycles (Interview 303).
6.2.1.2 Location
Buon is located in Bati district, Takeo province. The village is approximately half way between
the national capital Phnom Penh and Takeo provincial town. It is located between national roads
2 and 3 which both run from the capital to Takeo provincial town, and is just west of the national
railway line which transports goods from Phnom Penh to the coastal ports of Kampot and
Kampong Som. The market town of Chambok and the district offices are on National road 2, only
about 7 km from the village, and therefore accessible from the village by either cycle or
motorcycle. The commune office and the local health centre are both located a couple of
kilometres away on the road from the village to the district/market town and are therefore also
relatively accessible.
113
Village census 28 October-1 November 2006.
171
6.2.1.3 Site
The village site is extremely flat. There are some trees grown on people‟s house land, and there
are small scrubby patches which are privately owned and used as sources of firewood, but
generally the landscape, within the village area and beyond, is one of flat, rice fields interrupted
only by dykes, roads and the houses built alongside them.
The main access road to the village runs from west to east. The pagoda and school are to the
north of the road, while virtually all of the houses and agricultural land in the village are found to
the south of the road. At the west of the village is a road that runs from the pagoda south towards
the next village. All of the members of the local authorities in the village (one commune council
member114
, the village chief, his deputy and their assistant) live along this north-south road at the
west of the village. Also located along this road are two restaurants, one run by the deputy village
chief and the other by another older man: both of these men had earlier experience of working at
the district headquarters and have established their businesses in recent years. At the junction of
the two roads are a couple of small shops, a generator which charges all of the village‟s batteries
and a motorcycle repair shop. Additionally, just south of the junction is the village chief‟s house,
which hosts both a motorcycle repair shop and an ice retailing outlet. Thus, to the extent that the
village has a visible economic life beyond the traditional local activities of farming and
manufacturing string, it is wholly concentrated along the main access roads, and particularly
along the road running from the entrance to the pagoda south.
Two features not common in rural Khmer villages, but present in Buon are a church and a village
community centre115
. According to the commune chief, the community centre was donated by a
national representative of the Cambodian People‟s Party, who has given the same sort of building
to every village in the commune (Interview 237). The village chief, by contrast reported that he
had to raise all the money for this construction and had not received anything for it (Interview
325). Construction of the community hall continued gradually throughout the three years that we
followed the village. Sometimes we saw painters painting Buddhist murals inside it (each with
the name of the person who donated 30 USD painted on to it). In late 2007 we met a group of
people who were in a truck who had travelled to the pagoda as part of the Bun Khaten
celebrations and also stopped off at the hall.
The village chief is a Christian and took a leading role in cooperating with Christian NGO
Assemblies of God in order to build the church (Interview 325). This is a white brick building
next to a pond which was dug when the church was built. We did not see the church in any kind
of use on any of our visits, although the household who live in front of it reported that they take
114
At the 2007 commune election he was one place too low on the party list to be able to retain his set as a councilor.
Nevertheless, he continues to go to the commune office and work every day precisely as before, but is now known as
a „commune assistant‟ rather than a commune councilor. 115
This is in contrast to the native ethnic minority villages in the northeast of the country which are typically
congregated around a central communal hall which is used for meetings, celebrations and to host guests. A Japanese-
led international development programme which I evaluated in early 2000 was implemented in parts of Takeo and
neighbouring Kampong Speu provinces. Part of their approach included the construction of „village halls‟. The
expatriate advisors had anticipated this project leading to the adoption of such constructions as rural development
policy nationwide. Whether this initiative had a role in the adoption of the idea of village community centres in
Trapeang Krasaing commune was not clear.
172
care of it and that there are services for children every Saturday and for adults every Sunday
(Interview 321).
6.2.1.4 Population
At the outset of the research, Bey consisted of 64 households, which by its conclusion had
expanded to 66 households. In no cases had any household either left or joined the village.
The personal tragedies, violence and displacements that characterised much of Buon‟s modern
history are only partially reflected in the village‟s demography in the early 21st century. The
gender balance has been skewed by the disproportionate effects of conscription to military service
and the building of national defences on the male population. Only 46% of the village population
are male, with only 41% of the population over 18 in 2006 being men. On the other hand,
however, the displacements and upheavals of the late 1970s have left no lasting trace as people
seem to have returned home at the end of the Khmer Rouge period, so that the village population
retains the overwhelmingly local flavour that villagers remember from before the civil war and
genocide:
Today I live with my daughter and my nephew as my neighbours. All the families here are related.
It was the same when I was young. It was all my relatives here (Interview 357).
As of late 2006, 89% of adult villagers were born in the village. Of the 11% who were not born in
the village, the majority (7% of the total adult population) were born in nearby villages and had
married into the village. Only three households did not contain adults born in Buon.
This picture of geographical localisation could easily imply an insular or isolated rural
community, evoking the sorts of (mis-) representation of rural life that we saw characterised
development industry imaginations and descriptions in the introduction to this thesis. However,
when we come to analyse the livelihoods of the villagers, and to see where people are when they
are earning their livings, the image of unchanging isolation rapidly dissolves.
6.2.1.4 Social Organisation
Three forms of community organisation were notable in the village and are touched upon here,
namely activities centring on the pagoda, organisation by political parties and the operation of a
form of savings group called Tong Tin.
The village has gradually shifted, with houses concentrated along the roads instead of around the
ponds. With the two main roads intersecting at the pagoda gate, the pagoda has moved, more by
accident than design, from being somewhat remote from the village to being close to its centre.
On the other hand, while in the past it had often had a hundred and sometimes even up to two
hundred monks in residence (Interview 369), during the research period there were only about a
dozen monks and we rarely saw them outside the confines of the pagoda grounds.
On festival days (once every eight days) older people, mainly women dressed in immaculate
black skirts and white blouses, could be seen carrying silver containers of rice and food to the
pagoda. Other than this we observed little evidence of the pagoda‟s influence on the village.
However, villagers did report that the monks did visit the houses in the village in order to invite
them to join them on trips to other pagodas. One of our poorer case study households, for
173
example, reported that they went on three or four such trips each year, when they could afford to
(Interview 303).
The pagoda was by no means a religious oasis cut off from the worldly concerns and interests of
the village. In common with our experiences in Bey, and with the reports from our team
members‟ home villages, inter-village violence had become common at festivals and religious
events at the pagoda (Interview 369). One of the land conflicts reported in the village area
involved a husband and wife in conflict with the school authorities. According to the village chief
(Interview 328), the wife was the daughter of the former chief monk at the pagoda. Her father had
given them land to build a house when he was the chief monk. Since then, the new chief monk
had come to an agreement with the education authorities that a new school could be built using
land that previously belonged to the pagoda. The couple were attempting to resist this by
claiming the land was their privately owned land, which put them in conflict with the school
principal.
Regarding political organisation, there was no visible sign of political activity by other parties
than the ruling CPP in the village. There was a FUNCINPEC activist who was known as a
member of that party and whose house was just south of that of the commune councillor on the
main north-south road in the village. As far as we could ascertain, there was no Sam Rainsy Party
activity in the village. Nevertheless, there was an awareness on the part of the authorities that the
Sam Rainsy Party constituted a threat electorally. The commune councillor reported that of the
500 people who voted in Buon and the neighouring village at the previous election, 144 votes had
been cast for the Sam Rainsy Party (Interview 374).
The CPP‟s organisation at village level appeared rather thorough and impressive. According to
the party organiser in the village (Interview 289), he had taken over the local organising since the
village chief had been ill. He had organised the CPP members in the village into 16 teams or
groups. Each group had a book where there was a passport photograph of the group leader and
each member as well as their personal details. One of the party organiser‟s responsibilities was to
check the details of all of the members against the copy of the electoral role for the 2008 election.
It was essential, he said, that the details be in perfect agreement otherwise people would not be
able to cast their votes. Given the number and the size of the groups, it seemed that virtually all of
the villagers must have been registered as CPP members116
. This would also imply that a
substantial number of registered CPP members voted for the Sam Rainsy Party on election day.
There is therefore a certain form of political competition, including particular sorts of
campaigning and resistance. Efforts are made to ensure that voters registered with CPP do not
encounter bureaucratic problems when the electoral roll is finalised. Meanwhile, opposition
supporters continue to proclaim allegiance to CPP while continuing to vote against them.
Many villagers reported that they „play‟ Tong Tin in the village. Tong Tin is a revolving savings
and credit association (ROSCA), and therefore an example of the sort of indigenous savings
group that has been brought to international attention by scholars such as Stuart Rutherford.
According to his classification, Tong Tin is a form of auction ROSCA (Rutherford, 2000, p. 37).
Tong Tin requires a leader, who guarantees all of the obligations of all members of the group. A
116
If all 16 groups had had 17 members that would have made 272 people, when the village population is only 244. I
could not check all of the books, but I infer that a large proportion of the adults were registered as party voters.
174
stake is agreed, and then every month every member pays the stake to one member in the group.
So if there are thirty members, one round of Tong Tin will last thirty months. If the stake is 10
dollars, then each month one member will receive a maximum of three hundred dollars. However,
the process to decide who the recipient will be each month is an auction. The person who bids the
lowest sum of money is the recipient. Thus, if somebody is willing to accept 150 USD, each
member then only has to contribute 5 USD that month. During the first month, it is the Tong Tin
leader who is the recipient and receives the full stake. In this sense, therefore, the Tong Tin leader
always „wins‟ because she always receives the first payment and it is a full payment. However, if
any of the members fail to fulfil their obligation to make the monthly payment, the leader is
responsible for covering that and therefore risks making a significant loss.
There were several opportunities for villagers in Buon to participate in Tong Tin. One of our case
study households, the main string traders in the village, was responsible for four rounds of Tong
Tin at the beginning of 2008, whilst two of the other case study households also participated in
Tong Tin groups in other villages. In one case the group had 60 participants and therefore
represented a 5-year commitment on behalf of the leader and members (Interviews 281, 295,
298). Villagers spoke approvingly of Tong Tin as it meant that they could make a profit, and also
that they could access larger sums of money in times of need (Interviews 290, 303). While profit
levels were calibrated according to the desperation of the circumstances of people in need of
ready cash, those people were also net beneficiaries because they were obtaining money at a
better rate than if they went to a private moneylender117
. The trust that is relied upon or
institutionalised within Tong Tin is very heavily focused on the leader: it is not necessary to trust
any of the other participants provided one fully trusts the leader.
6.2.1.5 Credit
The availability of credit, and the terms on which it is available, can provide insight into the states
of both economic development and social safety nets in a community. Seventeen of the 20
Table 6-1: Outstanding debts in Buon by type of creditor (November 2006)
Type of Creditor Frequency
(n=31)
Family friends (interest-free) 16
Family & friends (charging interest) 1
Non-relatives (interest-free) 1
Non-relatives (charging interest) 10
Formal lenders (ACLEDA Rural Development Bank) 2
Private medical practitioner (interest-free) 1
Source: Field Data, Livelihood Survey, Buon Village, October 2006
117
I am grateful to Stuart Rutherford for his assistance in both referring me to the relevant parts of his own work and
explaining the benefits of the Tong Tin bidding ROSCA to me.
175
households sampled during our October 2006 Livelihood Survey reported current debts. The 17
households had average total debts of 1,221,176 riels (305 USD) with the most indebted
household reporting owing 5,000,000 riels (1,250 USD) and the least indebted household
reporting a 50,000 riels (12.50 USD) debt. Just under half of the debts were to fellow residents of
Buon (see Table 6-1). Creditors for the 31 outstanding loans were reported as follows:
Thus there was both formal and informal credit available and, despite the fact that almost all of
the informal credit was reported at monthly rates of 10% or more, and formal credit at reported
monthly rates of 3% and 4% far more people had accessed informal credit. The fact that such a
large proportion of the loans were interest-free loans from friends and relatives indicates the
extent to which informal social (or at least kinship) safety nets operated in the village.
Furthermore, it is not certain that the 10% interest rates should be judged in isolation from default
rates. Certainly, in one case one of the wealthier households in the village had loaned money to
one of the poorer households, but when they had failed to repay the debt had been written off
rather than enforced (Interview 336)
The reasons given for indebtedness and their frequency are set out in Table 6-2 below:
Table 6-2: Reasons given for indebtedness in Buon (November 2006)
Reason given for acquiring debt Frequency (n=31)
Illness 19
Buy food 3
House construction 2
Motorcycle purchase 2
Buy land 1
„Investment and festivals‟ 1
Repay other debts 1
Agricultural investment 1
Cycle repair 1
Source: Field Data, Livelihood Survey 2006
6.2.1.6 Village leadership and safety nets for the poorest
The village chief and his two deputies were all related to the elderly couple who lived in the
centre of the village. Most people in the west and centre of the village were related to this pair.
However, in the east of the village, the families who traditionally lived around the second
reservoir in the village formed a separate network. The members of the kinship network of the
village chief and his relatives were generally wealthier. It seemed that the local authorities used
their position in order to ensure that poorer households gained access to supplementary incomes.
According to the Deputy Village Chief (Interview 286), there were five households who received
176
extra food from the „government‟ and another four who received extra food every month from an
NGO that helps people who were living with HIV AIDS. There seemed to be general agreement
in the village about who the very poorest households in the village were, and general knowledge
and approval of the village chief‟s (mis-) appropriation of HIV AIDS funding to assist them
(Interviews 305; 306; 336)118
.
6.2.2 How villagers from Buon make a living
6.2.2.1 Overview
One of the most striking findings from the Village Census conducted at the outset of our research
was that 69 people, or 35%, of the adult population of the village were living away from their
homes in Phnom Penh. Principally these were young, mainly single women working in garment
factories (typically returning for one night a month after they are paid) young, single men
working on construction sites (who are more flexibly employed and may come home more or less
frequently but usually for longer periods), as well as older men working as motorcycle taxi
drivers in the city119
.
Table 6-3: Main Reported Source of Income in Buon, 2007
Activity (PNP = located in Phnom Penh) Number of households
Garment Factory remittances (PNP) 20
String production and trading 10
Retail trading 8
Construction remittances (PNP) 7
Motorcycle taxi (PNP) 6
Other (PNP) 4
Pig Raising 3
Hiring out labour locally 2
Milling and Trading Rice 2
Motorcycle repair 1
Handicrafts 1
Total 64
Source: Field Data, Livelihood Survey, January 2008
118
There is undoubtedly more to this story. It is difficult to believe that any organization is giving out support on the
basis of word of mouth reports by local authorities that villagers are living with HIV, though one could imagine field
workers taking license to use funds to help poorer families. However, we did not follow this up, and for our purposes
the interesting point to note was the authorities sympathetic use of resources (compared to many other places I have
stayed where there has been bad feeling about local authorities channeling resources away from the poorest and
towards their own relatives and friends). 119
The way in which men‟s engagements with the broader economy gave them more freedom, whilst women were
often engaged in employment in ways which involved their time and their movements being extremely restricted was
a theme throughout our research in Buon.
177
As explained in Chapter 2, obtaining reliable economic data on household incomes and
expenditures was a challenge throughout, however, in the course of the project we built up a clear
picture of overall participation in different economic activities, their relative importance, and to
some extent the incomes that they generated. In September 2007 we found that there were just 17
out of the village‟s 64 households who did not have any members working in Phnom Penh and
sending money home to the village. As we will see, this was often explained by either households
being unusually wealthy, or by them not having available labour.
In our Livelihood Survey, conducted at the beginning of 2008, 37 of the 64 households reported
remittances from Phnom Penh as their major source of income (see Table 6-3). Small businesses
of different sorts were the main income source for 11 households (mainly retail outlets in the
village but also rice milling and motorcycle repairs), whilst 10 households reported string as their
main income source. To the extent that agriculture was a major source of income for households,
this was as a result of either pig raising and trading (3 households) or milling and trading of rice
(2 households). Arable farming was not the major income for any household in the village.
The most thorough information we obtained on income sources was from the Incomes and
Expenditure Questionnaire (though still of limited reliability, see Appendix 4) administered to our
eight case study households in the village in March 2007 (see Table 6-4). This again showed the
importance of incomes from Phnom Penh and the insignificance of incomes from arable
farming120
, although it did indicate that small livestock (pigs and chickens) were an income
stream for all households.
Table 6-4: Breakdown of Buon Case Study Household (HH) incomes April 2006-March 2007
HH
*121
Reported
income
(riels)
PNP
remittances
Own
business
String Arable
farming
Livestock Loans
and
gifts
Other122
16** 4,425,000 49% 4% 46%
21*** 4,300,000 70% 7% 23%
07** 3,650,000 99% 1%
09*** 3,476,000 83% 17%
46** 3,441,000 17% 70% 2%
52* 2,130,000 33% 8% 47% 12%
55* 1,940.000 31% 5% 5% 41% 18%
22** 540,000 37% 26% 18% 19%
Source: Field Data, Income and Expenditure Questionnaire, March 2007
120
Given that arable production is partly for domestic consumption, it could have an importance beyond the income
it generates, a point to which we will return later in the chapter. 121
Household number, with asterisks indicating the wealth rank ascribed to the household by the village chief and
commune councilor (Interview 289): ***= „medium‟; **‟poor‟; *= „very poor‟. On the basis of my knowledge of the
households and also their reported expenditures, I would judge that both HH21 and HH22 have underreported their
incomes by at least 50%. 122
Households 55 and 22, other = fishing; Household 52 other = daily wage labour
178
The two households that were exceptions and did not have incomes from Phnom Penh were
illustrative. One was almost certainly the wealthiest in the village. The husband, who was also
deputy village chief, worked as a motorcycle taxi driver during the 1990s and used the income
from that to invest in a small soup restaurant specialising in dog meat (and euphemistically
referred to by villagers as „special soup‟). They reported that most of their customers were people
who have earned money in Phnom Penh and want to come for a drink and to relax. The husband
also hired out his services as a cook which generated as much income (though in lumpier, less
predictable sums) as the restaurant and karaoke business at home. They had adult children,
including two who had jobs in Phnom Penh, one working for a security company at the national
airport and another working for an NGO. The wife made a point of saying that they would never
take money from their children to support themselves, but rather that they would be ready to
support their children (Interview 290).
The other exception, by contrast, was one of the poorer households in the village, consisting of a
husband, wife and four school-age children. Their household economy had been constrained by a
motorcycle accident. The husband had been transporting a drunken man and a pig to a wedding
several years previously, when the pig tried to wriggle away from the passenger and their struggle
caused the motorcycle to crash. The husband broke his leg very badly. The hospital had been
unable to re-set it satisfactorily and it was only properly set after a month spent at a traditional
Khmer healer (Interview 300). However, the leg remained weak. When we met him he still could
not do hard labour, or even ride a motorcycle except for short journeys and without heavy loads.
As a result the household is very much dependent on income from string production: in the late
afternoon the whole household - parents and children - were often to be found tearing up nylon
sacks and spinning the threads into string. Had he not been injured he would have worked in
Phnom Penh on construction sites or as a motorcycle taxi. When the children are a little older, it
is anticipated that they will get factory jobs there. In fact, husband and wife said that they would
already like their oldest daughter who is in year 8 at school to get such a job. However, they said
that she had so far refused saying that she enjoyed school and wanted to complete her education
and become a teacher or a doctor (Interview 301). In other words, the one household had no
Phnom Penh incomes because they were exceptionally wealthy (by village standards) and did not
need them, and the other did not have Phnom Penh incomes because at that point in the family
lifecycle they did not have available labour for that.
The overall picture then from our field data (especially the Village Census in 2006, the
Livelihood Survey of all households in the village in 2008, and the detailed Income and
Expenditure Questionnaire to the case study households in 2007) was that for most households,
for most of the time, earnings from Phnom Penh were the most important income stream. A
number of better-off households have small businesses which are their main sources of incomes,
and in some cases obviated the need for their young adult children to work in Phnom Penh.
Meanwhile string manufacture, animal raising and rice farming were supplementary activities
whose significance varied. In order to identify overall factors influencing livelihood opportunities
for villagers (which constitute the „immanent development‟ settings that any „intentional
development‟ intervention would be required to engage with in order to make a difference) we
will pause to consider some of the economic activities in the village in a little more detail.
179
6.2.2.2 Work in Phnom Penh
As recently as the late 1960s, rice farming, gathering food from the local area, and making and
trading string were the main sources of income for the village: according to the village chief, at
that time chief there were only two people in the village in those days who worked in Phnom
Penh, both as cyclo-drivers (Interview 326). This had changed in the course of the 1990s as
opportunities arose, initially it was men who went there to work as motor-taxi drivers, and in
construction, but with the growth of the garment factories, it was young women who became the
largest segment of the village‟s migrant labour force. By the time of the Village Census at the
outset of our research in late 2006 32 young women (or 13% of the village‟s adult population)
were working in a garment factory, whilst 16 men were working on construction sites and a
further 9 were working as motorcycle taxis.
Another of our case study households demonstrates how just one daughter at the right age to go
into the garment factories could support a household‟s economy. One of our case study
households in Buon consisted of a husband and wife in their late 40s, two school-aged children
and a daughter, who was born in 1982. Of their reported income in the year to March 2007, 83%
came from salary brought home from a garment factory by the daughter. Until mid-2007 she had
been working nights and earning as much as 120 USD per month. At that point, however, she
decided that the work was too much and took a new job where she worked days and earned about
60 USD per month. By this time, the household had a large new wooden house purchased with
her earnings, and – for example, between the team‟s visits in March and September 2007 she had
bought a fourteen inch colour television for 500 000 riels (125 US dollars), a vehicle battery for
180 000 riels (45 USD) and a new water jar for 20 000 riels (5 USD) for the household. By the
end of the research she was married and her parents were receiving about 5 US dollars per month
from her instead of the 50 – 60 US dollars that she had previously sent home, although they still
seemed able to count on her for support as she had paid part of the costs of the latrine they were
building and had also bought an ox123
. Whilst her earnings had been exceptionally high (twice the
normal when she was working nights), she was only one person. During the Livelihood Survey at
the beginning of 2008 (see Table 6-5), 97 adults were reported to have worked in Phnom Penh in
the previous year, with one household having as many as 7 of its members having worked there.
Table 6-5: Number of Buon Household (HH) Members Working in Phnom Penh in 2007
#HH members in PNP 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total
#HH in that category 17 17 24 4 2 1 0 1 64
# individuals in PNP 0 17 48 12 8 5 0 7 97
Source: Field Data, Livelihood Survey, Buon village, January 2008.
123
Around the time his daughter got married, her father had started selling ice cream. He would set out on his
bicycle early in the morning, with ice cream in a cool box cooled with ice. The stock would only last the day, so if he
did not sell enough during the day he would lose money. On days when he sold out he could earn the equivalent of 4
USD in a day. But there were days when he did not sell out, and he had stopped selling for a time because he kept
failing to sell out. The household income was therefore considerably less secure than it had been the previous years.
180
At the individual level, the structure of opportunity for men and women is quite different.
Amongst the younger generation, most of the young women who work in Phnom Penh have jobs
in factories. Here they have an extremely regimented lifestyle, with long working hours and little
or no choice as to when they come home to the village. Meanwhile, the rhythms of the factory are
beginning to pulse into the rhythms of the supposedly rural village. The girls usually get paid on
the tenth day of each month returning en masse to the village to visit their homes for a day and to
pass on money to their families. This triggers the repayment of debt to the rice surplus
households (mainly the two households owning rice milling machines) by the households with a
rice deficit (Interview 342). There is an element of choice for the young women with regard to
where they work, but the choice is between different factories which each provide the same
overall pattern of work-dominated lifestyle.
