swift award

Changing ethnic identities among the Kuy inCambodia: Assimilation, reassertion and the making

of Indigenous identity

Peter SwiftDepartment of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 550 N. Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Abstract: The Kuy are one of the largest Indigenous groups in Cambodia. Though they areextremely similar to the Khmer in terms of physical appearance and material culture, a significantdistinction between the two groups continues to be maintained. At the same time, assimilation intothe Khmer identity has been a dominant trend among the Kuy for a considerable time and appearsto be related to the relatively lower status of the Kuy identity. However, over the past decade or more,some people have begun to reassert a Kuy identity, driven by awareness of benefits of identifying asKuy and a lessening of the stigmatisation of the Kuy identity. Following the introduction in Cambodiaof the concept of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous has become an ethnic identity that more andmore Kuy are assuming and within which they are becoming prominent. It is associated with abroader Indigenous community inside and outside of Cambodia which is becoming increasinglyrespected. The Indigenous identity has been able to inspire pride and confidence in a way that theKuy identity has not and has played an important role in letting people of Kuy ancestry become Kuy.

Keywords: assimilation, Cambodia, ethnicity, identity, Indigenous, Kuy

Introduction

Since 2003, the concept of Indigenous Peopleshas spread among Kuy people in Cambodia,and today Kuy are prominent within the twonational level Indigenous Peoples organiza-tions. The Kuy are one of the largest groupsassociated with the Indigenous identity in Cam-bodia and individual Kuy have developed con-nections with Indigenous leaders regionally.Kuy identification as Indigenous has beenthe basis for numerous recent efforts to defendland and resources over which they are losingcontrol.

The Indigenous identity has also been impor-tant to a recent revival of Kuy identity (thoughnot so much Kuy culture). Until recently,because of the stigmatisation of their ethnicity,Kuy people often took advantage of the lack ofsignificant cultural and physical differencesbetween Kuy and Khmer (the dominant ethnicgroup in Cambodia) and became Khmer when

possible (Heang and Ek, 2009; Ehrentraut,2013). The possibility of making claims as Indig-enous Peoples on the basis of Cambodianlaw and international concern for IndigenousPeoples has made it more advantageous to beKuy than it previously was. Many people withKuy ancestry, who once claimed to be Khmer,have now become Kuy.

The account of how these shifts in ethnicidentity (between Kuy, Khmer and Indigenous)have come about is the focus of this article. Iwill address a number of questions suggested bythe picture painted above: How has Kuy per-sisted as an ethnic category when Kuy are physi-cally and culturally so similar to Khmer? Howhave Kuy people become Khmer? How has thereassertion of Kuy identity happened and whocan be Kuy? How does Indigenous function asan ethnic identity? Following some brief com-ments on the Kuy and on the concept of ethnicidentity, I will consider each of these questionsin turn. In doing so I will pay attention to the

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Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 54, No. 3, December 2013ISSN 1360-7456, pp296308

2013 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd doi: 10.1111/apv.12025

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role of individuals, organisations and specificevents, to show how the shaping of Kuy iden-tity has been a project in which Kuy peoplehave been involved individually as well ascollectively.

I collected the empirical data on which thispaper is based between 1998 and 2012 whileworking in Cambodia with various non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and thistime period is the focus of the article. Duringthis time, I advised or oversaw a number ofprojects that involved Kuy individuals and com-munities. I got to know well a number of theindividuals who figure prominently in theevents I describe in this article, communicatingwith them in Khmer, which I speak fluently. Iparticipated in one way or another in many ofthose events myself, including the consultationforums and workshops in 2004 and 2005 thatI describe. I was involved in supporting OPKC(Organisation to Promote Kuy Culture), anorganisation that features centrally in thisaccount, and have had long-term interactionwith the two national level Indigenous Peoplesorganisations, IRAM (Indigenous Rights ActiveMembers) and CIYA (Cambodian IndigenousYouth Association). I spent a significant amountof time in Kuy communities, mostly in PreahVihear and Kompong Thom provinces, but alsoin Kratie, Stung Treng and Siem Reap. In addi-tion, I conducted supplemental interviews in2012 with key Kuy informants from PreahVihear and Kompong Thom provinces in whichI was able to examine the issues describedherein in greater depth.

