From land grab to agrarian transition? Hybrid trajectories of accumulation and environmental change on the Cambodia–Vietnam border

Alice Beban, Timothy Gorman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

In recent years, thousands of Vietnamese migrant farmers have crossed the border into Cambodia and leased land for export-oriented rice and shrimp production. Based on case studies in two Cambodian border provinces, we argue that these land transfers represent an intersection of broader processes of agrarian change that is re-shaping the Cambodian borderlands into a hybrid socio-ecological zone. Cambodian landlords and intermediaries use unequal access to politico-legal authority and the exclusionary power of the border to leverage control over their migrant tenants, thereby capturing a significant portion of the surplus from the migrants’ high-value commodity production systems and potentially creating new trajectories of agrarian transition.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)842-862
Number of pages21
JournalJournal of Peasant Studies
Volume44
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 4 Jul 2017

Keywords

  • Cambodia
  • Vietnam
  • agrarian transition
  • border studies
  • land grabs

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'From land grab to agrarian transition? Hybrid trajectories of accumulation and environmental change on the Cambodia–Vietnam border'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this