Young men, meanwhile, are generally employed in the construction industry. Work is far more
irregular. Clearly, this provides opportunity them to exercise the freedom to behave in the way
that they wish. A vicious circle was therefore operating in terms of the gender differentiation in
lifestyle and work: the same social conditioning that reserves work in garment factories for
diligent, obedient young women, also allows the less reliable and trustworthy young men to live a
far more self-indulgent lifestyle away from the village.
Generally, although interviewees tended to say that it was „difficult‟ to get jobs in Phnom Penh,
the evidence seemed to contradict this for the period of our research. One young woman reported
that the factory where she had worked had demanded entry fees from girls who were not
qualified. However, she simply got some private tuition in sewing for a few hours and was then
able to return to the factory and pass their tests and therefore be considered „qualified‟ without
needing to pay the fee (Interview 378). During our time in the village we did not encounter any
young women who were willing and able to work in Phnom Penh, but had not been able to so.
The same applies to men working in the construction industry or as motorcycle drivers. There
were instances of factories laying workers off temporarily, and while construction work also
includes fluctuations – if a young man is attached to a particular gang or foreman, and the
foreman takes a few weeks off to go to his home village, or if the young man is looking for a new
gang or a new project. Thus it is not the case that every person has paid work every week.
Nevertheless, the larger picture was of work being available and Buon villagers not encountering
any major entry barriers to employment. On the other hand, on our sixth and final visit in early
2009, whilst we did not collect systematic information on employment at that time, we did hear
of far more cases of factories closing and also of construction sites shutting down with projects
not completed.
Clearly then, the globalised garment industry in particular, and the terms of Cambodia‟s
acceptance into it, as well as the general world and regional economic booms have created the
employment opportunities for Buon‟s relative prosperity in the decade up to and including our
research period. The garment industry in Cambodia is under constant threat. Quota agreements
have protected the Cambodian industry from direct competition with China and Vietnam, and a
booming world economy has ensured that overall demand had been healthy. There is no certainty
that these conditions will continue. A downturn in the global and regional economies would
stiffen competition for jobs in Phnom Penh, possibly leading to the erection of the sort of entry
barriers that currently seem to be absent, and very possibly also forcing many of the Buon
villagers to either return to the village, or to attempt to survive elsewhere.
181
There is a clear difference here between the changes in Bey and the changes in Buon. In Bey the
economic changes that transform the physical landscape are also transforming livelihood
opportunities. Economic change is about competition for land and land-based resources, and its
effects are inscribed on the landscape. In Buon, on the other hand, economic change has been de-
coupled from the landscape. This tallies with what has been observed in studies of livelihoods
that have found deagrarianisation elsewhere in Southeast Asia (Rigg, 2006), and is of course in
direct contradiction with the tendencies in development discourse established in the introduction
to this thesis, which stubbornly adhere to notions of rural as „traditional‟ and „isolated‟ and
„primitive‟.
6.2.2.3 Small Businesses in the Village
Notwithstanding the dominance of Phnom Penh incomes in the local economy overall, it is also
notable that almost all of the better off households in the village have their own local businesses.
These included two restaurant businesses, a wedding business (providing photography, furniture,
music), the retailing of ice, motorcycle repair, cycle workshop as well as the standard small
businesses found in just about all rural Cambodian villages, namely vehicle battery charging and
rice milling.
In some rare cases, these households have become so well off that their children have not needed
to go to Phnom Penh to work. In addition to the deputy village chief‟s household mentioned
above, the assistant village chief and her husband who have a rice mill and also trade rice and
provide credit to other villagers, were able to send their two oldest daughters away for two years
to get educated as a veterinarian and a midwife respectively. These both promise relatively secure
incomes, but required substantial fees, in the region of 1500 USD each, to be paid to middlemen
and overall was reckoned to have cost the household in the region of 6000 USD in total for the
two years of education for the two young women (Interview 346).
In both of these cases, the men in the households had spent time in the 1990s working as
motorcycle taxi drivers in Phnom Penh. It is tempting to see a link between the acquisition of
capital from Phnom Penh incomes and the establishment of small businesses in the village. This
would apply to some extent in the case of the assistant village chief‟s household, as they needed
to save money to buy the generator and most of this came from his motorcycle taxi earnings and
from her success in raising pigs at a time when the price of pork was high (Interview 343).
However, in the case of other businesses such as the restaurants the need for capital was not great,
and the decisive role played by Phnom Penh incomes was not in providing start-up capital, but in
generating demand. The deputy village chief said that most of his restaurant customers were
youngsters and that he did not know how the village would survive without Phnom Penh
incomes. He illustrated this by pointing out the poverty of families that could only rely on string
and rice farming for incomes (Interview 286).
The other factor which the households with businesses had was that they were located along one
of the two roads that go through the village. Thus, the relocation of the village over the past thirty
years from the banks of the two ponds to the roads, has mirrored its economic reorientation
towards outside markets and incomes. The elite of the village, both the business people and all of
the members of the local authorities, including all of the better off households, now have houses
along the roads.
182
6.2.2.4 Making and Trading String/Rope Tethers
Buon lies in the poorer, western part of Bati district. The district chief, who grew up in the
province, explained the spatial distribution of handicrafts in explicitly geographically determinist
terms – without using that language (Interview 234). He believed that because the soils in the
eastern part of the district were better, the populations there had always been wealthier and have
therefore had more money to spend on education. As a result they had the capacity to engage in
more highly skilled and profitable work, hence the proliferation of looms and the weaving of
relatively expensive silk sarongs in the eastern part of the district. In the western part of the
district, however, the soils are poorer, and therefore over time human resources have also been
poorer and therefore the villagers work on the simpler task of spinning bark into rope and making
tethers out of it. It is in this western part of the district that the village of Buon is located.
The tradition in Buon has been to make string from either the bark or from strips of leaf from
coconut palm (Interview 295; 326). There is one older lady with failing eyesight who still uses
this method. In recent times the materials for the string have changed. From about 2003 people
started to use old damaged fertiliser bags which would be torn into strips and weaved into thin
string, which is in turn plaited into the three-ply strings that are used to make the tethers for the
animals. As recently as 2005, families have started to buy nylon string from the market to use as a
raw material instead (Interview 353). The nylon is much stronger, but this is not necessarily
regarded as an advantage: if an animal becomes very violent and determined to escape from
where it is being tied or held, it is better for the string to break than animal to damage itself in the
struggle. On the other hand, the nylon rope is easier for households where there is possibly just
one or two adults involved in the manufacture of the string (Interview 349). Where nylon bags are
used, the whole family, including small children, typically becomes involved in tearing up the
nylon bags into thin strips and then in feeding them onto the string in the evenings as pieces of
string stretching over 100 or more meters are spun on bicycle wheels in the evenings.
At any time of the year and at any time of the day wandering around the village one finds people
working at making string. While for some households this is a supplementary activity carried out
when other work has been done, for others it can be a near full-time activity (Interview 349).
Profit margins from string manufacture are however small, and at different times during the
research people had abandoned it as an activity either because the price of old fertiliser sacks had
increased (Interview 283) or because there were insufficient buyers (Interview 333). Overall, the
households who could make significant profit from string were the ones who were involved in
trading it. This applied especially to the case study household which purchased the sacks from
factories in Phnom Penh and brought them to the village, and which got 70% of its income from
string manufacture and trade in 2006 (Income and Expenditure Questionnaire, March 2007). For
other households, participation in the trading of string meant collecting string made at home or
made by other households who could not travel, and then setting off on a bicycle tour for several
days, often going to other provinces, staying at people‟s houses along the way and selling string
direct to villagers with cattle. The ten households who reported that string was their main source
of income were largely households who were able to engage in such trading. In the wealth
ranking exercise seven of these households were adjudged „very poor‟, three of them „poor‟ and
none of them in the „better off‟ category.
183
Highly labour-intensive, somewhat vulnerable to market fluctuations and not particularly
profitable, the production of string is an emblem of poverty (and of the poverty of options for
many households) rather than a way out of it. We did not learn of any way in which engaging in
string manufacture and sales might be a route to a better standard of living.
6.2.2.5 Rice Farming
Rice farming is still an important part of the landscape of Buon and of the lifestyle of almost all
households. As at January 2008 there was only one household that did not report owning some
rice land. However, the landholdings are small, with most families owning less than a hectare
(see Table 6-6 and Table 6-7). Yields are likewise low, with only five to ten households a year
likely to harvest enough rice to meet their household consumption needs for the year.
Table 6-6: Land holdings by Household in Buon January 2008 (n=64)
Land holding (Ha) 0 0-0.5 0.5-1 1-1.5 1.5-2 2-2.5 0-2.5
#Households 1 17 22 13 7 4 64
Source: Field data, Land and Livelihood Questionnaire, administered 15-18 January 2008
Table 6-7: Reported Yields by Household in Buon 2007 Growing Season (n=62)
Yield (tonnes) 0 0-0.5 0.5-1 1-1.5 1.5-2 2-2.5 0-2.5
#Households 2 10 23 18 6 3 62
Source: Field data, Land and Livelihood Questionnaire, administered 15-18 January 2008
In an interview with Sann, a successful farmer and trusted informant, we elicited figures for a
„typical‟ hectare of rice land in Buon. According to his calculations a hectare might produce 1.5
tonnes of neang minh124
unmilled rice, which would sell at 500-600 riels per kilogramme, giving
a total value of 185-225 USD125
. The cost of inputs, excluding labour was estimated at 40 USD.
However, if labour costs were included for transplanting, harvesting and transporting from the
field126
, the cost of production would have increased by 100 USD (or half the value of the crop)
to 140 USD. The significance of labour costs led Sann and others to conclude that rice farming
was only profitable if the household used its own labour. This was not fully supported by his own
figures (which suggested a profit of 60 USD if labour was hired, but this does not include the
checking and weeding of the crops). Detailed information from interviews with Case Study
households suggested that Sann‟s figures were broadly representative (see Table 6-8);
124
The other rice variety popular in the village was „ka maly‘ which was more valuable, with unmilled rice selling at
800-900 riels per kg, and tasted better, but which generated lower yields and was therefore less widely grown than
neang minh (Interview 297). 125
The use of cash values is not to imply that rice is a cash crop. As we have seen, for most households, most of the
crop is consumed within the household, either by the family or by livestock. 126
There are other substantial labour inputs especially relating to weeding the crop and bringing the grass back from
the field to feed oxen. However, this is not typically something for which labour is hired. Children often make a
major contribution to this part of the household work.
184
interestingly the one case where a household made a loss they ascribed it to family illness which
meant that they were forced to hire labour rather than work themselves.
Table 6-8: Rice Production in Buon village, Cambodia. 2006 and 2008.
HH Interview
number
Ha Costs (riels) Yield (riels)
(kg if
available)
Profit/Loss
(riels and USD
equivalent)
Note
7 273 1.24 400 000 650 000
(1,300kg)
250 000
62.50 USD
2008
Rice for 9 months
7 270 1.24 804 000
(500 000 labour
hire included)
780 000 - 24 000
- 8 USD
2006
Illness meant that labour
had to be hired.
9 276,
277
0.7 250 000 508 000 258 000
64.50 USD
2008
16 281 0.8 394 000 910 000
(1820 kg)
516 000
129 USD
2006
21
287 1.0 175 000 455 000 280 000
70 USD
2006
22 291 0.12 100 000 150 000 50 000
12.50 USD
Household has more
land but this the only
plot for which clear
information could be
provided on inputs.
46
295 0.8 150 000 240 000
(480 kg)
90 000
22.50 USD
2006
52
302 1.1 160 000 240 000
(480 kg)
80 000
20 USD
2006
55
309 0.5 30 000 180 000
(200 kg)
150 000
37.50 USD
2008
On rented land. Size
may not be accurate.
Source: Field Data, Interviews with Case Study Households 2006-2009
Overall then, the experiences of case study households in Buon during the study period,
suggested that, even discounting the cost of labour, rice farming only had the potential to generate
the equivalent of about 140 USD per hectare per annum. This was in the context of most
households owning less than a hectare of rice land. Set in comparison with households receiving
thirty or forty dollars per month from each young woman bringing home unspent wages from
garment factories, this is not a mainstay of the village economy.
Generally, Sann‟s own household was the only one that could confidently predict having a
tradable rice surplus every year (Interview 342), with up to about ten other households possibly
growing enough to cover their own rice consumption needs (which are of course only a portion of
household food needs, which are in turn only a portion of household expenditures). This was
supported by the Land and Livelihood Questionnaire administered in January 2008 where only 5
185
households reported any income from selling rice, and of these none of them reported it as their
main source of income. It was also confirmed by interviews where villagers reported that their
crop would usually enable them to meet their household rice needs for 6-9 months of the year
(e.g.Interviews 273; 301; 303; 309; 349; 353; 292).
Our findings clearly show that Buon, despite external appearances to the contrary, is not,
economically at least, primarily a rice farming village. There is also evidence that the importance
of rice farming is gradually declining, with the culture of the village beginning to adjust to its
new economic realities. The rice fields of Buon border directly onto the rice-fields of
neighbouring villages so there is little prospect of an increase in available rice land. Neither,
given the lack of any obvious water source does there seem to be the prospect of the sort of
infrastructural development that would be required to transform the rice economy by introducing
irrigation schemes enabling farmers to move away from the high-risk, low yield limitations of
rain-fed agriculture to the relatively high-input, high yield and high profits of irrigated
production. In these circumstances, successful households no more want their children to be rice
farmers than they want them to work in garment factories. Sann‟s household eventually had to
hire some labour during transplanting because their daughters had been away studying. Now they
are both back and working in animal health and public health services respectively These two
young women who have grown up working on the farm and going to school will no longer be
farmers, and their salaries and other associated incomes will now represent a substantial portion
of the household‟s income.
But it is not only in the wealthiest households that changes could be seen. As noted previously, it
had been rare for anyone not from the local area to marry into the village. However, this was
beginning to change. Heng Sothavy met her husband in Phnom Penh when she was there selling
fruit and he, a native of Battambang in north-west Cambodia, was working as a driver for an
Australian company. Om Srei‟s son-in-law was a motor cycle driver in Phnom Penh when he met
her daughter who was then working in a garment factory. Neither man is from an agricultural
background. Sothavy and Om Srei describe these new members to their families as „not able to
plough‟ (Interviews 393; 396). This is both a cultural marker – such men have not previously
existed in the village – changing what it means to be a villager in Buon, but also a practical
obstacle to farming in those households. If they are to farm their land it will involve hiring
someone else to plough it: with timing of ploughing often crucial and rains unpredictable this can
be a time-consuming and uncertain arrangement. Many households without draft animals or adult
male labour manage to plough their lands, however, it becomes less and less self-evident that a
household will farm the land if it does not have the labour to do so (especially given the
observations of villagers about profitability depending on not requiring to hire in labour).
A technical revolution in rice farming might, of course, alter these trends, particularly if it were to
be able to treble or quadruple yields. In September 2007 the deputy village chief was enthusing
about new methods of rice farming that he has learned at an extension centre at nearby Tram
Kok. It involved less labour and less seeds as individual rice plants were transplanted rather than
several together. He reported that this was the second year that he had used this method and he
anticipated that it would become widespread. By early 2008 he was reporting that two other
households had experimented with this technology on small trial plots in their fields. In late 2008
we sat in the village and watched the Minister of Agriculture proclaim that this new way of
transplanting would indeed enable revolutionary increases in yields. However, in the village the
186
initial enthusiasm gave way to a reversion to traditional methods as it became apparent that
controlling weeds was a far greater challenge with the new method. In absence of some such
technological revolution rice farming will continue to dominate the physical appearance of the
landscape, and no doubt the culture and identity of most of the villagers for some time to come,
but it will also continue to be of marginal importance in the household economies of the villagers.
6.2.3 Conclusions: Immanent Development and Livelihoods in Buon
After the relative poverty of the 1980s and early 1990s, Buon has subsequently become a village
where the most important economic activities take place elsewhere, with activities at home,
whether the manufacturing of string or rope tethers or the farming of rice, acting as supplements
to the main forms of income which tend to come directly or indirectly (in the case of the
flourishing restaurant, wedding, money lending etc businesses) from employment in Phnom
Penh. Economic change has long since been divorced from changes in the landscape in the
village. During the decade up to and including the research there had been abundant employment
opportunities available in Phnom Penh for villagers who were able and willing to take those
opportunities: the terms of incorporation were heavily biased against young women in many
respects, but the overall economic impacts for the village were positive127
. As such, the village‟s
experiences reflect the trends noted regionally towards a delocalising of livelihoods and their
decoupling of livelihoods from land and agriculture (Rigg, 2001, 2006). On the other hand, the
village has, in contrast with some of the Thai experience mentioned in chapter 2, not become part
of a „manufacturing frontier‟, but has rather retained the characteristics of a labour reserve (Rigg
et al., 2010, pp. 146-148)
The fieldwork for this thesis was completed in March 2009. By the end of that year Cambodia
had experienced its first year of negative growth since the signing of the new constitution in
1993. This has impacted upon the economic activities upon which Buon‟s economy depends:
11.4% of the jobs in Cambodian garment factories were lost in 2009, and for workers remaining
in the industry, income levels fell by 20% because of reduced overtime (IMF, 2009, p. 9). There
is little in the experiences of Buon during the study period that suggests that local resources could
be mobilised in order to provide an adequate safety net if economic opportunity in Phnom Penh
was drastically curtailed. The village might be able to re-absorb its migrant working population,
but circumstances would be extremely impoverished in comparison with the previous decade.
6.3 The Systematic Land Titling Intervention in Buon
6.2.4 Introduction
Systematic land titling, a component of Cambodia‟s Land Management and Administration
Project (LMAP) was initiated in the commune of Bati district where Buon is located with a public
meeting on 3 November 2005. Buon was one of the last villages to complete the process shortly
before the current research began. By the time we completed our research, therefore, villagers had
127
I also gathered information on the terms of incorporation into marriage amongst older households in the village,
and here again there was a bias against women. Five out of eight of the case study households had experienced cases
of marital infidelity, inevitably involving men leaving the household, often taking money with them, and leaving
their wives with more work and far fewer resources. Garment factory exploitation of female labour is therefore in
some ways a new form of exploitation, but could also be seen as reworking of pre-existing injustices against women.
187
had their titles for about three years. As we have seen in chapter 4, the LMAP systematic land
titling aims to improve tenure security by providing formal legal title to all land-owners.
The project appraisal document (PAD) for the World Bank loan of 24.3 million USD to LMAP
outlined the development objectives and outcome/impact indicators (see Table 6-9) and the
outputs and indicators(see Table 6-10) which are broadly typical for such programmes (World
Bank, 2002, p. 27).
Table 6-9: LMAP Project Development Objective and Outcome/Impact Indicators
Project Development Objective Outcome/Impact Indicators
Land tenure security for urban and
agricultural land holders improved
Conflict over land falls
Land grabbing falls
Agriculture productivity rises
Access to (cheaper) credit increases
Investment in the property sector increases
Land markets operate more
efficiently
Number of land transactions increases
Taxes and Fees collected from land transactions
increase
Source: (World Bank, 2002)
The outputs and indicators for the land titling programme were as follows: This is achieved
„systematically‟ in the sense that titles are prepared and issued to a whole community at the same
time. In common with other similar programmes, the aim is to build on local knowledge in order
to formalise existing informal arrangements in order to create a fair formal system. Villages are
first surveyed with volunteers from the community being involved in that work, this initial survey
results in a provisional map where plots are assigned to owners. The map is then posted in a
public place and villagers are given thirty days to appeal the allocation. Titles are prepared and
issued for all land where there are no competing claims (on payment of a small administrative fee
which is charged per square meter according to whether land is house or agricultural land).
Where ownership is contested, the plots are then referred to a series of committees whose aim is
to settle the conflict as quickly as possible without need to refer to a higher level committee or,
ultimately, the courts.
Villagers‟ experience of titling will be reviewed in the light of these expected benefits. First, we
will consider inclusion/exclusion in/from titling, then the impacts on tenure security and
investment, credit, the land market and social costs of land conflicts will be reviewed. These
findings in Buon will then be set in the context of existing and subsequent research on the
impacts of LMAP titling elsewhere in rural Cambodia.
188
Table 6-10: LMAP Systematic Land Titling Component: Outputs and Indicators.
Outputs Indicators
Titles are issued
effectively and
efficiently
Map shop is fully operational
One million titles issued under the systematic titling program
95 percent of titles collected by beneficiaries
Average cost of issuing title is less than USD 30 per title.
Issuance of titles through sporadic adjudication takes less than 2 months
from start to finish.
Land registration
system functioning
well
Provincial and district land offices are built
75 percent of land transactions are registered
Registration of land transaction in Phnom Penh is completed in one day
by year 4 of the project.
Computerized land registration database system is operational in Phnom
Penh Land Office and access to information in the registry is available
online to government, financial institutions and individuals for a charge.
Source: (World Bank, 2002, p. 27)
6.2.5 Titling in Buon: Inclusion and Exclusion from the Process
Overall, the titling process in Buon proceeded as envisaged. Two villagers accompanied the
survey teams in the initial survey of the land: the deputy village chief taking responsibility for the
northern portion and another villager the southern portion of the village (Interview 289). The map
that was produced was posted at the pagoda for thirty days. Titles were issued and the fees
charged were in accordance with the modest scales issued by the Ministry. During our interviews,
when we asked to look at people‟s land titles they were almost invariably produced from a plastic
wallet, usually from under on one of the beams just over our head as we sat under the house. The
exceptions were the rare cases where either somebody had a locked box with their documents or
where the title had been provided as collateral for a loan or surrendered when the land was
pawned. The titles were on good quality paper, were clearly printed and included a map which
showed the adjacent plots (Figure 6-1 and Figure 6-2128
). The only two concerns about the papers
which arose during the research were firstly the difficulties villagers had in identifying which title
related to which of their plots (it was difficult, though, to see how the titles could have been made
clearer), and the fact that one part of the form, which required that land be classified as either
128
These photographs have been altered in order to obscure the names of the village and the commune. The title
relates to a plot belonging to a Buon villager but located in another village.
189
agricultural or housing land was left blank (see Figure 6-1) an omission which appeared to create
the possibility of mischievous challenges to the validity or completeness of the title129
.
Of the 365 plots of land in the village, there were 17 for which title had not been issued. Three of
these non-issued titles were for land titled as public land, one school and two wells. Of the
remaining 362 private plots, there were only 14 (or just under 4%) for which titles had not been
issued. Seven of these related to plots that were subject to ownership conflicts. These will be
discussed fully in the section on impact of titling on the social costs of conflict below. In the
context of the general inclusiveness of the process, however, it may be noted that the design of
LMAP, showed an improvement on earlier cases in the literature where a conflict over one plot
could delay issuance of title for landowners throughout an adjudication area130
(Hendrix &
Rockcliffe, 1998).
The cases where title had not been issued were discussed both with provincial and district
officials at the provincial land department office (Interview 232), and also with the households
who did not receive title.
Of the seven remaining plots to which title had not been issued, four related to plots for which
cadastral officials reported that all the paperwork had been complete and the titles had been ready
for collection, but that the households had not collected their titles on any of the occasions when
they had come to the village for that purpose. The four plots were owned two each by two
different couples. One of these couples did not live in the village, again raising the possibility that
the systematic titling process is unintentionally biased against non-local land owners. The other
couple were husband Sophal and wife, Navy, well-known to us as they were one of our case
study households. They reported that they did not know why they had not been issued with title.