The Kuy people of Cambodia

Kuy (also transliterated as Kui, Kuoy, Kuay orKouy) is an ethnonym used for groups of peopleliving in northern and northeastern Cambodia,northeastern Thailand and southern Laos; inThailand and Laos, the ethnonym Suoy or Souayis also used. The approximate current distribu-tion of the Kuy population in Cambodia, basedon my own fieldwork, is shown in the map inFigure 1.1 Drawing on several different sources,Mann and Markowski (2005) estimate the totalKuy population in all three countries to be380 000. They cite an unpublished 2000 manu-script by Emmanuel Lefebvre giving the popu-lation of Kuy in Cambodia as 23 000. In

contrast, Bourdier (2009) estimates the Kuypopulation in Cambodia in 1995 to be 14 200.For comparison, approximately 179 000 peoplereported an Indigenous language as a mothertongue in the 2008 population census of Cam-bodia (International Work Group on IndigenousAffairs, 2011). Because of the ambiguity that Idescribe below as to who is Kuy, an accuratecount of the Kuy population is impossible.Mann and Markowski (2005) identify threemain Kuy dialects in Cambodia within theKatuic language family: Kuy Ntua, Kuy Mla andKuy Ntra.

Dupaigne (1992), citing Aymonier (1885),writes that in the past, different Kuy groups dif-ferentiated themselves according to their eco-nomic specialisations. A group of Kuy in what isnow northeast Thailand, for example, wasinvolved in the capture of wild elephants andcontinue to be well known today for their hus-bandry of elephants (Chuengsatiansup, 1998).Kuy living in parts of what is now CambodiasPreah Vihear province were involved in ironproduction up until the 1950s; an important sitefor this was the area around Phnom Dek (Lvy,1943; Dupaigne, 1992; Bourdier, 2009). Kuywere required to provide products accordingto their specialisations as tribute to Khmer,Siamese and Lao princes (Dupaigne, 1992), andit has been suggested that the Kuy played animportant role in supplying iron to the Angkorempire (Groslier, 1973). Pre-Angkorian ironsmelting sites in Preah Vihear province haverecently been discovered, but no definitive linksto the Kuy have been made (Hendrickson et al.,2013; Vachon and Kuch, 2013).

While their tribute relations implied stronglinkages to the state in earlier times, the Kuyhave generally lived in peripheral areas. Inrecent years Kuy areas have progressively beenbrought under state control (Keating, 2013).Thus, for example, while older Kuy informantsfrom Chey Sen and Rovieng districts in PreahVihear recalled that several generations agothere was little state presence in their commu-nities, there is a very strong presence theretoday. After Cambodias independence in 1953,the Cambodian government adopted policiespromoting national integration and assimilation(Bourdier, 2009; Baird, 2011), and Khmer popu-lations in Kuy areas increased through theappointment of local administrators as well as

Ethnic identities of the Kuy in Cambodia

2013 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd 297

an influx of settlers. A significant event in thisprocess was the creation of Preah Vihear prov-ince out of the northern part of Kompong Thomprovince and the establishment of the new pro-vincial centre within a Kuy area.

The Pol Pot regime in the 1970s broughteveryone in Cambodia under extreme statecontrol. Kuy communities were resettled, oftento areas more suitable for lowland rice cultiva-tion. My informants in Preah Vihear told me thatKhmer Rouge cadres punished Kuy people forspeaking the Kuy language; they said this wasbecause the cadres did not want Kuy sayinganything they could not understand. Followingthe end of the Pol Pot regime in 1979, theKhmer Rouge continued to have a presence inmany Kuy areas. Over the next two decades,some Kuy remained in newly established

villages, some started up new settlements andsome returned to their homelands.

Contact between Kuy and Khmer continuesto increase through interactions in markets;increased settlement of Khmer in formerly Kuyareas; increased government presence; aninflux of workers in logging, mining or otherindustries; increased participation of Kuy in thebroader economy; and intermarriage. There arenow many Khmer living alongside Kuy in vil-lages. With the end of Khmer Rouge presence inthe 1990s and with the development of infra-structure, Kuy areas everywhere have becomemore accessible from the outside. In 1998, mostof Preah Vihear province became accessible byroad from other parts of Cambodia for the firsttime in decades. Logging companies weregranted concessions in many Kuy areas in the

Figure 1. Approximate current distribution of the Kuy population in Cambodia

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2013 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd298

1990s and concessions for mining and planta-tions followed (Keating, 2012a,b, 2013). Whileoutsiders had moved into Kuy areas in earlierperiods, in-migration sped up considerably inthe 1990s and 2000s. More and more Kuy arealso going to work in garment factories inPhnom Penh and elsewhere.

Ethnic identities

In his seminal Ethnicities and Borders, Barth(1969) describes ethnicity as fundamentally amatter of boundaries between groups (whichare relatively stable) and not of the culturalcontent of groups (which can change easily).Ethnic boundaries are permeable and individu-als can cross them and thus change ethnicities.Barth emphasises individual agency: individualsperform identities and are judged on their per-formance by members of the in-group as well asby others. One may face negative sanctions forperforming an identity poorly, and which iden-tity one performs may depend on how othersare likely to judge the performance, the relativebenefits of different identities and other factors.

