What exactly do REDD+ projects produce? A materialist analysis of carbon offset production from a REDD+ project in Cambodia

This article attempts to re-ground analyses of carbon markets by examining the material relations of production of a REDD + project in Cambodia. It focuses on how surplus value is extracted from labour at various points in the production chain of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs). Using extensive field work conducted over three years on a REDD + project in northern Cambodia I argue that VCUs are neither actual avoided units of deforestation and emissions, nor mere imagined or socially constructed commodities. Rather VCUs are packages of technical and affective claims attached to particular REDD + projects which are created through material labour processes. Only by examining the use-values that are created through these labour processes can demand for VCUs be properly understood. This article will start by giving a background to the Oddar Meanchey REDD + project (OMREDD + project). It will then examine the writing of the project document and examine the verification process and consider how these formed critical parts of the commodity production process. After that it will examine how the project collapsed on the ground and yet VCUs were still sold in the market. Finally the article will consider how the claims of the OMREDD + project were challenged by critical work and how future interventions against REDD + projects can successfully undermine the claims of REDD + projects and the extraction of surplus value.     

Financial Inclusion or Subordination? The Monetary Politics of Debt in Cambodia

Financial inclusion is a leading driver of household debt across the global South. Although critical geographers have analysed this debt through the lens of financialisation, few have examined it in terms of monetary politics. This is a salient issue, because poorer nations often have limited control over their monetary policy due to their dependence on foreign currencies, which can adversely affect the structure of their financial markets. Building on the concept of monetary dependency from scholarship on financial subordination, I analyse the monetary politics of debt in Cambodia. Drawing on elite interviews and ethnographic research, I argue that Cambodia's extreme monetary dependence on the US dollar has shaped monetary and fiscal policies that compel poorer households to take on private debt to pay for their basic needs. This paper advances critical geographies of debt and development by studying financial subordination and its impact on financial inclusion in the global South.     

Competing Visions of the Rule of Law in Southeast Asia: Power,Rhetoric and Governance

Abstract

This article introduces a special issue on the emergent relationship between the rhetoric and implementation of the rule of law concept in Southeast Asia. It thematically introduces four country case studies (Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), and the case of ASEAN’s adoption of the rule of law in region-building, which are included in this special issue. We highlight how ideals that are arguably central to the “tradition” of the rule of law are being excised, marginalised, defended and/or undermined in Southeast Asian contexts. We emphasise how the very concept is deeply contested and far from neutral – at stake is the very notion of “law” for whom, and for what. The article offers insight into the social dynamics affecting how the rule of law is being interpreted by political actors and how it is being contested and consolidated via governance practices in the region, and proposes new avenues for research in assessing how the rule of law is operating in transitional and authoritarian state settings.     

Solidarity within limits: Interkit and the evolution of the Soviet Bloc’s Indochina policy, 1967–1985

This article examines how Interkit, the Soviet-controlled ‘anti-China International’, evaluated the development of Sino-Indochinese relations, and which contribution the Vietnamese and Laotian delegations made to the forum’s meetings. It investigates how the various shifts in Sino-Soviet and Soviet-US relations enhanced or reduced Vietnam’s relative importance in Soviet strategy. It describes how the Kremlin sought to dissuade its East European satellites from responding to Beijing’s overtures by presenting the Sino-Vietnamese conflict as evidence of China’s belligerence, and examines the ideological linkage between Soviet superpower hegemony over Eastern Europe and Vietnamese regional hegemony over Indochina.     

Migration and left-behind parents and children of migrants in Cambodia: a look at household composition and the economic situation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines composition of households formed after the outmigration of a household member in rural Cambodian and correlates household types with indicators of economic condition. The paper focuses on households containing left-behind parents and the children of migrants. Excess mortality in the 1970s due to war suggests the association between migration and economic condition may be gendered. This could be exacerbated when migration leads to a skip-generation household containing a left-behind parent and a child of migrant without an own parent of the child present. Data come from the Cambodian Rural-Urban Migration Project (CRUMP), a project designed to study migration in rural Cambodia. Most households formed after a migration contain a left-behind parent of migrant. While about 22 per cent of these households contain a left-behind child of migrant, the per cent is over 60 per cent when the migrant is themselves a parent. The economic situation tends to be worst for left behind solo mothers (mothers of migrants who do not live with a spouse) and best for left-behind coupled parents of migrants. There is evidence that the combination of left-behind solo mothers living with children of migrants in a skip-generation situation is the most disadvantaged.     