However, we knew that Sophal was often away in Phnom Penh working on construction sites.
During those times Navy often took their small child to her mother in the next village, so it seems
fair to speculate that she may have been absent from the village on each of the occasions when
the titles had been distributed. Alternatively, as the officials mentioned, the household might have
been short of cash and decided they did not want to pay the fee at that time.
Of the other three cases of non-issued land, one related to a plot owned by the deputy village
chief and his wife: probably the most wealth and well-connected couple in the village. In this case
cadastral officials reported that he had earlier sought and received a sporadic title to his land, and
that unless he returned that title he could not receive a new one. The deputy village chief, on the
other hand, reported that he had applied for a sporadic title but never been issued one. This he
said was simply a ruse and an example of corruption:
―They want money from us. It isn‘t about anything else. They want two or three hundred dollars,
but they are not getting it from me‖ (Interview 288, Author‘s translation).
Clearly angry (at the same time as saying that he was not angry and did not care), he said that he
had lived on this land since 1979 and before that, and nobody was ever going to try and throw
him off it, so a title really did not matter. If they did not want to give him one he was not going to
129
The Deputy Provincial Land Department chief ascribed this to a lack of legal direction on how to classify urban
and non-urban land (Interview 190) 130
As noted, for example, by Hendrix and Rockcliffe (1998) in the case of Guyana.
190
Figure 6-1: Land Title in Buon, Photographed 2008. Front. (Photograph: Robin Biddulph)
191
Figure 6-2: Land Title in Buon,. Photographed 2008. Reverse. (Photograph: Robin Biddulph).
ask for it. He continued by explaining that he knew who they all were, and knew the person who
they rented their office from in town (Interview 289). According to the cadastral officials, the two
remaining unissued titles had been delayed because during the processing of the applications
officials had forgotten to sign relevant documents. That documentation had subsequently been
signed and the titles processed so that they were now ready for collection. In both of these cases
the villagers who had not received title were resident in other villages, and in one of the cases
they had been involved in a conflict over another plot of land in Buon.
According to officials at the Provincial Department of Land Management, the seven titles were
ready for collection. The owners would, however, need to get a letter from the commune office
confirming their identity, and would then need to travel to the provincial town to collect the title.
A small official payment at the commune office would be expected to be required, (probably
5,000 to 10,000 riels or 1.25 – 2.50 US dollars131
. Assuming that villagers know that they have a
right to go and collect their titles (and we have no evidence that they do), it is likely that they
would regard turning up at a provincial office as a highly risky venture, with the possibility of
131
This approximates roughly to what someone might earn for a day‟s labour.
192
either a high payment being demanded, or of being sent away because the time was wrong or they
had the wrong paperwork etc. In other words, in the context of the prevailing relationships
between Cambodian villagers and provincial and district officials it seemed highly unlikely that
these titles would be collected unless there was some external initiative or stimulus. This was
corroborated by one case we encountered where (similar to the case of Sophal-Navy above),
where a household in the village owned land in another village. They had not been informed
when titles were issued, so had not collected the title to their land in that village. They said that
they had no plans to go and collect it, but hoped that the cadastral officials might want the fee and
therefore would come to them (Interview 321).
Overall, then, at the household level the titling had been inclusive in Buon. If there was any
pattern to be noted in the small number of households that did not receive title it seemed to be
that people not resident, or not present, in the village were more likely to miss out132
.
The other level at which exclusion from titling may be a problem is within the household. As
noted in chapter 2, one of the risks of a programme that formalises existing land tenure relations
is that it inadvertently strengthens men‟s position in relation to household assets by automatically
issuing title to a male „head of household‟. In Buon, villagers reported that where land had been
donated to either husband or wife by their respective families that they had registered the land to
that spouse, but otherwise they had jointly titled their land and had been encouraged to do this by
cadastral officials. A specific issue that arose in this respect were the cases of two single women,
one of whom reported being a widow, the other of whom had been deserted by her husband
thirteen years previously when the youngest of their six children was still a baby. The first of
these women reported that she separated from her husband 14 years previously and that he had
since died, though she was not sure when. She reported indignantly that the cadastral officials had
said that if she could not prove this that she could not title the name in her own name that it must
be jointly titled, which it was (Interview 380)133
. In the second case, the woman having occupied
her house land and brought up the six children since her husband had left, had applied to be the
sole owner of the land. Her former husband, who had been the original owner of the land,
disputed this claim – strongly supported by his mother. The woman said that the ownership of the
land had never been an issue until the titling occurred. The disputed ownership was referred up to
provincial level and they adjudicated that because she had been the sole, peaceful occupier for
over five years, and had raised the family there, that she should be the sole owner. According to
her, one of the repercussions was that from the time of the dispute, her former husband became
verbally abusive towards her, and one day chased her into her house and beat her leaving her with
a gash in her cheek that required seven stitches under her eye (281).
Notwithstanding the unintended effect of titling in the violence suffered by this woman in this
exceptional case, the process overall had been inclusive including being successful in ensuring
132
The relative wealth of the three people whose registration encountered problems and the fact that two of them had
been involved in other conflicts raises the possibility that officials might have been singling out individuals who
would be willing and able to make informal payments to facilitate their applications. This was certainly the view of
our village respondent, but it would require a systematic analysis of a larger sample to identify whether this sort of
targeting might be occurring. 133
In retrospect, I should have sought out the village facilitator who assisted with the process in the southern part of
the village and asked him about this issue. It is possible that the situation may have been a little more complicated
than she was describing.
193
that women‟s property rights were protected both through joint titling and through the use of an
effective appeals process (the husband was somewhat better connected than the wife so it would
not have been a surprise had the judgement gone against her).
For the village of Buon, then, the process of land titling had been trouble-free. The sort of
speculation and shenanigans that have been encountered in some countries as people try to take
advantage of asymmetries of information (described in chapter 2) was completely absent in Buon.
The registration process led to title being issued for 96.2% of plots and of the 14 not issued, all 7
not under dispute were reported ready for collection. Both within households, where protection of
women‟s property rights in the formal system had been achieved, and at household level titling
had been an inclusive process (both compared to international standards and to the relatively high
standard of 95% which the project had set itself). We may now, therefore, turn to a consideration
of the impacts of this inclusive titling process in Buon.
6.2.6 Impact of Titling on Security and Investment
Our review of the national geography of tenure insecurity in Cambodia in Chapter 4 suggested
that Buon (being set in a lowland rice farming landscape which had escaped the ravages of the
post-1979 guerrilla war) would not be particularly prey to tenure insecurity. Our investigations of
the history of Buon and our interviews with villagers concerning their livelihoods and life
histories likewise did not suggest that tenure insecurity had been an issue. In order to confront the
issue directly we administered a simple questionnaire. This was in October 2008, three years after
the titling process began and over two years since the titles were issued. The questionnaire firstly
asked about tenure security today (after titling), secondly about tenure security before titling, and
thirdly about differences in agricultural practice. This enabled an overview of trends in tenure
security and in farming practice, and enabled us to follow up the results.
The aggregated results of this survey suggested a slight improvement in tenure security, as the
number of people who indicated that they were somewhat insecure in their tenure had decreased
by from 15 to 10 (see Table 6-11). There was likewise a small but significant minority, 7 out of
58 (12%) of respondents who reported that their farming practices had changed since titling. This
did not tell us about cause and effect, but did identify the households where titling might
potentially have made some difference to security.
Table 6-11: Tenure Security before and after Titling in Buon - Aggregate Responses
Are you worried
that someone might
take your land now?
Before titling were
you worried that
someone might take
your land?
Do you do anything
different regarding
how you farm your
land since it was
titled?
Yes 10 15 7
No 47 42 51
Don't Know 1 1 0
Total 58 58 58
Source: Field data, Impacts of Titling Questionnaire, October 2008
194
However, in order to contextualize the responses it is necessary to view them in relation to each
other. The majority of respondents reported no change in tenure security after titling. Amongst
those who did report a change, a large minority reported deterioration rather than improvement
(see Table 6-12)
Table 6-12: Tenure Security after Titling in Buon Surveyed in October 2008
Reported tenure security after titling Responses (n=57) %
Improved 13 22.8
No change 36 63.2
Worsened 8 14.0
Source: Field Data, Impacts of Titling Questionnaire, October 2008
Further understanding is achieved by grouping the responses about security with the responses
about agricultural practice (see Table 6-13). By far the most common response was the “no
impact” type, with 31 of 57 (54.4%) respondents reporting that they were secure in their tenure
both before and after the titling, and that there had been no change in their agricultural practice.
On the other hand only 3 (5.2%) sets of responses correlated with project document expectations,
reporting namely that their tenure had been insecure prior to titling, was secure after titling and
that their agricultural practices had changed. This does not establish cause and effect, but it does
identify these three households as potentially having had experiences which corresponded to the
expectations established by the project document and the theories that underpin it.
In follow-up interviews, explanations sometimes pointed towards the titling as an explanatory
factor, and sometimes in other directions. Among the three households who followed the project
expectations, two of them stated that their sense of insecurity prior to titling had come from fears
that the government might appropriate their land for development projects. In cases where tenure
security was reported to have worsened, this was sometimes ascribed to being unsettled by the
titling process itself (HH66) or to the flaring up of conflicts associated with the titling (HH53),
but in other cases it was related to other factors such as the perceived threat of war with Thailand
(HH56) or that a sibling would claim back land from them (HH25). In none of the cases where
households had initially reported changing their agricultural practice were we able to substantiate
the initial report and relate it to titling.
According to the deputy village chief (Interview 286) land titling had not made any difference in
the village, either to tenure security or to agricultural practice. We only ever heard about titling
having a role in either tenure security or agricultural improvement when we asked the question
directly in those terms. In all our interviews about livelihood activities and factors that might
influence people‟s choices or activities land titling and land tenure security were never mentioned
as factors. It was thus impossible to conclude that titling had had any effect on tenure security or
on agricultural practice in the village during the three years following titling.
195
Table 6-13: Impacts of Titling in Buon Surveyed in October 2008, Response by Type
Type Description134
HH numbers Total %
No impact (still
secure)
Tenure secure before and after
titling and agriculture
unchanged (NNN)
5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18,
19, 23, 26, 30, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42,
43, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52,
58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 67
31
54.4
Intangible Improved security but no
impact on agriculture (NYN)
2, 6, 22, 28, 31, 38, 40,
48, 60, 71 10
17.5
Negative impact Tenure security deterioriated
and no agricultural
improvement (YNN)
1, 25, 44, 53, 56, 65, 66 7
12.3
Project expectation Insecure before titling, secure
after and agriculture improved
as a result (NYY)
4, 9, 20 3
5.2
Other causes Tenure secure before and after
but agriculture improved
(NNY)
13, 15, 54, 3
5.2
No impact 2 (still
insecure)
No impact 2 (still insecure) –
tenure insecure before and
after and agriculture
unchanged (YYN)
49, 50 2
3.5
Perverse impact Perverse impact – tenure
security deteriorated but
agricultural improvement
(YNY)
61 1
1.7
57 99.8%
Source: Field Data, Impacts of Titling Questionnaire, October 2008
6.2.7 Impact of Titling on Access to Credit
As we saw earlier in the chapter, most credit obtained by villagers remains on the informal
market at apparently high interest rates of 10% or so per month. If there was ever an expectation
that titling would enable a wholesale shift of credit from a rapacious informal market into a
relatively favourable (3-5% per month interest rates are typical) formal market, then Buon‟s
experiences would certainly undercut those expectations135
.
134
The three questions were: 1. Are you worried that someone might take your land? Y/N. 2. Before titling were you
worried that someone might take your land? Y/N. 3. Do you do anything different regarding how you farm your land
since it was titled? Y/N. 135
In my experience the private moneylender is often caricatured in Cambodia, especially by supporters of formal
credit. Private moneylenders encompass a wide range of different actors and relationships, and credit rates vary
hugely. Without knowing more about the sort of repayment rates and the responses to nonpayment of debts it is
196
In relation to credit, villagers noted that both formal credit agencies and informal moneylenders
now took land titles as security for loans, but they did not report any change in the terms of credit
as a result of this (Interview 302). Villagers thought that people in other villages where title had
not been issued yet also got credit on the same terms. The village chief confirmed that titles were
now used as collateral for loans and named three households who had done this with formal
credit agencies (Interview 329).
The same pattern – that the title was now used as security but that there was no noticeable change
in the terms of credit – applied in the one case of a household having pawned land. Srei Phalla, a
very poor, single woman living with her young daughter had pawned her rice land with the Sann-
Heng family when the research began. When Sann and Heng wanted to raise the capital to send
their daughters away to study they called in the loan. Phalla then pawned the land with another
household instead. When she had pawned the land with Sann-Heng titles had not yet been issued;
when she pawned with the new household she had a title and handed it over as part of the
pawning agreement (Interview 306).
Overall then, during the three and a half years after titling was completed, we found that land
titles had become part of the apparatus of borrowing and lending in formal and informal markets.
However, we found no evidence of any noticeable impact on the terms on which credit was
obtained. Our research was not well-attuned to identifying changes that would not be noticed by
villagers. It may have been that there had been a slight difference in accessibility or in interest
rates, that was too small or gradual for villagers to have noticed. This is a significant point
because in order to recover the cost of the titles (about a dollar per plot to the user or about ten
dollars per plot to the state), a small but not necessarily noticeable improvement in the terms of
credit would be sufficient.
6.2.8 Impacts on the Land Market
In addition to contributing directly to increased investment and ability to raise capital through
credit, formalised land tenure is expected to facilitate a functioning land market. A functioning
land market might serve to reallocate land to the most efficient farmers, as well as determining
the most efficient level of land concentration or distribution and farm size.
As we have already seen in Chapter 4, land has been transacted in the Cambodian countryside
since the early 1980s. Transactions have either been trust-based with no official legitimation, or
have been informally witnessed by the local authorities either verbally or with a hand-written
letter (for which a small informal fee is routinely paid) in what So Sokbunthoeun (2009) has
termed a quasi-formal system. One possibility is that the new LMAP titles enable the land market
to function better, with a new formal market superseding and replacing the quasi-formal and
informal arrangements previously in place. The concept of legal plurality, on the other hand,
highlights the possibility that different systems may exist alongside each other, possibly in a
reasonably positive arrangement allowing people to „forum shop‟, but also with the risk that
adding to the different possibilities might create confusion and uncertainty.
difficult to judge the informal credit market, but the high rate of interest may indicate the extent to which
moneylenders are prepared to take a loss on a defaulter rather than enforcing repayment. Having said that, I have not
heard caricatures of formal and informal credit recycled in relation to land titling debates.
197
The post-LMAP land administration system, is based on a computerised cadastral register. All
titles issued during the systematic titling are registered on the cadastral database. Transactions in
land subsequent to titling should be registered with the district land management office in order
that the ownership can be transferred on the title and in the database, and in order that the
transaction may be taxed.
So how did the land market in Buon function before titling, what difference did land registration
and titling make, and how is the land market functioning today? The Land and Livelihood
Questionnaire administered in the village in January 2008 identified all households who reported
having sold or received land. In March 2009 we conducted follow-up interviews with four of the
six households who had reported selling land (a total of 4 transactions) and 15 of the 16
households who had reported buying land (a total of 25 transactions). Of these 29 transactions136
,
seven, (one sale and six purchases) were of land located in other villages. In order to assess the
extent to which the market was enabling people to buy and be secure in their ownership we asked
representatives of households who had bought land both about any incidents that had occurred
after the transaction, and also about any feelings of anxiety they had had with regard to their
security of ownership.
Of the 25 reported purchases, twenty occurred prior to the LMAP titling and the other five
subsequent to it. Of the subsequent transfers, none was registered with the cadastral authorities.
The land title was handed over to the new owner, but the former owner‟s name remained on it. In
three cases the transactions were trust-based with no witnessing or documentation; in the other
two cases local authorities provided a cover letter to witness and (quasi-formally) authorise the
transaction (Interviews 405, 410). In four out of five of these cases the buyers reported that they
felt secure in their ownership and that there had not been any problems related to the transaction
subsequently.
In the fifth case, a Buon villager purchased land for her daughter from a relative in another
village in 2004. By 2009 her daughter had decided to move to Buon to be with her mother, so
they planned to sell the plot in the other village. However, the relative is now objecting to the sale
and saying that the 2004 transaction must be registered first and that this will cost between three
hundred and four hundred US dollars. For the Buon villager, then, the consequence of LMAP
registration is that the former owner is able to obstruct her in the market by using the fact that her
name is still on the title against her. It is not certain that such a conflict would not have occurred
even had titling not occurred, but the case does illustrate that the introduction of a formal system
which is then not used does not necessarily enable unproblematic customer choice and „forum
shopping‟, but could create obstacles in a previously functioning market137
.
136
The actual number of transactions having taken place in the village since 1979 is likely to be greater than those
reported. Transactions are subject to a 4% land transfer tax which is collected retrospectively when land is titled. As
a result there is a significant incentive for villagers to report that land which they bought as having been allocated by
the state. 137
A reader close to the LMAP project provided the following written comment: “Undocumented/unwitnessed
transaction – recipe for trouble in the pre-titling system also; raises questions of whether the land was actually sold or
whether some other arrangement was reached – though I take your point that titling clearly strengthens the claim of
the previous owner here”.
198
Of the twenty purchases reported prior to the titling, none of the buyers reported any anxiety or
any challenge or conflict in relation to the transaction prior to the titling process. The introduction
of LMAP titling and registration, however, did create uncertainty and actual challenges to
ownership for six of the twenty buyers. For three of them (Interviews 273, 278, 401), this was
just a feeling of anxiety that the former owner would use the titling process to try and reclaim
their land back, but in practice in these three cases the sellers did not make trouble for them and
their anxiety proved unfounded. In a fourth case, the buyer had purchased land in 1994 (with no
witnessing by local authorities), and at the time of LMAP registration the former owner tried to
claim the land back. This dispute was resolved in their favour and now they feel secure in their
tenure again (Interview 347). The remaining two plots where a buyer of land reported feeling
insecure in her tenure following the LMAP registration related to transactions by a woman from
Buon in another village (Interview 311). The woman had decided to venture into money lending
and borrowed from a relative to finance this business idea. She loaned money to two men in a
neighbouring village. However, neither of them was able to repay and instead each gave her a
plot of land. She was not pleased with this outcome as she did not really want the land and did
not think it was worth the full value of the loan, however her husband (who was alive at the time)
encouraged her to accept the compromise. The transaction was not witnessed by the local
authorities, but the village chief in the other village had been involved in her attempts to recover
her loan from the men so he was fully aware.
When LMAP titling was implemented in that village, the two men tried to dispute her ownership
of the land that she had received. Their village chief supported her in the dispute and she was
awarded title. However, in order to secure this support she agreed to sign an agreement with the
men stating that if they, or their children as adults, repaid the full sum of the original loan (two
million riels or 500 US dollars) that they could recover the land. Having signed that agreement
she regretted it because inflation might mean that in future years these sums of money would
represent far less than the value of the land. She sought advice from cadastral officials and they
told her that the contract was not binding and did not affect her right to sell the land (Interview
311). Once again, there is no absolute guarantee that she would not have encountered problems in
relation to this land even if LMAP registration had not occurred. However, it was the registration
that initiated the challenge to her tenure, and she is now in a position where the quasi-formal
system is telling her that she has no right to sell and the formal system is saying that she does
have the right to sell. If she wishes to sell that land in the future she will be vulnerable to rent-
seeking challenges from officials both from the formal and the quasi-formal system.
Registration and titling are expected to provide the basis for clear, enforceable tenure rights
which are the basis for transferability in a well-functioning land market. This is expected to result
in related benefits, as transactions become less costly (no need to make unofficial payments in an
unofficial system, or to build fences and walls as substitutes for enforceable rights etc), and for
these benefits to become apparent in increased land prices. In Buon, the expectation was that the
formal system would attract informal payments. Titling had been a cheap and efficient system,
but people‟s expectation was that if they turned to the cadastral authorities to register subsequent
transactions that they would be likely to have to pay a fee of 300 to 500 US dollars, similar in
other words to what they would have expected to pay for a sporadic title prior to LMAP
199
registration138
. In Buon people did not notice any difference in land prices as a result of LMAP
registration. It probably would be difficult to identify a small price increase related to titling in a
study such as ours in Buon where there had only been five subsequent transactions in the three
years since titling. In the one case where a woman re-pawned land which previously had been
untitled and had since acquired title, she received the same price for her land.
Overall, land titling in Buon did not appear to have had a significant impact on the land market.
The market functioned well before titling, and still appeared to function well after titling. While
none of the cases were clear cut, a couple of examples from the village suggest ways in which the
presence of a formal system which is not utilised might be detrimental to the functioning of the
market by making new owners who have acquired land via the hybrid system (formal land title
transacted quasi-formally/informally) vulnerable to claims from former owners whose names
remain on the original title. On the other hand, if such cases do become common that may, of
course, provide the incentive for accelerated uptake of the formal system, as one of our
interviewees concluded:
So now we know that we should not put off the registration of the transaction until tomorrow, and
we know that we should not trust too much (Interview 285).
Perhaps the most striking aspect of findings from Buon is the extent to which problems related to
tenure security post-titling involve transactions in other villages. One of the expectations
associated with formalisation is that, whilst an informal system might work very well locally, it
will tend to create barriers to non-local entrants to the land market. The experiences of Buon
suggest that even post-LMAP registration and titling, attempting to acquire land in a village
where one is not resident might remain more risky and expensive than purchasing in your own
village.
6.2.9 Impacts of Titling on the Social Costs of Land Conflicts
In the LMAP titling process, if there is a conflict over a plot which cannot be resolved the plot to
that title is not issued and the distribution of all other titles proceeds. A separate component of the
LMAP project is devoted to supporting dispute resolution mechanisms which aim to assist parties
to resolve their conflicts at the lowest possible administrative level and without need to turn to the
courts.
The expectation of land titling is that prior to titling there will be a level of land disputes, which
will be temporarily and possibly quite dramatically increased by the titling process itself, but that
afterwards, once ownership has been adjudicated there will then be a minimal level of disputes –
implying that, notwithstanding the temporary problem of increased disputes, the overall effect
will be reduced social costs in terms of reduced land conflicts.
Below is a short account of each of the seven conflicts which led to non-issuance of title in each
of these cases in Buon. Once the cases are described they will be analysed in terms of their
overall social and economic costs.
138
A reader close to the LMAP project commented: “Issue in all of this from a practical point of view is why people
don‟t register - fees; tax; bribes; and requirement to deal with distant/high level officials – are the usual answers
given”
200
Conflict a. Burial Plot 210
Conflict was between household (HH) 49 and HH 41. HH41 had a burial plot in the middle of
HH49‟s rice field. The rice field was plot 365 and was not contested. The burial plot was marked
as a separate plot 210 and both households claimed ownership. The conflict was resolved with a
verbal agreement that HH41 had the right to have relatives buried there even though not the
owner of that land. The conflict was solved by giving the formal title to a third party, a former
commune councillor who lives near to both parties to the conflict. According to the village chief
this was the only conflict that had been resolved.
Conflict b. Scrubland Plot 332
This land had originally belonged to HH64. In 1983 HH53 had asked to borrow it. It was an
uneven piece of scrubland, „like a pig‟s snout‟ according to HH53, and they grew a small amount
of rice (ten bundles of transplanted seedlings – so very little indeed) on the lower part and
gathered fire-wood from the upper part. At the time of the titling both parties claimed ownership
of that land. This conflict has not been resolved and no title has been issued. At no time in the
previous 23 years had there been any conflict over this.