Today, it is widely accepted that ethnic andother social identities (such as gender ornational identities) are socially constructedthrough a process of negotiation between theindividual and others and between groups(Cohen, 1978; Nagel, 1994; Laitin, 1998;Eriksen, 2002). While people can change ethnicidentities, their options are constrained morethan Barth recognised, by what others allowthem to claim that is, both structure andagency are important to ethnic identity (Nagel,1994; Laitin, 1998). Identity categories aresocially defined; individuals may have someflexibility in choosing how to identify them-selves within these categories or may have littleor no choice (Nagel, 1994; Eriksen, 2002).Descent as a diacritic for ethnicity (which itoften though not always is) limits how easilypeople can change ethnic identities (Brown,2004). States may exercise the power of classi-fication and play a significant role in determin-ing which categories are available and who is amember of which (Laitin, 1998). Like otheridentities, ethnic identities are historical andcontextual, not absolute, and an individual canperform different identities for different audi-ences (Cohen, 1978; Nagel, 1994; Eriksen,

2002; Hale, 2004). People can have multipleethnic identities until they come into conflict, atwhich point they are compelled to chooseamong them (Laitin, 1998).

As we shall see, people have been able toswitch between Kuy and Khmer identities,within constraints. My informants referred toentire Kuy communities having becomeKhmer, and this is what appears to have in facthappened. Some individuals have claimed to beKuy and Khmer at different times. Someoneborn of two Khmer parents living in a Kuyvillage can grow up Kuy, unable to perform theKhmer identity, as did one of my informants.Because ethnic identities are constructed andnegotiated, it does not make sense to askwhether someone is really Kuy or Khmer.Instead, we can ask why people claim orperform one identity or another and why theyare successful in doing so questions I addressin the remainder of this article. I will alsoexplore a new ethnic identity, Indigenous,which the Cambodian state (along with otheractors) has played an important role in defining.

Maintenance of a distinct Kuy identity

Like many other non-Khmer ethnic groups inCambodia, the Kuy are physically very similarto the Khmer. Today there are also few differ-ences between the Kuy and Khmer in terms ofmaterial culture. In general, the Kuy have fewdistinctive crafts, foods, or clothing or housingstyles, and while in the past they distinguishedthemselves with economic specialties such asproduction of iron, in recent years their liveli-hood strategies have been very similar to thoseof rural Khmer. Areas where Kuy have lived overthe centuries have not been significantly differ-ent from Khmer areas in terms of elevation orecology. Lowland rice cultivation is widespreadamong both, and both have also farmedswidden (Bourdier, 2009) though Kuy havetypically emphasised swidden more than Khmerhave. Resin tapping, which involves the collec-tion of oleoresin from various species ofdipterocarp trees growing wild in the forest, hasbeen extremely important to Kuy livelihoods,but many Khmer also tap resin.2 Both Khmerand Kuy are predominantly Buddhist andAnimist. In general the Kuy in Cambodia do notcurrently have much concept of their own col-



lective history such as, for example, their originsor significant events of the past.

The Kuy are distinguished most clearly bytheir various languages, which are quite differ-ent from Khmer, though many Kuy speak onlyKhmer. In addition to language, there are,however, subtle but significant cultural differ-ences, though it is impossible to speak of asingle Kuy or Khmer culture and these differ-ences have declined over time. In Khmer com-munities, the person who leads Animistceremonies (known as the chah srok) is typi-cally also a Buddhist lay priest (achar), but inKuy communities these two roles are under-taken by different individuals. Chuengsatiansup(1998) similarly notes a separation in these rolesamong Kuy in Thailand. In the past, the kringsrok (the Kuy equivalent of the Khmer chahsrok) were very influential though they aremuch less so today. Spirits have played a greaterrole in village life in Kuy communities than theyhave in Khmer communities though, like thekring srok, their importance has declined. Theannual ceremony for the village spirit (neak taor lok ta) in each village has been a relativelymore important event in Kuy than in Khmervillages. When I asked about cultural differ-ences between Khmer and Kuy, one Kuy womanreplied that before the village spirit ceremonyKuy go to catch fish together for the ceremony,something Khmer typically do not do. My Kuyinformants described Kuy performing rites forspirits before clearing new swiddens, somethingapparently not done by Khmer. Typical Kuy andKhmer wedding rituals have also differedsignificantly; in Preah Vihear and Siem Reapprovinces, people described Kuy weddingsinvolving a certain species of turtle (andaoekkbal thom). My informants also pointed toburial forests as a cultural feature distinguishingthe Kuy, but noted that a small number of Khmervillages have them also.