Reimagining the City of Fire and Iron: A landscape archaeology of the Angkor-Period Industrial Complex of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay,Cambodia (ca. 9th to 13th centuries A.D.)

In the archaeological literature regional centers often receive far less attention than capital regions and the medieval Khmer Empire (ca. 9th to 15th centuries a.d.) is a classic case in point. At its height, the Khmer Empire stretched across much of mainland Southeast Asia, and it remains the most extensive dominion in the history of the region. To date, however, relatively little archaeological work has been completed outside of the capital of Angkor, and we have a limited understanding of the broader dynamics of the Empire. In this paper we begin to address this lacuna at the remote monumental complex of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, the largest of all the Angkor-period regional centers. We describe the use of remote sensing and ground survey methods to produce the first comprehensive archaeological map of the site. The map data are used to evaluate conventional interpretations of the site as a major industrial complex, urban center and military outpost. The findings have implications for our understanding of early urbanism, industrial production and imperial expansion in the region.     

Post‐conflict Heritage and Tourism in Cambodia: The Burden of Angkor

The World Heritage Site of Angkor is enduring one of the most crucial, turbulent periods in its 1200‐year history. Since the early 1990s over 20 countries have contributed millions of dollars to help safeguard and restore its temples. As one of Southeast Asia’s premier destinations, Angkor has also seen a 10,000% growth in international tourist arrivals in just over a decade. The challenges arising from the intense convergence of these two paradoxical and unstable agendas—heritage conservation and tourism development—are greatly compounded by Cambodia’s need to recover from war and turmoil. This paper explores the critical trends that have surfaced at Angkor and why the challenges posed by surging tourism have been inadequately addressed. It argues Angkor’s dominant role within Cambodia’s post‐conflict heritage and tourism industries requires closer, more critical attention given recent events in the country. This article is the summary of Winter's book Post‐conflict Heritage, Post‐colonial Tourism (Routledge 2007).     

Social enterprise and inclusive tourism. Five cases in Siem Reap,Cambodia

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, social enterprise has emerged from a variety of traditions and contexts to occupy a prominent position in relation to social change. Proponents argue that people with a business orientation are uniquely equipped to identify social problems, develop solutions and to scale these up. Muhammad Yunus and the non-collateralized loans of the Grameen Bank are held to exemplify this potential. Meanwhile, mass tourism destinations are increasingly found in less developed countries, placing relatively wealthy tourists in close proximity to poor people. One response to this has been a proliferation of social enterprises within the tourism industry. This paper investigates the potentials and limitations of social entrepreneurship to achieve inclusive tourism through an analysis of five established and highly regarded social enterprises in Siem Reap. The enterprises have created worthwhile new opportunities for poor and marginalized people and contributed substantially to revitalizing elements of Cambodian culture. Beyond these significant successes, their capacity to generate broader inclusiveness in either the tourism sector or the Cambodian economy, generally, appears limited. Continued social benefits are, furthermore, contingent on the commercial success of the enterprises, in a sector which is highly competitive and volatile, with even successful, well-run businesses never entirely secure.     

Governing Civil Society in Cambodia: Implications of the NGO Law for the “Rule of Law”

Abstract

This article reviews the introduction of the 2015 Law on Associations and Non-governmental Organisations in Cambodia (“NGO Law”) from 2011–17 and explores its connection to the rule of law. After outlining the content, definitions and regulatory environment related to the NGO Law, it provides a commentary on its initial application, and examines its potential articulation with other legislation (such as defamation and libel, telecommunications law and land law). I argue that the NGO Law should be characterised as a carefully crafted piece of legislation, developed and defended over time by the ruling political party to increase control and intimidation by invoking adherence to the “rule of law”. Narratives of national security, terrorism, neutrality and cultural cohesion have been interwoven with new regulatory requirements to obfuscate overt political interference. The article argues that the NGO Law intersects with, and consolidates, the recent trend of the government’s use of legislation as a political tool to control and manipulate political opponents and government critics. This is not to deny that there are areas of civil society action and service provision that require greater government control via regulatory compliance. Nevertheless, the state’s attempts to tighten civil space are being met with resistance and “work around” strategies from the plethora of diverse organisations functioning in Cambodia.