Conflict c. Pond Plot 330
This is a conflict between a member of HH64 and her daughter who now lives with a husband in
a neighbouring village. In 1983 when land was distributed the village chief had divided the pond
between mother and daughter, drawing a line half way across. Since that time the pond has silted
up, which has changed its shape, meaning that more of the pond is north of the original dividing
line than south of it. The mother is demanding that the new boundary be drawn at the half way
point of the current shape of the pond, whilst her daughter contends that the 1983 line should be
used. The disputed area is therefore a few square meters of mainly pond.
Conflict d. Plot 343 and Conflict e. Plot 344
Plots 343 and 344 are to the west of the road that runs south from the pagoda. They are now very
small plots as a result of the widening and improvement of that road. Both plots are claimed by
HH27 who have farmed them both since 1983 (although today they are so small that they are not
farmed). The disputants, HH26 for plot 343 and HH21 for plot 344, both claim that HH27 only
borrowed those plots of land, but do not own them. Again, this has not been an issue at any stage
over the past 24 years. The husband at HH21 and the wife at HH27 are the first deputy village
chief and village assistant respectively. The husbands at HH21 and HH27 are first cousins with
each other, and are also both first cousins with the village chief. The deputy and assistant village
chiefs can barely speak to each other because of this plot, which the village chief complains
makes work more difficult in the village.
Conflict f. Plot 215
Plot 215 is a small plot directly adjacent to the little access road to the village hall. Ownership is
contested by HH63 and HH45. This was another case of land being borrowed over twenty years
ago: HH63 claimed that they have used the land since 1985 and that it is therefore theirs; HH45,
however, say that they were only lending the land to HH63 and not giving it to them.
201
Conflict g. Plots 360 and 364
This household is not registered as belonging to the village, but is living on the land immediately
to the west of the school and north of the pagoda. The school director claims that this land was
handed over to the state by the pagoda and belongs to the school. The couple received the land
from the former chief monk at the pagoda (who was the father of the wife) and the household is
now claiming ownership of them.
The village chief was angered by these conflicts and frustrated at the way that he felt that the
titling process had caused them. When I showed him a theoretical graph of conflict levels going
from a high level, to an even higher level around the time of titling, and then falling to a lower
level he laughed and said that the graph should show that there were no conflicts before titling,
but many afterwards and that it gave him a headache (Interview 328). He was frustrated not only
by the titling process, but by villagers who argued over land that was so small as to be worthless:
―They don‘t think properly – none of them!‖ (Interview 329. Author‘s translation).
To some degree it appeared that the village chief was exaggerating the case, probably because of
the frustration he felt at the extra workload. Certainly two of the conflicts (conflicts d. and e.) had
existed before, although they did seem to become much worse after titling. However, the seven
cases taken together tend to support the village chief‟s assertion that they did not represent land
of any particular productive value (with case f. the land at the pagoda being the exception), and
that the titling process aggravated rather than improved the overall situation regarding land
conflicts in the village.
In Buon, then, is seemed that overall the most valuable land, namely residential land and
agricultural production land, was not generally subject to conflicts. Rather, because it was in
regular use, there was little room for any ambiguity or conflict. On the other hand, some smaller
pieces of land, of marginal value, were more susceptible to conflict. In some cases this was
because they did have more complex tenure forms – i.e. one person had the right to cut wood
from a piece of land whilst another still considered themselves as owning it and having the right
to dispose of it – and simplifying it into a single title of ownership necessitated (or at least
threatened) some part of this complexity. In the case of Buon, however, these parcels were so rare
and of so little value that it would seem somewhat absurd to try and create sophisticated multi-
layered tenure systems to accommodate them. Indeed one of the hypotheses that is suggested by
the study in Buon is that land conflicts in the relatively secure smallholder areas were LMAP has
been implemented are most likely to occur on land of marginal economic value.
According to officials at the provincial cadastral office, the conflict d (and presumably the others
though only conflict d. was being explicitly discussed) had been referred to the provincial
cadastral commission for resolution. They had been unable to resolve it and had forwarded it to
the national cadastral commission. The national cadastral commission had in turn referred the
conflict to the provincial court. According to what the cadastral officials had heard, it was likely
that the unresolved conflicts would now be referred back to the provincial cadastral office. Asked
202
if this was common, the provincial cadastral officials estimated that approximately 50-60
unresolved disputes per commune had been referred up to national level139
.
Overall, in Buon land conflicts did not appear to have high social costs prior to titling. If
anything, certainly in the view of the village chief, the titling had increased the social costs by
creating or restarting conflicts which could not then be resolved. He was clearly frustrated by the
difficulties his deputy and assistant (both relatives of his) being involved in such a bitter conflict,
which seemed to lead him to particularly harsh judgements regarding titling and its effects.
Overall, while conflicts clearly had been initiated or revived by titling, and not resolved, it would
be difficult to conclude that social costs of land conflicts in Buon were very significant in the
overall social and economic life of the village.
6.4 Conclusions and Implications
6.4.1 Relation of the Case of Buon to other Research on Titling Impacts in Cambodia
In order to draw implications from the case of Buon, the findings from the case study can usefully
be put in the context of other work that has been done on the impacts of systematic land titling in
Cambodia. This includes two beneficiary assessments commissioned by the German GTZ, which
surveyed villagers‟ perceptions of the impacts of titling (Deutsch, 2006; Deutsch & Makathy,
2009); a detailed case study of the impacts of titling in two communes in a rural district of the
coastal municipality of Sihanoukville (McAndrew, 2007); an independent review of LMAP
systems and procedures which judged LMAP processes against World Bank social protection
policies (O'Leary, 2005), a PhD dissertation featuring a survey of 376 households in three
communes (two of which had undergone land registration and titling) in central Kampong Speu
province (So, 2009); a field trip commissioned by the World Bank to follow up assertions made
in the World Bank‟s (2006) poverty assessment based on analysis of the 2004 Cambodia
Socioeconomic Survey (Markussen, 2006) which also led to an article in an international
academic journal (Markussen, 2008).
The inclusiveness which we found characterized the systematic land titling process in Buon is
reflected in different ways in different studies. Deutsch and Makathy (2009) have carried out the
largest scale study, surveying 485 villagers at sites in ten different provinces/municipalities as
well as consulting a further 358 people through focus group discussions and key informant
interviews. Their survey found very high levels of overall satisfaction with the titling process
(2009, p. 22) in all of the eight provinces and two municipalities where they conducted their
beneficiary assessment. Some of the elements of participation had not necessarily proceeded as
designed, with, for example, only 59% of interviewees reporting that they understood the purpose
of the public display maps posted during titling. Nevertheless, they reported high levels (“almost
100%”) of trust in the cadastral officials. On the other hand, Deutsch and Makathy (2009, p.49-
51) did find elements of exclusion relating to the process relating to demands for a 4% tax for
previous transactions on a plot of land (including sub-divisions, inheritances, and even
transactions on the plot previous to the current owner‟s).
139
One reader close to the project commented “From what we know very few of these disputes get processed once
they are forwarded to the CCs (cadastral commissions)”
203
In contrast to this image of inclusiveness, however, are the circumstances of some people and
places excluded from the benefits of titling. McAndrew (2007) was required to adjust his sample
because one of the villages in the commune he was looking at was involved in a land dispute with
a businessman. As a result, land registration in that village was postponed and villagers had not
received the benefits of LMAP titling in their struggles to achieve tenure security. Meanwhile,
O‟Leary (2005, p.10), who was looking from a viewpoint of social safeguards in World Bank
supported projects, found that households who had been settled on state land for 10-15 years had
received no recognition of their tenure and no possibility of being registered as possessors with
the LMAP survey teams. These cases from the literature further confirm the findings of Chapter
4, namely that in its implementation, LMAP land registration tends to be conflict averse, and
therefore people involved in conflicts with business people or with the state are unlikely to be
assisted by the project.
The issue of single women being forced to register land jointly with a dead/absent husband was
encountered in two households in Buon, and has been reported elsewhere as a possibly significant
issue in Cambodia. Research in 5 communes identified 15 women who reported that they had
thought that land was being solely titled to them, but who then discovered it had been jointly
titled to them and their former spouse (Mehrvar, Kim Sore, & Sambath, 2008, p. 10)140
. To
follow up that qualitative work, Deutsch and Makathy sought to identify the same issue in their
larger sample. However, whilst they interviewed 70 women who all reported headed their
households and owned a total of 274 parcels of land they found no similar cases. On the contrary,
the women they interviewed reported local authorities helping them to ensure that cadastral
officials registered land to them. The case of Buon reaffirms that single women can be in a
position where they feel that joint titling works against them. However, given that this was
already established by Mehrvar et al. (2008), and that the question now is one of how widespread
this problem might be, our research has not substantially moved that debate forward.
Regarding tenure security and its effects on agricultural investment the findings in Buon seem at
first glance to be different from those of some other studies, especially the recent beneficiary
assessment. In Buon we found little or no impact on tenure security, whilst other studies reported
titles enhancing tenure security and reducing conflict (Deutsch, 2006; Deutsch & Makathy, 2009;
McAndrew, 2007). However, the point here was that all of these studies reported on perceptions
of tenure security. Our method was slightly different as we first asked about tenure security
today, and then about tenure security prior to titling, and then compared the results. If we had
simply asked about people‟s satisfaction with titles, or had in a more open ended way asked about
the effect on tenure security people would undoubtedly have responded positively. It was finding
any tangible evidence that titling might make a difference which proved elusive. McAndrew‟s
findings were similar to ours in this respect. He found that people in the villages in Sihanoukville
felt more secure in their tenure compared to the situation before titling. On the other hand, like us,
he found no evidence that farming practices or agricultural investment had been altered by the
titling. Deutsch and Makathy (2009, p36-7) did find increased investment in residences and
agriculture but could not establish links between this and titling.
140
The authors of that study make no claims to representativeness, and give no detail on either the size of the
communes or how they went about identifying interviewees for their studies. It is therefore difficult to draw any
conclusion about whether there research suggests a common problem or not.
204
Deutsch and Makathy (2009 p33-4) found quite high levels of use of land titles for obtaining
credit, with about a third of their sample of beneficiaries having used their title to obtain credit.
This tallies with our finding in Buon, where it seemed that all credit suppliers, both formal and
informal, now expected to receive land titles as security for loans. Almost all of their respondents
reported that land titles improved access to credit but this, as in Buon, may not indicate an
improvement in the terms of credit, but may rather reflect the fact that since titling, a title must be
provided in order to obtain credit. Deutsch and Makathy (2009, p. 52) interviewed bank and
microfinance institution representatives who reported not needing titles for loans of less than
10,000 USD. Nobody in Buon had ever taken such a large loan. In this respect it seemed that
titling was of benefit to a richer segment of the population than the rural villagers who we were
encountering. On the other hand, the formal credit providers did report that use of titles helped to
prevent overlapping loans and often speeded the loan process. These findings strengthen the
possibility that land titling might be effecting terms of access to credit, but doing so in such
marginal ways that villagers do not notice the impact.
Regarding impact on the land market, (McAndrew, 2007) found increased buying and selling of
land, especially featuring the purchase of land by outsiders from the provincial and national
capitals from people who were selling land in response to health crises. However, these were not
perceived as being facilitated by titling, but were seen as a result of market trends which would
have occurred with or without titling.
The „finding‟ in Buon that subsequent transactions are not being registered is already well-
established in the literature, and the major reasons well-known: if the village chief can guarantee
your transaction for three USD, why would you risk spending three hundred dollars or more to
get the same task done by the cadastral authorities (So 2009, p174; Markussen 2008, p2280). In
this context the recent findings of Deutsch and Makathy (2009) that nearly 10% of transactions
are being registered is interesting and deserves detailed follow-up. It may be possible that the sort
of difficulties which our informants had disposing of land which had somebody else‟s name on it
might be an indication that a demand for subsequent registration, despite the high price, might be
starting to grow.
In this light, the finding by Deutsch and Makathy found that nearly 10% of subsequent
transactions (12 in a sample of 114) were registered with cadastral authorities is somewhat
remarkable. The authors‟ explanation was that these subsequent registrations were mainly for
higher value plots of land.
With respect to the social costs of conflict Deutsch and Makathy (2009, p31) interviewed village
and commune chiefs who reported land disputes being reduced in every adjudication area visited,
in some cases by as much as 90%. This suggests that the trials and frustrations of the village chief
in Buon may have been an exception to the general rule. Likewise the results of McAndrew
(whose scale and methods were more similar to those in this thesis) who found reduced conflicts
in the villages researched in Sihanoukville.
6.2.10 Buon and Geographies of Evasion
The case has implications for both systematic land titling in Cambodia in particular, and for the
arguments of this thesis in general.
205
The case provides an example of a village in which systematic land titling provides title for lands
that are already relatively secure. In this sense the village may be quite broadly representative of
the lowland areas where LMAP has thus far been implemented, especially given that there has
been a deliberate strategy to concentrate first on areas where major obstacles are unlikely to be
encountered (World Bank, 2007b, p. 73). In such contexts, the transformative claims that are
sometimes made on behalf of land titling – that it can contribute to a revolution of agricultural
practice (World Bank 2006) and bring into play vast amounts of previously „dead‟ capital (de
Soto 2000) are clearly unfounded.
Detailed small scale studies such as that in Buon give insight into cause and effect, and enable us
to understand how processes work out on the ground. If there is a situation in a rural village
where LMAP has been implemented, where prior to titling there was insecurity, and this
insecurity was reduced by titling, and as a result of the reduced insecurity there have been
discernable differences in agricultural investment and production, then it would be invaluable to
have those experiences documented by research comparable to that which we have conducted in
Buon.
As far as we have been able to ascertain, no such cases exist. We have not been able to track
down or identify any particular case where there was a noticeable difference in agricultural
practice as a result of titling. One strategy which would capture the potential synergies between
qualitative and quantitative methods would be to use the survey results from Deutsch and
Makathy (2009) to identify places where titling has been reported as having effects on tenure
security and agricultural investment, and to see if some tangible evidence can be identified in
those places. Until there is well-documented evidence that land titles are making any difference
to tenure security, it seems misplaced to make claims for poverty reduction effects of titling based
on improved security. The case of Buon stands in stark and useful contrast to the calculations in
the 2007 World Bank Equity Report where it was assumed that issuing land titles would increase
yields by 73% on agricultural land and as a result for every million titles issued would enable
over 430 000 people to be “lifted out of poverty” and the national poverty rate to be reduced by
3.36% (World Bank, 2007b, pp. 67-68). Certainly, the experience of Buon appears to challenge
the notion that these estimates are “rather conservative”. We will return to the slipperiness and
ambiguity of these grand claims in Chapter 7.
Having concluded the empirical chapters of this thesis we will next turn to a consideration of the
findings about systematic land titling and community forestry, and how those findings enable us
to answer the main research question about the relationship between property rights interventions
in Cambodia and the livelihoods of the people they are intended to benefit, and what that case
might tells us in more broad terms about the development industry and its interventions.
6.5 Summary
Fifty years ago Buon was a small settlement, with houses gathered around two ponds, surrounded
by rice fields, with forest around the rice field, both within the village area and beyond. The
population were overwhelmingly local – born and brought up in or near the village and earning
their livings there. By the 1980s the landscape had been transformed, with only the smallest
scrubbiest patches of woodland remaining in a landscape of rice fields as far as the eye could see.
Most houses furthermore were now along the roads in the village not by the ponds. The pagoda
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had been transformed from a thriving community a distance from the village, to a sparsely
populated institution more or less at the village‟s geographical centre. During the 2000s, long
after the transformation of the landscape, came an economic transformation. The local economy
began to be dominated by incomes from work in Phnom Penh leading to visible signs of wealth
such as larger houses, more and better motorcycles and televisions along with new, western style
clothes and mobile telephones. The distance between the village and the pagoda has disappeared:
with houses and stalls directly opposite the pagoda entrance, and its grounds having been
encroached upon by the school buildings and a private house. During the study period from late
2006 to early 2009 the village population retained its local roots: 89% of adult residents were
born in Buon and only 3 of the 64 households did not contain an adult born in the village.
The people of Buon had lived through a period of relative economic boom during the decade up
to and including the study period, but one that was quite different from that experienced by those
in Bey. Whilst in the past, Buon had been characterised by local income generating and
subsistence activities, during the decade the economy has been dominated by remittance incomes
from Phnom Penh. Young women have been working in garment factories, bringing home most
of their salaries in monthly visits to the village; young men have been working on construction
sites bringing in less regular and predictable incomes; older men have been working as
motorcycle taxi drivers in the capital. Traditionally, the villagers of Buon, like other villages in
the western part of Bati district, have weaved string out of sugar palm bark and then sold it by
travelling from village to village, often in other provinces. Today this continues as a spare time
activity for most households, often absorbing children‟s spare time after school, and especially
for the households who trade the string, this can be an important source of income. Rice farming,
while the centre of traditional livelihoods and central to rural Khmer culture, has become
economically marginal. Of 66 households in the village only ten habitually produce enough rice
to cover their own rice consumption needs, and only one household consistently produced a
tradable surplus. Even if the profits from farming rice on the village‟s 44 hectares could be
doubled, the economic impact on the villagers would be marginal.
The increased prosperity of the past decade, built as it is on the construction industry and the
growth of the garment sector in Phnom Penh, had already transformed outward appearances in
the village before our research began. Houses were bigger and better, people were better clothed
and fed and had more and newer consumer goods such as televisions and motorcycles. The
increased incomes in the village had also supported a number of small businesses – two
restaurants, a wedding caterer and photographer, a motorcycle repair workshop, a cycle
workshop, two rice milling operations, and a number of small general retailers – mostly by better
off households who had accumulated capital from working in Phnom Penh. At the end of the
research, however, the effects of the economic downturn globally and nationally were beginning
to be felt. The casual work on construction sites was being characterised by longer down times,
whilst a number of garment factories had either closed or suspended production because of a
shortage of orders. The key determinant of future livelihoods in the village will be the extent to
which households will continue to be able to access paid employment in Phnom Penh. There is
little in the village‟s recent experience that would prepare the population for a more intensive
dependence on local resources and little to suggest that arable farming, string manufacture and
animal husbandry could support any more than a very impoverished way of life compared to what
the village has become accustomed to over the past decade.
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Land titles were issued in the village between late 2005 and mid-2006. The overwhelming
majority of villagers had paid the small fee, had received the titles and had them under their
houses. A small minority of villagers had not received titles to parcels as a result of conflicts,
bureaucratic mistakes or for reasons that were unclear or contested.
Increased tenure security leading to increased investment in land is the main theoretical
justification for land titling. The majority of villagers reported that they were already secure in
their tenure before the issue of land titles, that they remained secure in their tenure after the issue
of titles. This was in contrast with the LMAP project document which suggested that tenure
insecurity was to be found throughout Cambodia, but in line with our findings in Chapter 4. In
the absence of any change in tenure security, titling had had no observable impact on farming
practices, investment or ability to raise credit in the village.
Formalised tenure is also intended to contribute to the efficient operation of land markets. In
Buon the land market was found to have functioned efficiently during the twenty years prior to
titling. The introduction of a formal titling system and a cadastral register had made little impact
on existing informal practices, which were underpinned by a combination of trust between
transacting parties and informal authorisation by local authorities. In two cases, however, there
were indications that the tension between the formal system and the informal system could result
in a degree of insecurity for buyers who would be vulnerable to assertions of ownership by
people who had sold to them, especially if the buyers were not local.
Non-receipt of title where it was associated with land conflicts, was over land of minimal
productive value. To some extent the titling process awakened latent conflicts but was then
unable to resolve them. Non-issue of title for other reasons seemed to afflict non-local possessors
more than local people. There was no evidence of poor people being excluded from the process,
or of rent-seeking across the board by officials, nor was there any decisive evidence that officials
were targeting wealthier households to try and extract rents.
Women and men within households appeared to get their tenure rights recognised in equal
measure, with joint registration of ownership being the most common, and with land titled to the
husband or wife if it had been a gift from their respective parents. The exception was two women
who had divorced or been deserted, but who were required to provide legal proof of their status as
single women and owners of the land they occupied.
Land titling in Buon village was a process that villagers were satisfied with. It was also a process
that by and large had done no harm: some conflicts did arise following titling which perhaps
otherwise would not have done, but these were exceptional and there was no guarantee that many
would not have occurred anyway. However, neither our observations nor the responses of
villagers could discern any tangible benefit from titling. As a lowland village in the settled
agricultural area of central Cambodia Buon resembles most places where systematic land titling
has been introduced, and in that case might be illustrative of the actual potentials of land titling in
the current implementation areas. The case of Buon presents and implicit challenge to those who
have claimed that LMAP titling can raise hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and
transform smallholder agriculture in Cambodia. The challenge is to find properly contextualized
evidence of anywhere in the hundreds of villages where LMAP has been implemented where
there has been any impact of titling on agricultural investment or productivity. In absence of that,
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the conclusion from Buon is that debates about the potential benefits of land titling should be
pitched at a much lower and more realistic level.
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7. Conclusions and Implications.
7.1 Thesis Aim and Research Questions Revisited
The broad area of interest motivating this study was the relationship between development
interventions and the livelihoods of poor people. This relationship was introduced in the context
of case study research from the 1990s which showed how the development industry
misrepresented the lives and livelihoods of people in rural areas. Those misrepresentations
overstated the role of agriculture and other local resource based livelihood activities and
understated the importance of labour migration. They also misrepresented rural areas by
depoliticising them, which resulted in depictions of places as unoccupied or without history.
Those earlier studies had taken place in an era when integrated rural development projects were at
the forefront of development intervention. Three decades later, when the fieldwork for this thesis
took place, institutional development set in a context of support to sectors and budgets at national
level had replaced projects as the primary modes of development assistance. Property rights were
at the fore of this institutional turn in development intervention, drawing inspiration from
theoreticians as diverse as Hernan de Soto and Elinor Ostrom.
By using the case of property rights interventions in Cambodia, this thesis has investigated the
relationship between the interventions and the livelihoods of poor rural people to ask whether,
with a new approach and three decades of experience, the development industry was still
repeating the same patterns of misrepresentation and failure. Had the lessons of past experience
and the institutional turn resulted in any change from the old pathologies? With this in mind, the
aim of the project was:
To describe and explain the relationship between property rights interventions and the
livelihoods of the rural poor in Cambodia.
This project was framed as a critical geography of development intervention, which would
incorporate: analysis of the spatial distribution of interventions (intentional development) in
relation to key features of the political economy/ecology (immanent development); the
conceptualisation of development as travel as a means of unpacking the discursive and political
factors which influence them; use of contextualised studies of place to provide an analytical lens
by which to examine the generalised claims of theory and practice. The spatial analysis was
carried out at national level. This enabled regional differences in tenure insecurity to be analysed
in combination with the geographical spread of two property rights interventions designed to
address tenure insecurity. This highlighted the question of whether the proposed solutions were in
the right place to address the problems they were supposed to address. In order to understand the
relationship between the geography of immanent development and the geography of intentional
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development it was necessary to understand the factors which shaped each. The specific
questions that structured the national case study were thus:
1. Where in rural Cambodia is tenure insecurity a problem? Why?
2. Where in Cambodia have tenure rights interventions been implemented? Why?
3. What is the relationship between the geography of tenure insecurity and the
geography of tenure security interventions?
