Skip to main content
WCS
Menu
Library
Library Catalog
eJournals & eBooks
WCS Research
Archives
Research Use
Finding Aids
Digital Collections
WCS History
WCS Research
Research Publications
Science Data
Services for WCS Researchers
Archives Shop
Bronx Zoo
Department of Tropical Research
Browse By Product
About Us
FAQs
Intern or Volunteer
Staff
Donate
Search WCS.org
Search
search
Popular Search Terms
WCS History
Library and Archives
Library and Archives Menu
Library
Archives
WCS Research
Archives Shop
About Us
Donate
en
fr
Title
Development or dispossession? Exploring the consequences of a major Chinese investment in rural Cambodia
Author(s)
Mackenzie, Ellis; Milne, Sarah; van Kerkhoff, Lorrae; Ray, Bunthin
Published
2023
Publisher
The Journal of Peasant Studies
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2026929
Abstract
China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is facilitating massive infrastructure investment globally. Yet little is known about the BRI's local impacts, especially in countries like Cambodia where regulations are weak and government enthusiasm for the BRI is high. This article examines a set of BRI-linked investments in rural Cambodia, involving five agro-industrial concessions and a sugar-processing factory. We explore how these investments interacted with the local political economy and land governance. We find that, despite being couched in rhetoric of opportunity and progress, the investments caused Indigenous and Khmer villagers to lose access to customary land and forest resources, with disastrous consequences for livelihoods and the environment. We invoke Tsing's ?economy of appearances' to suggest that generation of speculative value is a key aspect of the BRI. This case confirms that ?development? of this kind can instigate and accelerate local dispossession, while failing to deliver on grandiose promises.
Keywords
belt and road initiative; land grabbing; dispossession; Cambodia
Access Full Text
A full-text copy of this article may be available. Please email the
WCS Library
to request.
Back
PUB27343