Two village studies provided a contextualised study of place. One village, Bey, was in forest and
had hosted a community forestry project; the other village, Buon, was in a rice field landscape
where the national systematic land titling programme had been administered. The questions
which informed the village studies were:
1. How do people in the village earn a living?
2. What factors constrain and enable villagers’ livelihoods, and what is the importance
of tenure security/insecurity in those livelihoods?
3. To what extent do tenure security interventions make a difference to rural tenure
security/insecurity and rural livelihoods? Why/why not?
Synthesising the results of these three studies would yield insights into the operation of property
rights interventions in Cambodia, and might also contribute to understandings of how
development industry interventions in rural areas of the global South in the early 21st century
compare to those of earlier decades. This final chapter of the thesis reviews the findings from
research, provides a discussion of those findings and their implications in terms of both property
rights interventions in Cambodia in particular and of the operation of the development industry in
general. The implications for of the research for both policy and research are discussed, as well as
its other contributions.
7.2 Findings: Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia
To recap, this thesis has sought to investigate the relationship between development interventions
and the lives and livelihoods of poor people by examining the case of property rights
interventions in Cambodia, looking specifically at systematic land titling and community forestry.
The findings of the national level and the two village level studies are presented respectively
below.
At national level, tenure insecurity was found to have been a problem in almost all provinces in
rural Cambodia. In the transition from a planned to a market economy there was no initial means
of legally transferring state land into private hands. Logging concessions and economic land
concessions were authorised at national level, with various degrees of secrecy. This meant that
anyone attempting to settle on former state land was extremely insecure in their tenure, frequently
pitted in conflicts with entrepreneurs who were able to mobilise state officials and military forces
in their support. There were particular tenure security problems in the north-west of the country
where the displacement of local populations by fighting meant that military forces had often
developed a sense of ownership over land. This was also the part of the country where most
refugees from the Thai-Cambodian border had been settled, with less than the full enthusiastic
support of the local authorities, and therefore a good deal of insecurity. The majority of the
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Cambodian population, however, lived in lowland rice farming areas of central Cambodia, where
conditions were quite different and much more secure. Peace had returned to many of these areas
in the early 1980s and pre-war norms had quickly reasserted themselves in defiance of national
policies of communal farming and state ownership. These norms included locally-authorised
privatised tenure and a functioning market for land.
The programme of systematic land titling within the Land Management and Administration
Project (LMAP) implemented by the Cambodian government with technical and financial support
from the World Bank and the governments of Finland and Germany aimed to foster economic
development by improving tenure security. The project document was somewhat contradictory
regarding its orientation: on the one hand it was framed as addressing the problem of land
grabbing, including by government and military actors, but on the other hand it suggested that
registration and titling would only take place in areas that were free of dispute. In practice, it was
the conflict-averse rather than the conflict-solving tendency which defined the project‟s
geographical distribution. The programme has only been implemented in those lowland rice
farming landscapes which are characterised by security of tenure. This has mainly been a result of
a conscious strategy to avoid conflicts, justified on the grounds that the programme should have
some easy wins before it takes on more difficult challenges. This I have characterised as a
geographical diversion of the programme away from the locations of the main problem it claimed
to address. The current programme of community forestry being consolidated in Cambodia was
initiated in various places at different times by a range of national and international NGOs in
Cambodia with financial support from a range of multi-lateral and bilateral agencies and
international NGOs, and has gradually been formalised as a government sanctioned initiative
following the 2003 Community Forestry Sub-Decree and the related 2006 Community Forestry
Prakas. The main aim of the programme as expressed in the sub-decree was:
To establish procedures to enable Communities to manage, use and benefit from forest resources,
to preserve their culture, tradition and improve their livelihoods (RGC, 2003).
Only weak forms of tenure have been granted to communities, and these only over forest lands
that have already been degraded. In other words, where the tenure rights interventions have been
admitted into the forest landscapes which are characterised by tenure insecurity they have been in
diluted form.
Meanwhile, both land titling and community forestry programmes have been able to depict
success in the fight against tenure insecurity in the form of number of titles issued, and the
number of community forestry projects achieving formal recognition. These accounts of
quantitative progress provide a facade of success effectively concealing a geography of evasion,
where, unable to tackle the problems they are presented as confronting, interventions find
operational space in the places where those problems barely exist.
In the village studies, the livelihoods of villagers were first examined along with the immanent
development forces that constrained/enabled those livelihoods. The development initiatives were
examined in the context of those livelihoods. The development interventions were found to have
minimal influence on villagers‟ livelihoods, not least because those livelihoods were quite
different from the ones that the interventions claimed to address. Thus, in Bey village, people
were undergoing a process whereby the forests around them had been logged, and were then
being converted into agricultural land. As a result of the villagers‟ participation in these activities
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the decade up to and including the research period had been one of economic boom. One of the
consequences of the boom was a rapid increase in the population of the village, which doubled
during the period 2005 to 2008. The community forestry project in the village intended to secure
non-timber forest based livelihoods for villagers by enabling them to manage an area of forest
which would ensure that they could continue their „historical‟ and „traditional‟ means of earning a
living. Villagers‟ livelihoods had, however, long been dominated by logging and by agricultural
labour, and the forests in the area no longer contained the resources that would be required to
sustain an adequate NTFP-based livelihood. The villagers‟ hopes for the future revolved around
getting access to enough agricultural land to be able to make a living by farming. This reality had
no place in either the project document or in the understandings of the NGO workers at various
levels who supported the community forestry programme. In practice, the community forestry
project site was located 6 kilometers from the village on a route rarely travelled by villagers, and
was reportedly being sold off by local authorities (the commune chief acting in a private capacity)
by the end of the research.
Buon village, located in a rice field landscape in central southern Cambodia had also undergone a
decade of economic success, and this was also culminating in a period of uncertainty by the end
of the research. Unlike Bey, however, the village economy in Buon did not revolve around local
resources but around economic opportunity in the national capital Phnom Penh, particularly
through work for young women in garment factories, young men in the construction industry and
older men working as motorcycle taxi and tuk-tuk rivers. At the time of the last research visit the
global economic downturn was resulting in garment factory closures and the suspension of work
at many construction sites resulting in anxiety about future livelihoods for the villagers.
Systematic land titling had been promoted as enabling the transformation of smallholder farming
into a third engine of economic growth by giving smallholders security of tenure which would
lead to: increased investment in their land; increased ability to use the land as collateral (which
could then be used to raise capital for agriculture or other economic activities); a more efficient
land market which would put farm land in the hands of the most efficient farmers. In Buon,
however, the titling did not have any substantial effect in the village because tenure was already
secure, land was already being traded, and people were already able to secure loans against their
land at rates that were not noticeably different to those after titling. There was even a possibility
that the formal land registration system was might be making buyers of land less secure: neither
of the cases was clear cut, but we did encounter two instances where people who had bought land
were then encountering difficulties from the people they had sold to who were making it hard for
them to dispose of the land that they had bought as they wished. Rice holdings in the village were
less than a hectare per household, which is about the national average. Even if systematic land
titling had made a significant impact on rice farming in Buon it still would not have had a major
effect on the village economy given that rice production constituted such a small fraction of
villagers‟ livelihoods.
In each of the three studies, therefore, the findings were consistent in showing that the property
rights interventions were only able to proceed in places where tenure was already secure and
where there was not strong demand for land and land-based resources from non-local actors.
Meanwhile, the misrepresentation of rural people‟s livelihoods was vividly reminiscent of the
misrepresentations encountered in the works of Ferguson and Porter et al. in Chapter 1.
Households who depended overwhelmingly on remittance incomes from Phnom Penh, whose rice
production was insufficient even to put rice on their plates and whose tenure was secure, were
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characterised (or caricatured) as smallholder farmers constrained by tenure insecurity from being
the potential third engine of economic growth for the country. Households whose incomes were
dominated by logging and by agricultural labour, and whose future aspirations revolved around
their ability to secure agricultural land for their households, were portrayed as „forest-dependent‟
and needing to secure „historical‟ and „traditional‟ livelihoods that had in fact long since been
extinguished from their everyday realities and their aspirations by deforestation.
The remainder of this chapter analyses the findings of this thesis, firstly in relation to the specific
case of property rights interventions in Cambodia, and then in relation to how this case might
contribute to research agendas and debates on the Western development industry as a whole.
7.3 Explaining Geographies of Evasion in Property Rights Interventions in Cambodia
The discussions on the findings of this thesis in relation to livelihoods and property rights
interventions in Cambodia will be structured around three issues: firstly, how and why have
„geographies of evasion‟ occurred? Secondly, why have livelihoods been misrepresented?
Thirdly, to what extent have these interventions created opportunities for agency: for other
objectives – possibly humbler ones, or possibly quite different unanticipated ones – to be
fulfilled.
7.3.1 Development Industry Overreach and Geographies of Evasion
The ingredients of the „geography of evasion‟ described in the findings above are: a landscape
broadly dichotomised into secure and insecure areas; a process of diversion, whereby some
interventions that would bestow security are channelled away from insecure areas; a process of
dilution whereby some interventions that would bestow security are diluted such that the
„security‟ bestowed in insecure areas is not substantive; a facade whereby indicators supported by
simplified and exaggerated narratives are used to portray programmes as successfully enabling
development by providing enhanced security of tenure.
The proposition made in this thesis is that this geography of evasion is triggered by the attempt
by the development industry to support policies which the Cambodian political elite do not
support. Specifically, that the geography of evasion is a result of development agencies
attempting to support the Cambodian state to extend rights to people that the political elite does
not want to extend and would not be willing to support. Here, of course, context is king. In
certain places and at certain times, the political elite is happy to grant such rights.
This proposition links back to the theories of shadow states and developmental states,
encountered in chapter 2, which suggest that the political elite will always be engaged in a
political project (whether one of self-enrichment or of national improvement or a combination of
the two). My proposition is that one of the fundamental reasons that some people in Cambodia
are insecure in their tenure over land is that the political elite have an interest in them being
insecure. Any attempt to extend security to them will risk undermining other political projects
and will therefore be resisted.
Within the case studies in this thesis, the land which is insecurely held is found in the forest
village of Bey. And as we also saw, from the very first day of the research, the State was not
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offering protection to informal settlers. On the contrary, it was instead threatening them with
dispossession. Neither was the meeting on 26th
July 2006 in Bey when the Forestry
Administration officials informed many of the villagers that they had no right to live there, and
that the forest must be allowed to grow back a one-off. In Kracheh province alone it was
replicated in over a hundred other villages in 21 different communes (Interview 168). Villagers in
Bey also recalled that similar meetings had occurred in previous years. The authorities, then, were
deliberately allowing a form of tenure which was both temporary and insecure. Populations were
allowed to stay, but they were not allowed the right to stay. They could use the land, but on the
understanding that they might be moved on in the future.
The situation of authorities allowing people to settle, but reminding them that they do not have
the right to settle is, of course, reminiscent of the informal urban settlements that I mentioned at
the end of Chapter 4. Allowing temporary but insecure settlement of land can be seen as a way
for shadow/development state authorities to effectively occupy that land until a suitable
opportunity for disposing of it profitably arises. This has clear advantages for the officials
controlling the land. They are able to establish occupation of the land without needing to hire
guards or to defend themselves against accusations of warehousing land or holding it for
speculative purposes. Rather, by maintaining or renewing their own authority to evict the
temporary settlers (through occasional reminders such as the eviction meeting in Bey), and by
keeping the settlers on the land, they are able to exclude potential competitors from it.
Furthermore, they also have the opportunity to extract informal rents from these informally
settled populations. In this setting, De Soto-style arguments claiming that titling is enabling
formerly „dead‟ assets to become „live‟ by enabling them to be used to secure loans, appear naive.
The poor here are not sitting on their own dead property; rather they are sitting on the land that
the elite have earmarked as their own. They are not sitting on their own dead capital, but rather
are sitting on the live capital of the elite, keeping it warm until the right business deal comes
along. To formalise poor people‟s property rights here would, from that viewpoint, not be a
formalisation, but rather a redistribution of land from the very powerful to the least powerful.
My point here is not to engage in a discussion about the rights and wrongs of how the political
elite govern Cambodia. My point is rather that this is the way that Cambodia is currently
governed and that the development industry as currently constituted has little leverage over that.
To some extent this was being quietly acknowledged in the implementation of LMAP. The
village being removed from the titling process in McAndrew‟s study area provided an example of
how the titling process avoided exactly those situations where people‟s tenure was not secure.
When the Forestry Administration official sat in the schoolroom in front of the villagers in Bey,
and in very calm and reasonable tones explained to them that they were to be evicted, he did so
not as a rogue element, but as an agent of the shadow/developmental state. He held up a copy of
the Social Concession Sub-decree (Royal Government of Cambodia, 2003) which had been
drafted with international assistance with the aim of redistributing land and by doing so providing
safety nets for the poor.
Highlighting the phenomenon of geographies of evasion, then, is not a challenge to the
development industry to stop avoiding insecurity and instead to try and force the
shadow/development state to enforce poor people‟s rights against its own interests. There is
nothing in this research that suggests that such a move would in any way be successful. Rather,
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the point here is that, given that interventions will only be allowed to operate in certain places (in
the case of land titling) and to extend certain limited rights (in the case of community forestry),
that those limitations be acknowledged.
7.3.2 Bigging Up and Dumbing Down: Are Misrepresentation and Simplification
Necessary?
The EU/Oxfam Protecting Tropical Forest project document invested heavily in what I have
termed the „forest caricature‟ of resourceful forest-dependent, forest-dwelling people waiting for
the opportunity to restore their livelihoods by having the forests on which they traditionally
depend returned to them. Meanwhile, the „rural caricature‟ of rural people as smallholder farmers
whose economic potential is ready to be unlocked by integration into wider economies were
deployed in the claims made for LMAP, most notably in the World Bank‟s (2006) poverty
assessment for Cambodia.
These caricatures patently misrepresent and (at best) simplify the livelihoods of rural
Cambodians. The circulation of such misrepresentations would not surprise Mosse (2005), who in
Cultivating Development, a detailed decade-long study of a project in India on which Mosse
himself worked, argued that project documents are the means by which support is recruited from
a range of actors for projects. In order to bring together quite diverse agendas and positions it is
necessary and to be expected that project documents are ambiguous and (in relation to what is
possible to implement) over-ambitious. Policy, according to Mosse‟s conclusions does not direct
implementation. Rather it is the contrary – policy follows implementation, finding ways to
rationalise situations and decisions such that policies (and the coalitions of actors that they
enable) can be maintained.
This two-step interpretation of policy – that it firstly uses ambitious claims and ambiguity in
order to recruit broad-based support for an intervention, and secondly that it deploys
rationalisations from the experiences of implementation in order to reproduce itself whilst always
in fact following rather than leading events – in some respects matches well with experience in
Cambodia.
Many of the documents relating to LMAP contained great ambiguity. As I have shown, the
project document itself refers both to the tenure insecurity caused by people with military and
political connections, at the same time as plotting a course for itself that will avoid disputes. The
2007 Equity Report incorporated, side-by-side, the most overblown exaggerated claims for land
titling (based on the assumption that issuing title to a piece of agricultural land would result in a
73% improvement in yield over the same piece of land without title), at the same time as making
points about the difficulties of implementing the project in places where it might make a
difference which were entirely in line with the findings presented in this thesis. This surely is
precisely the sort of ambiguity that Mosse had in mind. The theoretical potential of titling to
facilitate land markets would appeal to neo-liberal tastes; the vision of smallholder farmers
strengthened and secured in their tenure would appeal to those whose vision of development
stresses risk aversion and the provision of social welfare; the framing of Cambodian tenure
insecurity in terms of neo-patrimonial relations and differentiated geography appeals to those
who know the country and the challenges it presents.
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The major critique of community forestry coming out of this thesis is that it harnesses two
agendas – one of forest preservation and another of livelihood improvement, which, certainly in
the case of Bey, are directly contradictory, but are presented as though they were a harmonious
unity. In Mosse‟s understanding, of course, this is exactly what policy formulations are expected
to do at the outset of a programme. By this means it is possible to recruit the enthusiastic support
of individuals and institutions committed to forest conservation and biodiversity, as well as
recruiting the support of individuals and institutions committed to poverty reduction and the
rights of forest-dwelling people.
Likewise, once implementation is underway, policies can then be reframed in accordance with
operational experience. Arguably we were seeing this in the arguments of community forestry
advocates who explained that there were many reasons for supporting community forestry, that it
might eventually prove beneficial for livelihoods in ten or fifteen years, but that communities
might well value forests for other reasons – as burial sites or habitats for local spirits or deities.
This could also be seen in the beginnings of a shift in the rationalisations for land titling which
seemed to be taking an unexpected turn away from market orientations. During the final research
trip for this thesis, technical advisors at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and
Construction were beginning to discuss the possibilities of more state-led interventions that might
be facilitated by land registration – specifically the possibility that some form of reorganisation
and rationalisation of smallholdings at village level might be achieved141
. For Mosse, the fact that
subsequent registration of land transactions was never realistic in the context of existing
Cambodian administrative norms, is not the point so much as that the promise of subsequent
registration and a functioning land market was necessary in order to recruit support for land
administration policies.
While Mosse‟s account is a convincing one, it remains profoundly dissatisfying. It replaces the
thinly-disguised outrage of Porter et al. (1991, pp. 197-198) at the misrepresentations of the
Magarini project document (see chapter 1) with a rationalised acceptance. The policy documents
supporting the activities in Bey and Buon in this thesis deployed win-win scenarios and policy
simplifications which implied that, with just a small amount of institutional engineering, latent
capacities inherent in rural Cambodians (whether in forest or rice field landscapes) could
transform their lives and livelihoods. Community forestry might enable villagers‟ to achieve the
„historic‟ and „traditional‟ control they once had over their environment and its resources;
systematic land titling might prevent land-grabbing and expropriation. The cases in this study
have demonstrated how outrageous these claims were. They have also demonstrated how the
maintenance of these claims has created a facade behind which the inability of programmes to
make a difference was concealed, at least for one project cycle or two. It would seem mistaken to
lose the sense of outrage here. More to the point, it is necessary to ask the question again, why?
Why do development projects need to be oversold in order to get funded? The answers are to
some degree well-known, and the brief sampling of the institutional economics literature on
development interventions in Chapter 2 highlighted them: the need to compete for funds (and
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The five or six plots a rural household typically owns are usually rather small and placed in different locations in
the village. This has the advantage of enabling households to spread risk by having land at different heights, and
therefore no household is unduly vulnerable to the inevitable floods and droughts afflicting an extremely flat, rain-
fed landscape. Consolidation of land into larger plots would potentially enable economies of scale and efficiency
savings if it could be done in ways that did not undermine the security/insurance of multiple sites.
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therefore to portray interventions as low-risk, high-return), and the need to demonstrate success
(and therefore to find indicators that link to the bold – oversold – claims made during the fund-
raising required to get the intervention off the ground).
This thesis provides an example of the way that the need to make unrealistic claims for
interventions shapes discussions of those interventions at an unrealistic level. During the writing
of this thesis, the World Bank continued to add lustre to the claims made for its interventions –
press releases and newsletters were issued with ladies sitting in villages telling the world about
the huge difference that land titles had made to their lives (e.g. World Bank, 2007a). One answer
I received to written questions (which were sent not only to the World Bank but also to the
Ministry of Land Management and to advisors supported by German and Finnish assistance),
tended to substantiate the sort of analysis provided by Mosse:
On the other hand perhaps it was the understood gap between what emerges in project documents
and what people expect to do under a project that allowed LMAP to proceed at all. That is to say
the project document created a vision of a project for a particular audience - not one that was
ever going to be implemented as described (A source close to the LMAP Project,19th March
2010).
Is there a scenario where interventions could be presented without being oversold in this way?
Where expectations could be pitched at a realistic level, and a degree of failure or compromise
could be built into those expectations? Must developing country contexts be simplified and
caricatured and development industry interventions overhyped in order to satisfy donor agency
desk officers, donor country politicians and the donor public? As a member of that public today,
and remembering my first awareness of being a member of that public thirty years ago in England
I know one answer to that question. Otherwise, it remains beyond the scope of this thesis to
discuss the nature of the Western demand for development industry services.
If there is such a gap between the world as described in the policy simplifications (including the
rural caricatures and forest caricatures deployed by agencies in this thesis), and if the
implementation of policy involves re-working and reproducing these simplifications, what are the
consequences of this for agency? How do development workers negotiate the tension between
the world of the project document, which structures their incentives, and the real world whose
influences permeate their everyday lives through newspapers and through everyday conversations
and observations? And does the space opened up by interventions, even if they cannot
realistically make real their claims, nevertheless open up possibilities for intended beneficiaries to
shape unintended benefits or opportunities for themselves?
7.3.3 Unintended Effects and Space for Creative Agency?
Mosse‟s view of policy as catching up with implementation rather than shaping it, and being
about recruiting assemblies of actors with divergent agendas rather than describing in realistic
terms what is likely to occur was not unremittingly pessimistic. He saw potential for interventions
to be redeemed by the opportunities taken by people in the spaces created by interventions.
Is it possible that the answer to the question posed by this thesis about the relationship between
interventions and the livelihoods of rural people is that the relationship is healthy and positive,
although not in ways that were anticipated in the project documents? Were development workers
able to see the project documents for what they were, see reality for what it was, and find ways to
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be of service in the large gap between the two? My questions to development professionals (see
Appendix 9) failed to shed light on these questions from the viewpoint of development
professionals and government officials working on LMAP.
Otherwise, in the case studied the answers to this varied, and were partly related to the argument
of overreach. Overreach in this thesis as well as having a more general meaning of development
industry attempts to achieve goals that are beyond its capacities and resources, is used specifically
to refer to cases where development industry interventions try to go beyond what the host country
political elite is comfortable with. Systematic land titling in Buon in particular (and in the sorts of
places where it is implemented in Cambodia) is not in overreach in either sense. While there is
clearly overreach in terms of the sort of expectations that have been manufactured regarding
transformation of tenure security and lifting hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty, these
expectations have not filtered out to the villages where the titling is implemented and do not
define the expectations that govern the daily work lives of the registration teams.
The titles are popular with government and with beneficiaries, who see them as worth paying for.
The programme is well-resourced and well-managed, with experiences from earlier programmes
in other countries factored in to its design and new developments, particularly relating to
computerisation and related cost-benefit improvements successfully integrated. The working lives
of the registration teams and the expectations of the villagers fit well with the output orientation
of the project so there were no particular reasons for resistance or for creative initiatives beyond
the scope of the programme. As far as we learned the agency of the registration teams was
exercised very much in line with what would have been expected in the project document.
The development workers involved in community forest field work were in a quite different
situation. Their project was poorly designed, poorly resourced and helplessly ill-fitted to the
situations of the people in the village. To the extent that it raised expectations – and these were
quite high in mid-late 2006, when official recognition was expected and villagers‟ forest patrol
schedules were beginning to be worked out - it utterly failed to meet them. Here, then, was a less
ordered set of circumstances where one might look for initiative and agency to reach out in
unanticipated directions.
As we have seen, however, field level development workers certainly did not become streetwise
opportunists searching for opportunities on behalf of their clients amid the confusion and
dysfunction. The community development worker was so rarely in the village it was unsurprising
that no particular relationships or initiatives were discernable there. Meanwhile, the young Oxfam
field workers, as we have seen, whilst they had never been to Bey, when confronted in interviews
with the scenario of livelihoods which did not match the forest caricature, their response was
characterised by anything but creativity or resistance. They would, they said, try and educate
villages to value their environment. In other words, if the ideas and behaviour of the people did
not fit the project document then the ideas and the behaviour should be changed. A more
sustained exposure to villagers and village realities might well have changed these attitudes, but
this was not an intervention that promised much exposure of even the lowliest field workers to
village realities.
We did not either find much indication of villager agency or new spaces for villager agency
opened up by the interventions. It is possible to speculate on what such „spaces‟ for agency and
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new initiative might look like, especially in terms of new networks and relationships created by
the interventions, however it is important to note that we did not find any evidence of these
functioning.
The head of the community forestry committee in Bey had travelled to other provinces and had
met people from a wide range of NGOs in the national capital and in those provinces, as well as
having had some contact with Forestry Administration officials. This potentially gave the village
an extra source of connections and patronage in addition to the deputy village chief‟s
embeddedness in the structures of party and administration, and the rather more haphazard and
illegible connections of the teacher to the alleged relations of the Prime Minister in his business
dealings.
The situation with systematic land titling is comparable. One can imagine that exposure to the
registration teams may give villagers some potential connections or confidence that may lead
them to approach cadastral authorities in a different way in future; the satisfied expectations of
the titling process may lead to a stronger sense of entitlements and an increased likelihood of
villagers taking initiatives to obtain services from land administration offices at a reasonable
price. However, again, in our research we found little evidence of such developments. On the
contrary, even after the positive experience of titling, villagers expectations of paying high and
unpredictable fees if they ever approached district or provincial cadastral offices remained
unchanged. The one villager who regarded himself as having been the victim of injustice had
simply given up despite the fact that he was relatively well-connected and much wealthier than
most villagers.
The idea of resourceful local actors – whether development workers or villagers – finding ways to
appropriate the resources of cumbersome, poorly adapted programmes to better ends is of course
appealing. We did not, however, find any evidence of this occurring in these interventions. That
is possibly in the nature of the intervention. If rather than distributing or redistributing tangible
resources, interventions are „only‟ seeking to change the rules of the game (i.e. to achieve
institutional reform) this may limit the resources and the sorts of opportunities that can be
captured.
Before turning to the possible relevance of the case of property rights interventions in Cambodia
for the development industry – the broader interest that inspired this research – some of the key
implications for systematic land titling and community forestry are drawn out. These do not
necessarily contribute directly to the main arguments of the thesis, but it is hoped that they might
in some way repay the engagement I have received from people working on these activities.
These implications are not framed as detailed, implementable policy or operational
recommendations, but it is hoped nevertheless that they may provide food for thought.
7.3.4 Implications for Systematic Land Titling
The broad argument emerging from this thesis with regard to systematic land titling is that it has
been greatly oversold. This particularly by the World Bank which has suggested that land titling
can improve output per hectare of agricultural land by 73% (World Bank, 2007b, p. 67), and that
titling would be the vital step required to liberate smallholder agriculture from the binding
constraint of tenure insecurity and enable it to become the third engine of economic growth in
Cambodia‟s economy (World Bank, 2006, p. 55 & 74). These claims do not have basis in the
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lived reality of Cambodian villagers and they do a disservice to anybody working on land titling
and trying to make a serious evaluation of their efforts.
For debates about land titling to better correspond to reality the experience of Buon suggests that
calculations of the impact/benefits of land titling in rural areas of Cambodia should start with the
assumptions that (1) titling does not impact on tenure security and agricultural productivity, and
(2) transactions of land subsequent to initial registration will not be registered with the cadastral
authorities for the foreseeable future. On the basis of this assumption, calculations of costs and
benefits would then revolve around finding ways to calculate the impact of titling on the terms of
access to credit, and also on the revenues generated by titling. What we are talking about here is
a programme that may make a marginal difference to the terms of access to credit. While this
difference may not even be substantial enough to be noticed by villages, it might nevertheless be
sufficient to cover the minor costs to villages of paying for the titles. Similarly, revenues to
government might demonstrate that land titling comfortably pays for itself.
One general expectation of land titling programmes is that they will facilitate the participation of
non-local purchasers in land markets (Deininger, 2003, p. 33; Markussen, 2006, p. 25) Of
possible interest, and contrary to general expectations regarding land registration programmes
that seek to formalise existing tenure arrangements, is the way in which titling in Buon did not
seem to make it easier for non-locals to participate in the land market. According to our findings,
people who lived in a different village from where they owned land were far more likely to not
receive their title. Furthermore, the cases where people did run into problems because the former
owners‟ names were still on the title were all cases where the owner was resident in a different
village to the location of the plot of land.
This may indicate that LMAP titling in the Cambodian context is not equipped to protect the
interests of non-local land-owners. An alternative proposition, though, partly suggested by the
findings of Deutsch and Makathy is that titling might provide protection to non-local owners, but
only to those non-local owners who belong to the wealthier classes who are able to pay the fees
for subsequent registration. In this sense, the most suitable place to look for impacts of land
titling is not a general comparison between the quasi-formal, locally enforced practices of the
majority of the rural population before and after titling (because they have by and large remained
in the quasi-formal system), but rather to focus particularly on improvements in the system
comparing the segment of the population who used the formal system (via „sporadic‟ land titles)
before titling, and continue to use the formal system by trading their technically superior titles.
This segment of the population are the people who are willing and able to pay taxes or fees of
several hundred dollars to obtain some sort of official authorisation of their land transactions.
Their experiences do not tell us anything about the experiences of the majority of rural people,
who are not willing or able to pay such fees. Nevertheless, if titling has created improvements for
this relatively wealthy section of the population this is nevertheless worth identifying and
documenting and building from, rather than investing efforts in spurious publicity claiming that
land titles are transforming the situations of poor rural people (World Bank, 2007a)
A final specific concern relating to findings from this research has to do with village size. In
Buon, the village was very small and everybody knew each other, and had overwhelmingly lived
there all of their lives. There was a high degree of social cohesion in the village. Most
households were related to the family of the village chief, and wherever you were in the village
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you were never more than a five minute walk from any other given house in the village. Villages
of 300 households are not uncommon in Cambodia, and I can think of one village I know well
where the population is stretched along 5 kilometers of road. Villages of 900 households also
exist – these are exceptional, but, for example, Dina in our research team came from one such
village. It is possible that in such villages the ability of the village chief to have sufficient
oversight to enforce security of tenure is more limited than in Buon. It may be that the risk of
appropriations of one villager‟s land by another are more common in such villages, or at least that
it is a more significant concern there. Disaggregating data on land conflicts and insecurity by
village size, as well as conducting qualitative research in much larger villages would be possible
ways to pursue this line of inquiry.
7.3.5 Implications for Community Forestry
A general point which the experiences of Bey suggest when set against the framings of the
EU/Oxfam project document, is the degree to which the effects of deforestation on livelihoods are
both transforming and non-reversible. The idea that „historical‟ or „traditional‟ livelihoods, those
that obtained in Bey sixty years ago for example, are in some way relevant or recoverable
grounds the whole project in a narrative which has no basis in contemporary reality. I hope that
the Deforestation Livelihood Trajectory (see Table 5-8) developed in Chapter 5 of this thesis,
might provide a contribution to ensuring that the implications of deforestations for livelihoods are
less easy to overlook in future livelihoods-oriented forestry interventions.
Three particular challenges for community forestry practice are derived from this thesis. These
relate to prioritising of development agendas, resourcing programmes adequately and engaging
private sector actors.
What we found in this thesis was that people working in community forestry were locked into a
way of thinking and interpreting reality that required livelihoods and forest management to be
mutually supporting objectives. Any other reality did not fit. By being locked into this way of
viewing people and their livelihoods agencies were failing to give themselves any flexibility of
possibility to respond to changing or unexpected situations. This is precisely the phenomenon that
Walker (2004) has documented in Thailand. An agency devoted to improving people‟s
livelihoods, on finding that managing small patches of degraded forest is not a promising strategy
for improving those livelihoods, will look for a better solution. An agency seeking to improve
forest management, discovering that local communities are dedicated to clearing forests for
agricultural use, will look for a different forest management strategy. Agencies, that do not know
what their priorities are beyond reproducing community forestry, will be immobilised by
situations where one or both of the forest/people equation is not well-served by trying to
implement a community forestry project. So one provocation from this research is that all
agencies involved in community forestry should know what their bottom-line commitment is –
either to forests or to livelihoods. Obviously it works much better and easier when these two are
in harmony, but organisations need to be able to respond when they are not.
The second very basic point regards adequate resourcing of interventions. Community
development in Bey was a one-person operation. And the one person was not a development
worker. There may be sites in Cambodia such as those identified by Poffenburger (2006) in
Chapter 4 where communities are already managing their own resource, and therefore an
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intervening agency does not need to do much. In a place like Bey where there is no such
community management already in operation, where there are conflicting interests within the
village, where powerful interests outside the village also engaged and where a resource has not
yet even been clearly identified, then a serious attempt to achieve change must surely require full-
time or near full-time engagement of at least one member of staff for a number of months. It
seems unlikely that however it was resourced that community forestry would have succeeded in
making a tangible difference to livelihoods in Bey. Other forms of community organisation,
however, might have some potential. Projects that assign responsibility for community
organisation in 28 villages to two development workers are surely doomed to fail?
Finally, and this may not be easy to operationalise given existing trajectories, is the sense from
experience in Bey that the private company with the concession agreement is a far more
promising development partner than the Forestry Administration. The Okhnyaa representing the
company in Chhlong grew up in the district and was a childhood friend of people in the area
including some of the Bey villagers. Forestry Administration officials, meanwhile, are rotated on
two year postings: the official who threatened villagers in Bey with eviction had only been in post
for two months and within two years he had been moved to another province. The Okhnyaa is a
rich man whose future is assured and who can afford to be generous. The Forestry Administration
officials are mid-ranking bureaucrats anxious to secure a future for themselves and dependent on
the patronage of their Forestry Administration seniors. In contrast to the Forestry Administration,
private companies with concessions to carry out logging or agricultural operations in state forests
do not have an institutional link to the concept of forests and to land being classified as forest. If
organisations are wishing to help poor people to achieve more secure tenure over agricultural
land in concessions it may be easier and more realistic to do so within the mini-fiefdom of a
concession than within the dysfunctional bureaucracy of Forestry Administration „managed‟
forest. Certainly in the case of the Casotim representative, he was prepared to approve households
being allocated 5 hectares of agricultural land each for agricultural plots. It is inconceivable that
any Forestry Administration official would ever write off state forest in that way, or that anyone
below the rank of minister would imagine they had the right to. These are all arguments to
suggest that rather than demonising concessionaires (and with some justification too – it was
soldiers paid by the Okhnyaa who were throwing villagers off their land and demanding
payments to return their motorcycles and equipment), and approaching them at arm‟s length via
the Forestry Administration, that it might be worthwhile to try and find ways to seek direct
working relationship with powerful figures within these private companies who have gained
control of state forest land.
After that brief digression, we now turn to the question of whether the research aim in this thesis
has indeed proved relevant for generating lessons with respect to the broader research interest.
7.4 Broader Relevance of this Thesis for the Development Industry
The aim of this project was to explore the relationship between property rights interventions and
the livelihoods of rural Cambodians. The broader interest motivating that was in the relationship
between development industry interventions in rural areas in general and the livelihoods of
people are intended to benefit. The purpose of this section is to discuss whether the case of
property rights interventions in Cambodia as presented in this research is relevant and significant
for the broader development industry. By relevant, I mean (as outlined in chapter 3), might the
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case of property rights interventions in Cambodia „represent‟ dynamics in the broader
development industry? And by significant I mean are the findings non-obvious and non-trivial?
Property rights interventions in Cambodia were found to either be located away from sites of
tenure insecurity, or only be allowed into them in diluted and precarious forms. This I have
termed a geography of evasion, and theorised it as a form of (shadow/developmental) state
resistance which is triggered by development industry attempts to initiate policies which go
beyond what the political elite is comfortable with. In the case of property rights interventions in
Cambodia this is proposed to be significant because the facades of success associated with these
geographies of evasion mean that the development industry inadvertently supports interventions
which have little impact on the livelihoods of the poor. Energy that might be spent on better
serving the needs of the poor is instead directed towards maintaining and defending the facade.
Is this a model that might have broader relevance? Might it explain and predict situations outside
Cambodia? Might it furthermore be applicable not only to property rights interventions but to
interventions in other sectors? My contention is that if the geographies of evasion thesis is
convincing for the case of Cambodia that it is also likely to be applicable to some degree in many
of the other countries that host development interventions.
The idea of a shadow/developmental state in Cambodia is derived from experiences of States in
Africa and (East and Southeast) Asia respectively. More generally, faced by foreign projects
which combine financial infusions with propositions for how they should run their countries
surely many of the world‟s political elites would react by accepting the money but then quietly
ensuring that the policy propositions are selectively applied such that they do not challenge elite
projects.
A dichotomised landscape with a settled smallholder lowland and an unsettled, insecure upland
with commercial concessions, deforestation and migration is characteristic not only of Cambodia
but much of the rest of Southeast Asia (2001). In Africa, Ferguson (2005) also portrayed a
dichotomised landscape which featured resource rich hotspots and hopped over areas in-between.
It would certainly be feasible to expect that initiatives allowed in the hopped over would be
shepherded away from the resource rich areas. Yet more broadly, the whole theory of Uneven
Development (Harvey, 2006; Smith, 2008) suggests a landscape where zones of accumulation are
carefully protected by political elites who will seek to protect the interests of capital in those
zones.
The only remaining ingredient is a development industry which is first prepared to push the
policy envelope (to initiate the resistance which provokes the geography of evasion) and second
which is susceptible to reporting success on the basis of quantitative outputs without spatial
modification (thereby creating the facade of success which enables the geography of evasion to
be sustained).
In other words, the key components of the geographies of evasion thesis are ones that are
commonly found throughout the parts of the world where the development industry intervenes.
The geography of evasion thesis therefore provides a relevant framework for discussion of what
happens when the development industry goes into overreach, and provides a working hypothesis
for that case.
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We easily think of land and forest rights interventions in spatial terms. However, all activities
occur in space and the geographies of evasion thesis could be applied to other sectors and at other
scales. In a health district, for example, donors might try and advocate a rights-based approach to
health services. In that same district the government counterparts might also be health service
managers who are profiting from informal fees in the sector. The geographies of evasion thesis
suggests that attempts at introducing public health services and vaccination campaigns in rural
villages might prove successful (there being little profit to be made by elites from these activities
in these territories). In treatment hospitals, however, attempts to introduce predictable and
affordable fees, or even free treatment, might well be subject to diversion and dilution. The final
ingredient, an insistent donor pushing the envelope and deploying generalising theories and
policy simplifications to provide a facade that conceals spatial differences and the political
economy of „development partner‟ engagements might also be present, although it might, one
hopes, be more or less prevalent in different sectors.
7.5 Implications of Geographies of Evasion for Development Industry Policies
Tania Murray Li draw a distinct line between the role of critic and that of programmer, and in the
context of The Will to Improve refused to cross the line to becoming a programmer for fear of
diluting her contributions as a critic. If I could recommend a programmatic solution to
operationalise the policy implications of this thesis I would have no qualms about doing so.
Unfortunately, the policy implications will be difficult to swallow, and it seems to be getting
ahead of myself to suggest solutions following on from a problem analysis that many in the
development industry would contest.
Like Li, I conclude that the development industry is poorly equipped to engage in political
struggles which involve opposing the projects of a host nation political elite. The difference is
possibly one of emphasis. She emphasises that this space is rightly occupied by other actors, and
named opposition political parties and social movements in that regard. My emphasis is more that
development industry attempts to engage in this space are – regardless of the moral judgements
involved – wasteful. Attempting to introduce rights into countries where the political elite does
not have a genuine project to enforce those rights is to invite a series of far-fetched
misrepresentations of the actors involved, and to generate a quite predictable scenario where the
resources invested are devoted to maintaining the credibility of the scenario rather than delivering
any substantive change.
The key word, however, is genuine. While it is easy in theory to talk about a political elite having
a fixed position and its own projects, it is much more difficult in practice to work out what the
substantive relationships and deals in the shadow political economy might be. Governments and
administrations comprise of many different people and interests. Donor representatives and
technical advisors will not experience such sharp dividing lines. They will have counterparts,
possibly educated, ambitious and energetic, who seem to potentially be part of a constituency for
reform. Development industry workers may even have ambitions to win the ear of Ministers and
other senior figures and convince them of the value and wisdom of the development industry
agenda.
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In the context of room for interpretation and ambiguity regarding constituencies for reform within
many states, this thesis will not, in isolation, persuade many development industry actors that the
industry is in overreach. Each individual situation is fraught with the sort of ambiguity that I have
just tried to illustrate, and therefore provides plenty of room for interpretation. This room for
interpretation can allow development industry actors to rationalise continuation of their strategies.
Meanwhile, as noted in chapter 2, a movement to retrench would be to reverse the trends over the
decades which have been to broaden the mandate over time: from needs to rights; from growth to
institutions, governance and democracy, from projects to programmes to policies to whole-of-
budget comprehensive frameworks and plans. The impulse to control what is beyond its control
runs deep in the industry. Each successive paradigm casts its net wider. To suggest that the
industry should find a completely new way to respond to its failures, by narrowing rather than
broadening the agenda, is to demand a fundamental change.
However, that is the policy implication that I think should be drawn from this thesis. The
development industry should take far more seriously the implications of trying to go beyond
where a host national government is comfortable. In general, if it is seeking to be effective it
should be looking not to constantly push host governments to go further (with its normal
repertoire of ventriloquism and ambiguously broad policy agendas) but should rather look to
retrench. It should be far less insistent in its promotion of its own agendas. This is not necessarily
because they are bad agendas, but rather because it is not plausible for the Western development
industry to achieve things against the wishes of the political elites of the countries that host its
interventions. Development industry representatives should, this research suggests, be far more
prepared to sit down and listen to the formal and informal positions of host country leaders142
.
The preference for the development industry is for being guided by internationally defined rights
agendas, rather than host government defined needs agendas. In this context, for anyone
convinced by the arguments of this thesis, a second legitimate response involves taking more
seriously what is required if a development intervention is to go beyond the comfort zone of the
host government. This is not an area where agendas can be advanced by short-term, output-
oriented, technical projects (the case of the EU/Oxfam community forestry project in Bey being a
small but vivid case in point). In countries where political opponents and union leaders get
attacked and sometimes killed, where key players maintain alliances through gifts and business
opportunities worth tens of millions of dollars, and where alliances are secured through marriage
between the families of key potential allies and opponents, the pronouncements and the
investments of the development industry will, for the most part, be peripheral. Nevertheless, if the
industry is going to try and have influence in this environment there are ways that it can increase
its chances. Twenty-five year projects with plenty of flexibility built in, would give a far better
chance of engagement than five year projects locked into a rigid output schedule. Employing
people who might stay in post for much of the twenty-five year project, or at least rotating people
such that they have two or three five-year postings within the twenty-five years would likewise
begin to suggest a serious agenda. None of this is to suggest that the development industry might
become a serious player in the context of the other forces in play. It might, however, yield the sort
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Some would suggest that the Paris Declaration and the aid harmonization agenda constitutes an attempt to give
primacy to host nation priorities. I tend to draw the opposite conclusion – that attempting to unite all donors behind
one plan owes more to a desire to gain control over agendas and strengthen donor negotiating positions with host
nation governments than it does to a desire to allow them to set the agenda.
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of personal relationships, contextual knowledge and time frames to enable a serious engagement
with a particular element of policy reform143
.
If that is a somewhat broad interpretation of „policy implications‟ which takes us quite a long way
from the specific empirical findings of this thesis, the research implications, with which I
conclude, can bring the discussion to a more specific intermediate level.
7.6 Implications for Research
I begin with the suggestion that the geographies of evasion thesis could be used to structure a
research agenda for critical geographies of development intervention, and finally I then leave the
reader with a question more specifically tied to the findings of this research.
7.6.1 A Research Agenda Shaped by Geographies of Evasion
Geographies of evasion, where development industry solutions are located away from the
problems that they claim to address, are presented in this thesis as being symptomatic of the
development industry being in overreach. And in the terms of this thesis, that means that the
development industry pushes agendas which are beyond what the host nation government is
comfortable with. In rights terms, then, the development industry tries to extend rights which host
nation governments have no intention of enforcing.
In this section I suggest a research agenda for critical geographies of development intervention
with three components (see Table 7-1).
1. The development industry in overreach
2. Alternatives to the development industry in overreach
3. The development industry not in overreach (in host country elite‟s comfort zone)
Item one on the agenda, “The development industry in overreach” would continue the same
direction as this thesis. It would examine more cases where the development industry appears to
be “pushing the envelope of policy reform”144
and look to see whether that overreach has resulted
in geographies of evasion of the type mentioned in this thesis. One item on the international
development agenda at present which presents the development industry in overreach is Reduced
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). This is clearly a western agenda which
is being pushed onto reluctant host country governments. If the arguments in this thesis are
correct, the consequence will be that REDD interventions will be diverted to places where there is
no deforestation, and meanwhile deforestation will continue for as long as it constitutes and elite
143
In some respects the discussion here might seem too influenced by Cambodian experience. Throughout my
engagement the ruling party has comfortably retained a grip on power, and development industry leverage has
always (notwithstanding „aid dependence‟ discussions referred to in Chapter 4) been able to resist development
industry overtures with some ease, even more so now that oil money and Chinese patronage appear to provide
alternatives to Western assistance. Such conditions may not be typical. I have, for example, little knowledge of the
impacts of structural adjustment on Africa and whether that managed to overcome elite resistance. Again, though, a
geographies of evasion hypothesis would provide a framework for analyzing those questions. 144
The phrase is borrowed from Shabbir Cheema who used it at a meeting at the Sida offices in Stockhom on 3rd
May 2010 when praising Sida for its leading role in promoting rights-based agenda and ensuring that the
development industry included governance and democratisation in its concerns.
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political project. The suggestion that there should be a capacity building and policy development
phase in a staged approach to REDD provides the opportunity for a temporary facade of progress
to be erected to cover such a geography of evasion. Given that REDD is a global project, it might
even be possible to see geographies of evasion at a global scale. The recent allocation by the
Government of Norway of up to 250 million USD to Guyana, a country without any reported
deforestation, for avoiding deforestation between 2010 and 2015 (so the solution travelling to a
place where the problem does not exist) does suggest that REDD may be a productive source of
geographies of evasion (Henders, 2010). Or more to the point, that geographies of evasion may
be an effective critical lens with which to analyse REDD.
Table 7-1: Research Agenda suggested by the Geograhies of Evasion thesis
Item Hypothesis Relation to host
nation political
elite
1 The development industry in overreach will be ineffective and will
generate geographies of evasion, where solutions will avoid problems and
facades will conceal this evasion and present success.
Discomfort
2 The development industry does not attempt to push government into
reform positions, other actors such as opposition parties and social
movements will play a substantially different role, leading to substantially
different outcomes.
Discomfort
3 The development industry, by operating comfortably within what is
acceptable to both official government policy and the agendas of the elite
is able to use its comparative advantages in technical aspects of poverty
reduction and make a substantial difference to the lives and livelihoods of
the people it intends to benefit.
Comfort
Source: Author’s derivation
Item two on the research agenda, “Alternatives to the Development Industry in overreach”
proposes enquiries into what would happen if the development industry did retrench. If the
western development industry stopped trying to extend rights that host country governments were
not prepared to enforce, and if it stopped giving unasked for advice (or stopped ventriloquising
requests for advice and then responding to them), would that change the political terrain? To
what extent would that change transnational political activities and movements? Li suggested that
development industry activities are taking space that would be rightfully occupied by opposition
political parties and by social movements. Is this true? Is development really an Anti-Politics
Machine, or is it more of a „doesn‟t make much difference either way‟ machine?
If item one builds up a case for the development industry being overextended and ineffective
because of its overreach, item two will provide insights into what will happen in the spaces left
after the development industry retreats from overreach. It is obviously not easy to research a
counterfactual, but there are historical and geographical possibilities to look at places from which
the development industry is absent or has retreated and to analyse reform movements there.
Item 3. The Development Industry Not in Overreach. Overreach has been linked in this thesis to
misrepresentation and failure. However, it is not likely that all development industry failures can
be linked to the industry going beyond where political elites are prepared for it to go. In
228
Cambodia, for example, rice farming is not something where the political elite have an
accumulation project. If rice farming becomes marginally more secure or marginally more
productive, that does not challenge the interests of the elite. Agricultural extension for
smallholder rice farming is not a project that would exemplify the development industry in
overreach. Development industry interventions here will not need encounter quiet resistance from
elite interests. Rather, the industry will be able to mobilise its full range of technical mastery in
questions of agriculture and of poverty reduction, without having to deal with issues of political
will.
Whilst the hypothesis in such cases would be that the development industry will be able to be far
more effective in the absence of „political problems‟, we know enough from Chapter 1 to
understand that there is no reason to be over-optimistic about this possibility. However, other
factors than elite politics will explain success and failure here. Again, I think that critical
development geographies are well placed to identify these factors. Changes in rice farming
practice in the past decade could be mapped, and agricultural extension activities over the same
decade could be mapped. One could then look to see to what extent there is any relationship
between the geographical distribution of changes in agricultural practice and the geographical
distribution of agricultural extension activities.
While not all development failure is because of overreach, it may be very valuable analytically to
separate development industry in overreach from development industry operating well within the
comfort zones of host country political elites. Of course, even when not in overreach in the sense
that used in this thesis, there is much potential for overreach in any development journey that
involves people, technologies and finance travelling from the West to places like Cambodia in
order to improve rice farming.
7.6.2 A Simpler Question (with No Easy Answers)
The „geography of evasion‟ findings of this thesis have been linked to propositions about
development being in overreach in relation to host country political will, and to the idea of
„facades‟ as explaining how geographies of evasion may be able to occur despite being
predictable, and to persist despite being quite observable. All of this suggests a research focus on
the development industry, and indeed on host country governments. It suggests an opportunity for
critical research to contribute to ensuring that development policy is generated with far more
awareness of what the nature of the industry is, what its intrinsic limitations are, as well as the
context specific limitations of interventions in any given country at any given time.
As we saw in Chapter 1, Ferguson‟s first explanation of misrepresentation before he cast it into a
Foucauldian frame, was that the development industry needed to describe a world that was
amenable to the sort of solutions that it could provide. An alternative way to interpret the
contribution of this thesis is to read it as disrupting such simplifications and misrepresentations.
After reading this thesis it should no longer be quite as easy for development industry actors in
Cambodia or anywhere else to deploy the „rural caricature‟ of isolated, agriculture-dependent
smallholders or the „forest caricature‟ of forest-dwelling people as forest-dependent and forest-
preserving. My conclusion in reviewing Thaba-Tseka and Magarini experiences in Chapter 1 was
that a well-informed, historicised, re-politicised description of the contexts for those projects
would not have generated ideas for improving the design of the projects, but would rather have
229
ensured that they would never have been implemented. Having read the accounts of Bey and
Buon in this thesis, what do you think could or should be done there? If a fourteen or fifteen year
old boy in England wanted to give some money or time to combat poverty in these two villages,
how do you think the development industry could or should spend his money such that a pound
of it might make ten pence worth of difference in Bey or Buon? And if the development industry
is not a suitable vehicle for that journey, what might the alternative be?
230
Summary
This study of property rights interventions by the development industry in contemporary rural
Cambodia is motivated by an interest in the relationship between development interventions and
the livelihoods of poor people.
A departure point for the thesis was case study research from the 1990s which showed how the
development industry misrepresented the lives and livelihoods of people in rural areas. Those
misrepresentations overstated the role of agriculture and other local resource based livelihood
activities and understated the importance of labour migration. They also misrepresented rural
areas by depoliticising them, which resulted in depictions of places as unoccupied or without
history. Those earlier studies had taken place in an era when integrated rural development
projects were at the forefront of development intervention. Three decades later, when the
fieldwork for this thesis took place, institutional development set in a context of support to
sectors and budgets at national level had replaced projects as the primary modes of development
assistance. Property rights have been at the fore of this institutional turn in development
intervention, drawing inspiration from theoreticians as diverse as Hernan de Soto and Elinor
Oström.
This thesis used the case of property rights interventions in Cambodia, and their relationship to
the lives and livelihoods of poor rural people to ask whether, with a new approach and three
decades of experience, the development industry was still repeating the same patterns of
misrepresentation and failure. Had the lessons of past experience and the institutional turn
resulted in any change from the old pathologies? The aim of the study was therefore:
To describe and explain the relationship between property rights interventions and the
livelihoods of the rural poor in Cambodia.
The study was approached as a critical geography of development intervention. This incorporated
three elements: studies of the spatial distribution of interventions (intentional development) in
relation to key features of the political economy/ecology (immanent development);
contextualised studies of place providing an analytical lens through which to view the
generalising claims of theory and policy; a conceptualisation of interventions as journeys which
facilitate analysis of the interests and discourses at different locations and times which determine
which interventions travel to which places and why. The research consisted of three cases studies.
A national case study of Cambodia enabled regional differences in tenure insecurity to be
analysed in combination with the geographical spread of two property rights interventions,
systematic land titling and community forestry, designed to address tenure insecurity. The
specific questions that structured the national analysis were thus:
1. Where in rural Cambodia is tenure insecurity a problem? Why?
2. Where in Cambodia have tenure rights interventions been implemented? Why?
3. What is the relationship between the geography of tenure insecurity and the geography of
tenure security interventions?
231
At national level, tenure insecurity was found to have been a problem in almost all provinces in
rural Cambodia. In the transition from a state planned to a market economy there had been no
initial means of legally transferring state land into private hands. Logging concessions and
economic land concessions were authorised at national level, with various degrees of secrecy.
This meant that rural villagers trying to settle former state land were extremely insecure in their
tenure, frequently pitted in conflicts with entrepreneurs who were able to mobilise state officials
and military forces in their support. There were particular tenure security problems in the north-
west of the country which following the conflicts of the 1980s had higher concentrations of both
military forces and returned refugees. In contrast to this apparently general insecurity was the
situation in the lowland rice farming areas of central Cambodia where the majority of the
country‟s population live. Peace had returned to these in the early 1980s and traditional norms
had quickly reasserted themselves in defiance of national policies of communal farming and state
ownership. These norms included privatised tenure (developed by inheritance and use and
enforced by community norms and local authority sanction), and a functioning market for land.
In rural areas systematic land titling by the Land Management and Administration Project
(LMAP) implemented by the Cambodian government with technical and financial support from
the World Bank and the governments of Finland and Germany has only been implemented in the
low land rice farming landscapes which are characterised by security of tenure, partly as the
result of a conscious strategy to avoid conflicts and to have some early successes. This I have
characterised as a geographical diversion of the programme away from its supposed focus. The
programme of community forestry in Cambodia was initiated by diverse national and
international NGOs in Cambodia with financial support from a range of multi-lateral and bilateral
agencies and international NGOs, and has gradually been formalised as a government sanctioned
initiative following the 2003 community forestry sub-decree and the related 2006 Community
Forestry Prakas. Only weak forms of tenure have been granted to communities, and these only
over forest lands that have already been degraded. In other words, where the tenure rights
interventions have been admitted into landscapes characterised by insecurity they have been in
diluted form. Meanwhile, the ability of the programmes to depict success in the fight against
tenure insecurity in the form of number of titles issued, and the number of community forestry
projects achieving formal recognition enables a facade of success to be co-produced by the
sponsors of the interventions both national and international. Behind the facade, however, is a
geography of evasion, where, unable to tackle the problems they set out to confront, interventions
find operational space in the places where those problems barely exist. A key trigger to
geographies of evasion is the tendency to overreach by the development industry, in the sense
that it attempts to promote initiatives for which there is not genuine political support from the
host country government.
While the national level enquiry could yield geographical insights at a regional level, it could not
provide detailed, contextualised account of people‟s livelihoods, nor of the changes wrought by
the interventions on those livelihoods. These were provided by two village studies: one in a
village in forest that had hosted a community forestry project; the other a village in a rice field
landscape where the national systematic land titling programme had been administered. The
questions which informed the village studies were:
232
1. How do people in the village earn a living?
2. What factors constrain and enable villagers’ livelihoods, and what is the importance of
tenure security/insecurity in those livelihoods?
3. To what extent do tenure security interventions make a difference to rural tenure
security/insecurity and rural livelihoods? Why/why not?
Property rights interventions in Cambodia have been justified in terms of their ability to
transform rural livelihoods. Systematic land titling would bestow tenure security on smallholder
farmers enabling them to invest in their land, to raise capital with the formal credit sector and
potentially to become a third engine of growth for the Cambodian economy. A parallel and partly
conflicting justification was that titling would enable a land market, which would improve
productivity by allocating land to the most efficient farmers. Community forestry, meanwhile,
would enable communities to regain control of resources that they traditionally managed and to
thereby improve both forest management and local livelihoods.
The review of theoretical literature in the thesis established that these potentials are not available
at all times and in all contexts. Land titling must be supplemented by formal institutions that will
enforce ownership, provide credit, authorise transfers at a reasonable cost. Benefits, furthermore,
will only accrue to the extent that these conditions did not already exist prior to land registration
and titling. Common property regimes, meanwhile, rely on the community being able to exclude
outsiders at reasonable cost (otherwise they become open access regimes prone to „tragedies of
the commons‟), and are only likely to succeed when the commons resource is relatively important
in people‟s livelihoods, and when ecological, economic and demographic conditions are
reasonably stable.
In the village studies, the development interventions were found to have little or no influence on
villagers‟ livelihoods. In Bey village, people had undergone a process whereby the forests around
them were first logged, and then were being converted into agricultural land. They had
participated in both of these processes and, as a result of that participation, the decade up to and
including the research period had been one of economic boom for the villagers. It had also been a
time of population growth with the population of the village doubling between 2005 and 2008.
The community forestry project in the village intended to secure non-timber forest based
livelihoods for villagers by enabling them to manage an area of forest which would ensure that
they could continue their „historical‟ and „traditional‟ means of earning a living. Villagers‟
livelihoods had, however, long been dominated by logging and by agricultural labour. The
villagers‟ hopes for the future revolved around getting access to enough agricultural land to be
able to make a living by farming. This reality had no place in either the project document or in
the understandings of the NGO workers at various levels who supported the community forestry
programme. In practice, the community forestry project site was located 6 kilometers from the
village on a route rarely travelled by villagers, and was reportedly in the process of being sold off
by local authorities by the end of the research.
Buon village, located in a rice field landscape in central southern Cambodia had also undergone a
decade of economic success, and this was also culminating in a period of uncertainty by the end
of the research. Unlike Bey, however, the village economy in Buon did not revolve around local
resources but around economic opportunity in the national capital Phnom Penh, particularly
through work for young women in garment factories, young men in the construction industry and
233
older men working as motorcycle taxi and tuk-tuk drivers. At the time of the last research visit
the global economic downturn was resulting in garment factory closures and the suspension of
work at many construction sites resulting in anxiety about future livelihoods for the villagers. In
Buon, the land registration and titling process did not have any substantial effect because tenure
was already secure, land was already being traded, and people were already able to secure loans
against their land at rates which were not noticeably different to those after titling. To some
extent, the new formal system appeared to become a focus (though not necessary a causal factor)
for disputes, as people who had sold land but only registered the transaction with the local
authorities, then exercised leverage over the new owners, weakening or limiting their tenure
rights. Even if systematic land titling had made a significant impact on rice farming in Buon that
would still not have had a major effect on the village economy because rice production
constituted such a small fraction of villagers‟ livelihoods.
In each of the three studies (both the national study and the two village studies), therefore, the
findings were consistent in showing that the property rights interventions were only able to
proceed in places where tenure was already secure and where there was not strong demand from
non-local actors. Meanwhile, the misrepresentation of rural people‟s livelihoods was vividly
reminiscent of the works of Ferguson and Porter et al. from the 1990s. Households who depended
overwhelmingly on remittance incomes from Phnom Penh, whose rice production was
insufficient even to put rice on their plates and whose tenure was secure, were characterised as
smallholder farmers constrained by tenure insecurity from being the potential third engine of
economic growth for the country. Households whose incomes were dominated by logging and by
agricultural labour, and whose future aspirations revolved around their ability to secure
agricultural land for their households, were portrayed as „forest-dependent‟ and needing to secure
„historical‟ and „traditional‟ livelihoods that had long since been extinguished by deforestation.
The thesis suggests that community forestry is ill-served by a determination to frame all
situations as ones in which livelihoods and forest management are in harmony. It raises the
question of whether community forestry proponents should not have a fallback position
prioritising either forest management or livelihood improvement. It also proposes the
Deforestation Livelihood Trajectory as an analytical tool to deter practitioners from adopting
some of the common simplifications in this regard. The thesis suggests that international support
for land titling has been ill-served by attempts to oversell its potential as a means to deliver tenure
security. This is not realistically within its compass. This distracts from other questions more
realistically within the scope of intervention. Do benefits in improved terms of credit to rural title
holders outweigh the cost of the titles? Does the register of transfers post-titling function in a way
that serves a broader public interest than the sporadic titling arrangements that preceded it?
Overall the thesis is a cautionary tale for the development industry. It suggests that the industry
may still be far too likely to deal in misrepresentations of the situations in which it intervenes,
dooming those interventions to irrelevance and ineffectiveness. It further suggests that the
industry may be far too insistent on trying to promote rights in situations where there is no
realistic prospect of them being enforced. The general implication, then, is that either the
development industry should refrain from trying to go further than host governments are willing
to and limit itself to the sort of „technical‟ projects that its current output-oriented and short-term
management arrangements are suited to, or, if it wishes to attempt to influence host country
politics, to undergo radical restructuring.
234
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249
Appendices
Appendix 1. List of Interviews Cited
Interviews are grouped: Bey 1-169; non-village 170-269; Buon 270-405
Some interviews were audio-recorded – those are indicated in the remarks column.
A small number of „interviews‟ were not formal interviews but were either conversations which
were written up later or conversations observed during the research. Where that was the case it is
likewise specified both in the remarks column and the text of the thesis.
Interviews covering land transactions are recorded as separate interviews, one per transaction,
although (as the dates and remarks make clear) they were one interview, e.g. Interviews 310, 311
and 312 were carried out at one sitting.
Numb
er
Date F/M145
146Inter
-viewer
HH147
Remarks148
3 070921 FM SD 4 Older couple and adult daughter. Came to Bey in 2000s
6 081023 FM OS 4 Daughter and son-in-law
11 080122 M RB 16 Middle-aged man, resident since 1990s
12 090215 M RB 16 Older man. Local, born in next commune.
13 081027 M RB 16 Same as 12
15 070315 F RB 28 Woman came to Bey in 2000s
17 080123 M RB 28 Man came to Bey in 2000s
18 081023 F RB 28 As for 15
21 061105 F RB 31 Middle-aged woman came to village in 1990s
22 070301 F TS 31 As 21
26 080122 F TS 31 As 21
31 080123 FM HC 43 Couple. Both born in the village.
41 080124 F HC 65 Young woman, came to village as child
43 090215 F HC 65 As 41
45 081024 F OS 74 Middle-aged woman, came from Mekong in 1990s
51 090216 F RB 2 Middle-aged woman, came from Mekong in 1990s
54 080125 F RB 18 Middle-aged woman came from Mekong in 1990s
145
F=female; M=male; FM=male and female interviewees together; FF=female interviewees together. 146
RB = Mr Robin Biddulph; TS = Ms Ton Saroth; SD = Mr Sang Dina; HC = Ms Hem Chanreth; OS = Mr Oueun
Sokra 147
HH = household number. This is from my own cataloguing and mapping, but enables the reader to see which
responses have come from the same person. 148
For Bey villagers, origins of interviewees are given as they are of explanatory value. In Buon with an
overwhelmingly locally born population this information is not provided.
250
55 080125 FM RB 18 Middle-aged couple came from Mekong in 1990s
57 070301 FM RB 20 Younger couple from came from Kampong Cham early 2000s
61 081024 FM RB 25 Young couple came from Mekong in 1990s
62 081025 M TS 26 Middle-aged man married to native of village.
64 060802 M RB 29 Middle-aged man, came to village in 1990s
70 081023 M OS 29 As 64
71 081026 M RB 29 As 64. Audio-recorded
77 081024 FM TS 34 Younger couple, she born in Bey, he from another province
80 070919 F RB 36 Middle-aged woman, born in village
83 090218 F HC 36 As 80
85 081026 M HC 39 Younger man, born in the village
87 081026 M HC 48 Middle-aged man born in Bey (as is his wife)
91 070916 M RB 51 Older man, born in village
96 060726 M RB 62 Older man, came to village from Mekong in 1990s
100 070919 F RB 62 Conversation observed by RB
101 080124 FM RB 62 Middle-aged couple, came from Mekong in 1990s
103 081023 M RB 62 Older man, came to village from Mekong in 1990s
104 081024 F RB 62 Middle-aged woman, came from Mekong in 1990s
108 090217 M RB 62 Older man, came to village from Mekong in 1990s
109 080124 F TS 66 Old woman born in the village
110 081025 F HC 66 Old woman born in the village
112 081025 F HC 67 Old woman born in the village
115 080124 M RB 73 Older man, born in village
127 081026 M OS 88 Young man came to village in 2000s
145 081025 M RB 11
5
Young man came to village in 2000s. Information given in
conversation at river, not a deliberate interview.
Beginning of Bey village interviews
172 090220 M RB - RECOFTC official, Kracheh province
174 070912 M RB - Donor representative engaged with forestry issues
179 070911 M RB - Oxfam, old manager of the CF project
181 090304 M RB - Oxfam, new manager of the CF project
182 060717 M RB Oxfam, programme assistant
183 070223 M RB - Oxfam, proramme
184 081102 M RB - Oxfam, programme assistant
185 081030 M RB - Oxfam, programme officer
186 081030 F RB - Oxfam, programme officer
187 081029 M RB - EU Attaché, Natural Resource Management
193 081029 M RB - Provincial Land Management official
203 070921 M RB - BLO director
251
204 081029 M RB - BLO director (audio-recorded interview)
208 070226 M RB - Forestry Administration officials, Kracheh province
210 070920 M RB - Forestry Administration official, Kracheh province
218 081028 M RB - Casotim company representative, Chhlong district
219 070912 M RB - LMAP National Director
220 081105 M RB - LMAP National Director
230 061102 M RB - Provincial LMAP official, Takeo province
231 080116 M RB - Provincial and district LMAP officials, Takeo province
232 081104 M RB - Provincial LMAP official, Takeo province
234 070213 M RB - District Chief, Bati, Takeo province
237 070925 M RB - Commune chief, Buon village
245 081015 M RB - Active Communities director (audio-recorded)
Beginning of Buon Interviews.
270 070928 FM HC 7 Older couple
271 080115 F HC 7 Older woman
273 080115 F HC 7 Older woman
276 070927 FM HC 9 Middle-aged couple
277 090210 F HC 9 Middle-aged woman
278 090210 F HC 9 Middle-aged woman
281 070926 F TS 16 Older woman
283 090211 FF RB 16 Older woman and young adult daughter
284 090211 F RB 16 Older woman
285 090211 F RB 16 Older woman
286 070927 M RB 21 Older man
287 070928 M TS 21 Older man
288 080115 M TS,RB 21 Older man
289 080118 M RB 21 Older man
290 090211 F RB 21 Older woman
291 070926 F SD 22 Young woman
292 081018 FM SD 22 Young couple
295 070927 FM SD 46 Middle-aged couple
298 090210 F OS 46 Middle-aged woman
300 061101 FM RB 52 Middle-aged couple
301 070217 FM RB 52 Middle-aged couple
302 070926 FM RB 52 Middle-aged couple
303 080117 FM RB 52 Middle-aged couple
305 070216 F RB 55 Middle-aged woman
306 080115 F RB 55 Middle-aged woman
309 090210 F RB 55 Middle-aged woman
252
310 090211 F HC 1 Middle-aged woman
311 090211 F HC 1 Middle-aged woman
312 090211 F HC 1 Middle-aged woman
313 090211 F HC 4 Middle-aged woman
314 070928 F RB 5 Older woman
319 090211 F HC 13 Middle-aged woman
320 090211 F HC 13 Middle-aged woman
321 081016 F RB,HC 17 Young woman
322 090211 F RB,
HC
17 Young woman
323 090211 F HC 18 Younger woman
325 061030 M RB 20 Older man
326 060216 M RB 20 Older man
328 080116 M TS 20 Older man
329 080118 M RB 20 Older man
332 080115 M RB 23 Middle-aged woman
333 080125 F RB 25 Middle-aged woman
336 070213 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
340 070216 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
341 070926 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
342 070926 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
343 070927 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
346 090210 F RB 27 Middle-aged woman
347 090212 F OS 27 Middle-aged woman
348 090212 F OS 27 Middle-aged woman
349 070927 FM II 28 Young couple
353 070927 FM II 31 Middle-aged couple
355 090212 FM OS 31 Middle-aged couple
357 080117 F RB 35 Old woman
364 090211 F OS 37 Middle-aged woman
365 090212 FM RB 38 Older couple
369 061031 M RB 43 Old man
371 090211 F OS 45 Younger woman
374 080115 M RB 47 Older man
378 070926 F RB 50 Middle-aged woman
383 081017 M RB 51 Old man
393 081016 F RB,TS 58 Young woman
394 090211 F OS 59 Younger woman
395 070216 F RB 60 Old woman
253
396 070926 F RB 60 Old woman
401 090211 F OS 62 Middle-aged woman
402 090211 F OS 62 Middle-aged woman
405 090211 F OS 63 Older woman
406 090211 F OS 63 Older woman
410 090211 F OS 64 Old woman
254
Appendix 2. Village Census Form
C1. Number of household on map ___________ (also C8 in data entry)
C2. Is the household recognised as belonging to the village?______ C3. If not, where is it recognised?_______________________
C4 Year HH formed in village ________ C5 Year current land occupied ___________ C6 Year current house built__________
C7. HH owns motorcyle? ____________ C8. HH owns television?
C9. HH owns health card?_____ C9a. If yes, give colour_________
C11.
Year of
birth
C12.
Place of
birth
C13.
Sex
C14.
Relation to
head of
HH
C15. Name C16.
Nickname
(if
different
to given
name)
C17. Location of the
person on the day of
interview
C18. Main activity of the
person on the day of
interview
255
Appendix 3. 25% Livelihood Survey.
Introductory information
1. Date
2. Number of household on village map
3. Name(s) of household members interviewed
4. Names of interviewers
Land
5. House land
How big is your house land?
When did you get it?
How did you get it? 1 = Allocated; 2 = Bought (give price); 3 = Other (explain)
What (if anything) do you grow on your house land?
6. Other land that the family owns
For each plot
How big is this plot
When did you get it?
How did you get it? 1 = Allocated; 2 = Bought (give price); 3 = Other (explain)
What (if anything) are you currently growing on that land?
7. Land sales
Since living in the village have you ever sold land?
If a = yes,
How large was the land?
Was the buyer already living in the village or from outside?
What was the price of that land?
Why did you sell?
Livelihoods
256
8. Our team is in this village from Monday to Friday this week. What will members of your
family do during this week to earn money? (List the activities, the members who do them and
how much money is earned during the week)
9. What other things do members of your family do to earn money during the rainy season?
10. What other things do members of your family do to earn money in the dry season?
11. During the five days our team is in this village, what food will your household eat? How will
you get that food? (List the types of food and whether it is bought – and for what prices – or
collected)
12. What else does your family eat during the rainy season and how do you get it?
13. What else does your household eat during the dry season and how do you get it?
Health
14. Who was the last person in your family to get seriously ill? What happened? (What were the
symptoms? Who did you go to? What was the treatment? What did it cost? How did you get
the money? What happened to that person?)
15. How many children have you given birth to in this village? How many of them died before
they were five? For each one who died, give the year and cause of death.
16. Has anyone in your household ever been to the health centre when they were sick?
Debt
17. Do you owe money? If yes, for each debt get the following information:
Does the lender live in the village?
What is your relationship to the lender?
How much money did you borrow?
What is the interest rate?
Why did you borrow the money?
How much capital have you paid back so far?
About the village
18. Why did you come to this village? Why do you live in this village now?
19. What are the good things about living in this village?
20. What are the bad/difficult/worrying things about living in this village?
About other places
257
21. For each member of your family, when was the last time they left the village and why?
Name Month/Year Reason for travelling How long were
they away
Now you have finished the interview. Close the books and put away the pens and sit and chat
with your interviewees for a while. Take your time!
258
Appendix 4. Case Study Households in Bey and Buon: Incomes and Expenditures 2006-7.
Data obtained through administration of Moving Out of Poverty questionnaire based on recall of
information since the previous Cambodian New Year (approximately 12 months). No onus was
placed on interviewers or interviewees to make sure that income and expenditures tally. The
figures are of indicative value only and are used with caution in the dissertation.
Data obtained through administration of Moving Out of Poverty questionnaire based on recall of
information since the previous Cambodian New Year (approximately 12 months). No onus was
placed on interviewers or interviewees to make sure that income and expenditures tally. The
figures are of indicative value only and are used with caution in the dissertation.
Bey village
Household HH4 HH16 HH28 HH31 HH43 HH56 HH65 HH74
Reported
Income 5 619 000 4 007 500 3 370 000 5 158 500 3 010 000 2 878 000 4 824 000 5 410 000
Reported
Expenditure 4 545 000 7 380 000 2 505 000 4 465 500 2 498 100 2 801 500 3 182 900 5 184 000
Income minus
Expenditure 1 074 000 -3 372 500 865 000 693 000 511 900 76 500 1 641 100 226 000
Buon village
Household HH7 HH9 HH16 HH21 HH22 HH46 HH52 HH55
Reported
Income 5 207 400 2 696 900 3 340 000 7 880 000 2 568 000 3 922 800 2 655 000 3 590 000
Reported
Expenditur
e
3 950 000 3 536 000 4 725 000 4 300 000 550 000 3 451 000 2 130 000 1 940 000
Income
minus
Expenditur
e
1 257 400 -839 100 -1 385 000 3 580 000 2 018 000 471 800 525 000 1 650 000
259
Appendix 5. Question List for Land and Livelihood Survey I (Bey village version)
Household Number_______ Name ________________________________________
Name of informant(s) ______________________________________________________
Interviewer ______________________________________________
Date_______________________________
How much srai rice land does the household own? _____________
What was the yield this year? ______________
What is the best yield you could get from this land in a good year? _____________
How much chamcar land does your household own? _____________________
How much of this chamcar did you farm last year? _____________________
If not all, why not?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
What crops did you harvest?
Name of crop Amount Sold or ate or shared?
260
(Appendix 5 continued).
Household livelihood activity matrix. Krouch January 2008.
Activity Number of Household member HH number _____________
Hiring out agricultural
labour
Selling agricultural
produce
Cattle raising
Pig raising
Poultry raising
Cutting wood
Transporting wood
Selling goods (shop)
Making and selling things
(handicrafts)
Wages (police, soldier,
village chief)
Income from checkpoints
etc
Income sent by HH
members in PNP
Income sent by HH
members elsewhere
Other
Other
Other
261
(Appendix 5 continued).
Buon Household Income Sources 2007149
Activity Per
month
Per
Annum
Remarks
1 Hiring out agricultural labour
2 Selling agricultural produce
3 Cattle raising
4 Pig raising
5 Poultry raising
6 Cutting wood
7 Transporting wood
8 Selling goods (shop)
9 Making and selling things (handicrafts)
10 Wages (police, soldier, village chief)
11 Income from checkpoints etc
12 Income sent by HH members in PNP
13 Income sent by HH members
elsewhere
14 Other
15 Other
16 Other
149
Only administered in Buon. Results there so untrustworthy that it was deemed wasteful to repeat the exercise in
Bey.
262
Appendix 6. Sample Structured Interview Questions: Spring 2008 (Bey version)
Case Study Family interviews:
1. What has changed since the September 2007 visit?
2. How large was the harvest? What have you done with it?
3. Current indebtedness.
a. How much borrowed?
b. From whom?
c. What rate of interest?
d. How much have you repaid so far?
e. When do you think you will be able to repay?
4. What are the main changes you have noticed in the village since you were small?/Since
you came to the village?
Key Informant Interviews
Selected interviews with „key informants‟ (researcher‟s discretion to identify people who would
be able to give reliable answers)
a. Pagoda/monks
b. Education services
c. Health services (private and public)
d. Police
e. Commune Council
f. Village chief
g. Political parties
h. Tong tin
Appendix 7. Land and livelihood Survey (II) in Bey, October 2008
Follow-up to Survey in January 2008 and administered as supplementary questions during the
implementation of Village Census (II).
1. What has been your household‟s main livelihood activity since the rains began this year?
2. How much agricultural land have you planted this year?
3. How much agricultural land do you own?
4. Are you a member of the community forestry?
263
Appendix 8. Survey of Land Transactions in Buon 2009. Summary Data
Land Transactions (1980-2008) Reported During the 2008 Land and Livelihood Survey in
Buon. Table 1: Reported Sales (n=4).
Int Year Reason How authorized Issues since Other
310 1998 Illness None She signed a letter at
time of titling. No
money changed hands.
Just 10a at the
edge of village
319 1996 Illness/poverty None No (interviewer forgot
to ask!)
Regrets selling
as would be
valuable now
355 1993 To buy other land
near their house
Letter from village
chief (requested by
buyer)
No problems
395 1985 To pay for an
operation
None (Sale was to their
daughter)
No problems Daughter used
for house land
Land Transactions (1980-2008) Reported During the 2008 Land and Livelihood Survey in
Buon. Table 1: Reported Purchases (n=26).
Int Year Reason How authorized Issues since Other
311 2003 Reclaiming
unpaid debt
Village chief knew,
because involved in
trying to persuade
villager to honour his
debt. No paper
Former owner tried to
reclaim during titling
but village chief
supported her against
him. However, she
signed an agreement that
she now regrets150
.
Land in nearby
village. 531 m2
of rice land
312 2003 Reclaiming
unpaid debt
Village chief knew but
no paper
Same as for 217 case. 1893 m2 of
poor land in
same village
313 2006 Needed more rice
land for her
children
Just informed the
village and commune
chief verbally.
No, and she is not
concerned even though
the seller‟s mother‟s
name is on the title.
Did not register
the transaction
or change the
name on the
title.
150
At the time of titling, title was awarded to her, but she signed an agreement witnessed by the village chief that
when his children were older they would have the right to get the land back if they paid the 2,000,000 riels (500
USD) that were owed to her, and that she would not sell to anyone else in the meantime. She worries that this may
have been a mistake because prices are going up and in a few years time 2,000,000 may not be worth much at all
compared to the value of the land.
264
273 1998 Wanted more
agricultural land
to be able to give
to their children
Just word of mouth. Had been a bit worried
that the old owner
would try and get it back
but that never happened.
278 ? (Pre-
2005)
Land near their
house and they
wanted more
when her
husband came
back.
No authorization with
the authorities at all.
She became anxious that
the seller might try and
get the land back, and
was especially worried
when the titling
programme was
announced. And then
relieved when it was not
a problem.
320 2007 She had extra
money and would
like more land
No formal witnessing
but friends and
neighbours know about
it.
No problems. And she
says she would just
accept the loss if there
was a problem.
Not a sale but
she was the
pawnee
284 1999 Had extra money
from her business
Got authorities
signatures and paid
them 3000 riels.
Repeated the process
during titling, but paid
5000 to village chief and
15000 to commune
chief.
285 2004 Land for her
married daughter
Land was already titled
in that village. She
bought from her niece
and the transaction was
not authorized.
She now wants to sell
the land so that her
daughter can move
home. But her niece is
obstructing by saying
that it will cost 300 to
400 USD to transfer the
title.
(Niece wants to
get the land
back for the
original sale
price, although
it has now gone
up in value).
322 1997 All four
purchases were in
order to have
more land to
distribute to their
children.
Village chief wrote a
letter to authorize the
purchase
At titling they lied to
officials pretending the
land had been allocated
by the state
(To avoid
paying land
transfer tax
retrospectively)
1999 Village chief wrote a
letter to authorize
Land has not been titled
yet, but she does not
know why. She is not
worried because she
trusts the seller.
Land is in a
neighbouring
village.
2000 Village chief wrote a
letter to authorize
At titling they called the
seller to come and
witness the fact that he
had sold to them.
They have
never felt
anxious about
the process.
2001 Missing information Missing information Land was in
neigbouring
village
265
323 2000 They didn‟t have
much rice land
No witnessing of the
transaction, but the
village chief is her
father
When the land was titled
the seller came and
signed a letter
confirming the sale
347 1994 Plot was near
their land and
they wanted more
rice land
No official letter
because they trusted the
seller
Seller‟s father tried to
claim the land back
during the titling
process. Resolved in
their favour and now
they are not worried.
348 1995 Two plots as
repayment of
debts
No authorization. They
were not worried
because they trusted the
seller.
Titled in their name
now. Never any issues
and they were never
worried.
341 1990 To increase land
holdings and
have more for
their children
No authorization. They
thought it was enough
that their neighbours
knew.
No worries at any time,
including during titling.
364 1987 Bought as house
land for children
because it was
cheap at the time
Secured with a letter
from the village chief.
They have lost the letter
but are not worried.
Especially as the former
owner has left the
village.
371 1987 As payment for
helping a nephew
move house
No authorization
because it was in the
family and they have
good relations
It has never been a
worry or a problem
since
394 2005 Bought from her
sister to help her
and to keep the
land in the family
Did not register
because it was bought
from a family member.
No problems Their mothers
name was and
remains on the
land title.
401 1992 Bought land for
house when they
moved to the
village
Letter from the village
chief.
Systematic land titling
made them worried that
the old owner might
come and try and claim
the land, but that didn‟t
happen, so no problems.
402 2004 To buy rice land
for now and for
their children to
inherit
Letter from the village
chief.
No problems. Did not
think the letter was
necessary to secure the
transaction, just did it
because it is the right
thing to do.
Land in a
neighbouring
village.
405 2007 To get rice land
now and to have
more to leave for
their children
Got a letter from the
village chief.
Never even thought of
changing the name on
the title
Land is in
neighbouring
village
266
406 Pre-
2005
Bought from her
parents
Did not get transaction
authorized as they are
family.
Their name is now on
the title
Title is
currently with
ACLEDA
credit
organization as
collateral
410 1987 Bought land that
she had given to
her daughter back
again in order to
keep it in the
family
Letter from the village
chief, and the commune
chief. Paid 5000 to
village chief and
30000151
to commune
chief.
151
From author‟s notes: “She paid 30 000 to the commune chief and 5000 to the village chief. None of them fixed a
price. But when she gave 10 000 to the commune chief he didn‟t look at the document. When she gave him 20 000
riels he picked it up but still had difficulty with it and read slowly. After 30 000 he could read it quickly and fix
everything” (Interview 349).
267
Appendix 9. LMAP Written Questions and Response, April 2010
The following seven questions were submitted to selected people close to the LMAP project on
4th
April 2010. One respondent provided written answers to the questions, another respondent
provided links to an anonymous commentator who did not answer the questions but provided
generous comments on a chapter draft. The World Bank‟s Task Manager‟s response is provided
below the questions.
Questions text.
1. Are you aware of any places where systematic land titling made a clear difference to
agricultural investment and farming strategies? (Please provide names of commune, district,
province).
2. Systematic land titling was promoted, particularly by the World Bank, as having the potential
to transform the smallholder agriculture sector by giving farmers the security and confidence
to invest in their land, and thereby improve agricultural productivity. When you began your
engagement with LMAP, did you expect titling to have such a transformative effect? Have
your expectations changed at all over time?
3. As I have understood (from my own and others‟ research findings), most subsequent
transactions are not being registered with the cadastral authorities. Did you personally
believe that this would probably be a problem when you first became involved? Do you
personally believe that systematic land titling is worthwhile even if subsequent transactions
are not registered? Why/why not?
4. My focus is rural. The LMAP project document suggests that land titling is promising both in
regard to improving security in areas afflicted by appropriations and conflicts, and also in the
relatively secure smallholder rice plains. Thus far the project has been implemented in the
relatively secure smallholder rice plains. Do you believe that systematic registration should
be pursued now in rural areas characterised by insecurity and conflict (eg newly-settled
populations in forested provinces in the north-west and north-east; populations settled along
the Thai border in Banteay Meanchey province etc)? Why/why not?
5. For some people, development work is about pursuing the objectives in the project document.
For others, the project document is a formal agreement that is necessary to enable work to
proceed, but what is possible and desirable are shaped by other ideas. For you personally, do
you see your role as closely pursuing the project document objectives, or do you have other
ideas and priorities? What are these and where do they come from? (Your employer? Your
conversations with colleagues and clients? Your own judgements and experience?)
268
6. As you see it (based on your own observations, or on research and evaluation reports, or on
educated guess work), what difference (if any) is systematic land titling likely to make to
rural poverty in Cambodia in the short or long term?
7. If I cite/refer to your answers above, how would you prefer that I identify them?
a. With your name and job title (please provide):
b. As a „Ministry Official working on the LMAP project‟
c. As an „International Technical Advisor working on the LMAP project‟
d. As a „Confidential source close to the LMAP project‟
e. Other (please provide) :
Final questions from Robin Biddulph
[email protected] <[email protected]> 21 April 2010 06:50
To: Robin Biddulph <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected], [email protected], Cyprian Selebalo <[email protected]>
Dear Robin,
In light of the ongoing Inspection Panel Review of LMAP Bank staff and consultants are not able to provide
responses to your questions but we would like to draw your attention to the Management Response that has
already been prepared and posted on the Inspection Panel Website (www.worldbank.org/inspectionpanel ) and we hope that this document will be helpful as you finalize your research.
With best regards,
Peter
_____________________________________
Peter Jipp
Sr. Natural Resources Management Specialist
World Bank Office
30th Floor, Siam Tower
989 Rama 1 Road
Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330
Tel +66(0)2686-8392 Fax +66(0)2686-8301
Cell Numbers
Thailand +66840036814
Lao PDR +856203397865
Cambodia +85592578059
269
Meddelanden från Göteborgs Universitets Geografiska Institutioner, Serie B. Doktorsavhandlingar från institutionen för kulturgeografi och ekonomisk geografi, Göteborgs universitet Nr 1 Olof Wärneryd: Interdependence in urban systems. 1968
Nr 17 Lennart Andersson: Rumsliga effekter av organisationsförändringar. Studier i lokalisering med exempel
från skolväsendet. 1970
Nr 23 Lars Nordström: Rumsliga förändringar och ekonomisk utveckling. 1971
Nr 43 Kenneth Asp: Interregionala godstransporter i ett rumsligt system. 1975
Nr 44 Jan Lundqvist: Local and central impulses for change and development. A case study of Morogoro
District, Tanzania. 1975
Nr 56 Staffan Öhrling: Rural change and spatial reorganization in Sri Lanka. Barriers against development of
traditional Sinhalese local communities. 1977
Nr 57 Ulf Halloff: Inköpsresor i ett rumsligt system. Metodstudier på grundval av empiriskt material från några
stadsdelar i Göteborg. 1977
Nr 59 Lage Wahlström: Naturvården i regional och lokal planering. Geografiska studier med exempel från
Göteborgsregionen och övriga delar av de västsvenska länen. 1977
Nr 60 Kent Persson: Sysselsättningen i centrum. Sysselsättningsförändringar i stadscentrum, deras orsaker och
verkan - med exempel från Göteborg.1977
Nr 63 Claes Göran Alvstam: Utrikeshandel och rumslig dynamik. En studie av den väst-europeiska interna
utrikeshandelns ländersammansättning 1955-1975. 1979
Nr 64 Sten Lorentzon: Ortsstruktur, arbetsresor och energiförbrukning. Förändringar i bebyggelsestrukturen och
energikonsumtionen vid arbetsresor belysta med exempel från västra Sverige.1979
Nr 65 Bengt Holmgren: Transportförändringar och rumslig utveckling. Geografiska studier av
järnvägsnedläggningars effekter med exempel från två västsvenska kommuner.1980
Nr 66 Rolf Pettersson: Omlokalisering av statlig verksamhet. Effekter på arbetsmarknaden i mottagande orter.
1980
Nr 69 Åke Forsström: Commuting accidents. A study of commuting accidents and casualties in some Swedish
regions during 1971. 1982
Nr 71 Christina Nordin: Marchés, commerçants, clientèle. le commerce non sédentaire de la région Parisienne -
Etude de géographie humaine. 1983
Nr 72 Kajsa Ellegård: Människa - produktion. Tidsbilder av ett produktionssystem. 1983
Nr 73 Kjell Gustafsson: Tekoindustrin och förändringarna i den internationella arbetsfördelningen.
Konsekvenser för lokalisering och sysselsättning i Sverige. 1983
Nr 74 Ingrid Johansson: Arbetsplatslokalisering i staden: dåtid-nutid-framtid. Exempel från några stadsdelar i
Göteborg. 1984
Nr 75 Magnus Torell: Fisheries in Thailand. Geographical studies about the utilization of resources in semi-
enclosed seas. 1984
Nr 77 Bertil Vilhelmson: Resurser och resor. Äldres aktivitet och handikapp i trafiken. 1985
Nr 78 Gerhard Gustafsson: Etik och lokala utvecklingsstrategier. Bevaring eller förändring av människans
livsvillkor. 1986
Nr 79 Lars Aronsson: Turism och lokal utveckling. En turism-geografisk studie. 1989
Nr 80 Peter de Souza: Territorial production complexes in the Soviet Union - with special focus on Siberia.
1989
Nr 81 Bertil Lundberg: Industriella beroenden. Rumslig och strukturell förändring i ett värmlandsperspektiv.
1991
Nr 82 Thomas Jordan: Flows of pumps: Structure and change in the international division of labour. 1992
Nr 84 Joel Yrlid: Mission och kommunikation. Den kristna missionen och transportnätets utveckling i Belgiska
Kongo/Zaire 1878-1991. 1993
Nr 85 Martin Gren: Earth writing: Exploring representation and social geography in-between meaning/matter.
1994
Nr 86 Sören Eriksson: Global shift in the aircraft industry. A study of airframe manufacturing with special
reference to the Asian NIEs. 1995
Nr 87 Gabriel Bladh: Finnskogens landskap och människor under fyra sekler. En studie av natur och samhälle i
förändring. 1995
Nr 88 Anders Närman: Education and nation building in Kenya. Perspectives on modernization, global
dependency and local development alternatives. 1995
270
Nr 89 Thomas Blom: Perspektiv på kunskap och utveckling. Om högskoleutbildningens betydelse i perifera
regioner. 1996
Nr 90 Inge Ivarsson: Integrated international production. A study of foreign transnational corporations in
Sweden. 1996
Nr 91 Sang Chul Park: The technopolis plan in Japanese industrial policy. 1997
Nr 92 Johan Dahl: A cry for water. Perceptions of development in Binga district, Zimbabwe. 1997
Nr 94 Margareta Espling: Women's livelihood strategies in processes of change. Cases from urban
Mozambique. 1999
Nr 95 Lars-Gunnar Krantz: Rörlighetens mångfald och förändring. Befolkningens dagliga resande i Sverige
1978 och 1996. 1999
Nr 96 Per Assmo: Livelihood strategies and land degradation. Perceptions among small-scale farmers in Ng'iresi
village, Tanzania. 1999
Nr 97 Anders Larsson: Proximity matters? Geographical aspects of changing strategies in automotive
subcontracting relationships: The case of domestic suppliers to Volvo Torslanda assembly plant. 1999
Nr 98 Mikael Jonasson: The creation of places in traffic through performative action. 2000
Nr 99 Matilde Mordt: Livelihoods and sustainability at the agrarian frontier. The evolution of the frontier in
Southeastern Nicaragua. 2001
Nr 101 Kersti Nordell: Kvinnors hälsa – en fråga om medvetenhet, möjlighet och makt. Att öka förståelsen för
människors livssammanhang genom tidsgeografisk analys. 2002
Nr 102 Åsa Westermark: Informal livelihoods: Woman's biographies and reflections about everyday life. A time-
geographic analysis in urban Colombia. 2003
Nr 103 Bodil Jansund och Ulrika Blom-Mondlane: Geografi-didaktik-praktik. Interaktiva studier av för-
loppslandskapet. 2003
Nr 104 Alf Brodin: Baltic Sea ports and Russian foreign trade. Studies in the economic and political geography of
transition. 2003
Nr 105 Eva Thulin: Ungdomars virtuella rörlighet. Användningen av dator, internet och mobiltelefon i ett
geografiskt perspektiv. 2004
Nr 107 Patrik Ström: The 'lagged' internationalization of Japanese professional business service firms:
Experiences from the UK and Singapore. 2004
Nr 108 Jonas Lindberg: Education for all in times of global transformations: Aspirations and opportunities of
poor families in marginal areas of Sri Lanka. 2005
Nr 109 Ulf Ernstson: Kontrakt med naturen. Om spridning och implementering av miljöledningssystem. 2006
Nr 110 Jerry Olsson: Responses to change in accessibility. Socio-economic impacts of road investment: the
distributive outcomes in two rural peripheral Philippine municipalities. 2006
Nr 111 Iraê Baptista Lundin: Negotiating transformation: Urban livelihoods in Maputo adapting to thirty years of
political and economic changes. 2007
Nr 112 Curt Nestor: Foreign direct investment in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1988-2000: Geographical
perspectives. 2007
Nr 113 Lena Lindberg: The regionalisation process in Southeast Asia and the economic integration of Cambodia
and Laos into ASEAN. 2007
Nr 114 Kristina Thorell: Naturvårdsplanering med förankring i det lokala. Villkor för delaktighet och under-
ifrånperspektiv i vården av värden i landskapet. 2008
Nr 115 Jean Paul Dushimumuremyi: Spatial distribution of water resources and accessibility to water. The case
of Bugesera District in Rwanda. 2009
Nr 116 Théophile Niyonzima: Land use dynamics in the face of population increase. A study in the districts of
Gatsibo and Nyagatare, Eastern Province, Rwanda. 2009
Nr 117 Robin Biddulph: Geographies of Evasion. The Development Industry and Property Rights Interventions in
Early 21st Century Cambodia. 2010