Differences in land tenure have been particu-larly significant. This appears to be related to agreater degree of common ancestry within Kuycommunities and stronger identification withthe village or community. Kuy informants fromPreah Vihear, Stung Treng and Kratie provincestold me that Kuy were unlikely to leave theirvillages unless the entire community moved ora group split off. A given community (Kuy: bon)is associated with a particular territory with

identifiable boundaries which, until recently,could in principle be used for residence or cul-tivation only by people from that community.Current boundaries between communities weretypically established generations ago, before thedislocations of the Pol Pot regime. While there isa general correspondence between the bon andthe community that takes care of a particularvillage spirit, in some cases one bon consists ofmultiple subgroups with different spirits (usuallyreflecting a community that split) and in somecases multiple bon take care of the same villagespirit. Informants told me that, until recentlyat least, someone from another communitycould not buy land or clear forest to farm in agiven community but one could move intothe community by marriage and then acquireland. Khmer communities typically have notobserved such restrictions. Within a Kuy com-munitys territory, household plots, rice paddiesand other land have been individually owned.In some cases, fallow swiddens have been indi-vidually owned and in others (again, untilrecently at least) they have not.

Assimilation by Cambodian Kuy into Khmerculture has been a dominant trend for sometime. Below I will argue that stigmatisation ofthe Kuy identity has driven assimilation of Kuyinto the Khmer identity; it may also help explainthe cultural assimilation of those who maintainKuy identities. Other forces have clearly been atwork as well in cultural assimilation. Forexample, the role of village elders (kring srok) inceremonial life has decreased as new externallyoriented power structures become more domi-nant. The Kuy language has also been losingspeakers (Heang and Ek, 2009); informantsattributed this in part to restrictions on the use ofthe Kuy language during the Pol Pot regime,when use of the language declined consider-ably. They also identified the exclusive use ofKhmer in schools (until recently) as anotherimportant factor. The Kuy language is now beingpromoted through bilingual education andother means and there is a new interest in somevillages in protecting the language (IWGIA,2011).

Apparently in large part because of Kuyassimilation into Khmer culture and identity, acontinuum in culture exists between groupsidentifying as Kuy and those identifying asKhmer. Many Kuy communities share few of the

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Kuy cultural features just described, presumablyas a result of cultural assimilation, and manyKuy do not speak the Kuy language. There areKhmer communities that share some Kuy cul-tural features, perhaps because they descendfrom Kuy communities that have gone through aprocess of assimilation into the Khmer identity.A community in Stung Trengs Thalla BarivatDistrict that identifies as Khmer but has a burialforest is descended from a Kuy community, asare several communities in Kompong ThomsSandan District that identify as Khmer but sharea number of aspects of Kuy land tenure systems.In a discussion with one Kuy informant about acommunity that identifies (externally, at least) asKhmer, he said to me, they have the same spiritceremonies as us. I know they are Kuy. A groupfalling in the centre of the continuum could passas either Khmer or Kuy, and in many cases anoutsider would not necessarily know whether agroup or individual was Kuy or Khmer.

Despite this continuum and cultural similari-ties, however, an important distinction betweenKuy and Khmer identities is maintained on bothsides. Both more or less take it for granted thatKuy are not Khmer and Khmer are not Kuy.Increasingly, there is an ethnic distinctionbetween two groups that culturally are almostindistinguishable. Barth (1969) attributes themaintenance of ethnic boundaries betweengroups even when they are very similar cultur-ally in part to the groups fulfilling different eco-logical niches. This explanation may have beenvalid in the case of the Khmer and Kuy in thepast when the Kuy fulfilled distinct roles (suchas producing iron), but it does not appear to beso today. Instead, this may be a case of compe-tition between groups with similar livelihoodstrategies (Banton, 1983), with stereotypes atwork to reinforce differences. Stereotypes bothways have likely been maintained through lackof communication.

Assimilation of Kuy into the dominantKhmer identity

Kuy assimilation into the Khmer identity, relatedto but different from cultural assimilation, hasalso been a significant trend, and many Kuy haveexpressed a concern about it. It is one thing toadopt cultural practices that are increasinglysimilar to those of Khmer and another to identify

as Khmer. Entire villages have adopted theKhmer identity. Informants made commentssuch as, the older people in the village were allKuy, but the younger generation is all Khmer orthat village is Khmer but used to be Kuy. Inform-ants from several villages in Kompong Thom,Siem Reap and Stung Treng provinces told methat they are Khmer but their grandparents orancestors were Kuy. In other cases assimilationhas been more individual. One informantexplained to me, if Kuy people want to go on tohigher levels in school, they say they are Khmer.In recent years, Kuy who have gone to work infactories have also been among those most likelyto claim Khmer identity.

Language loss has played a particularlyimportant role in assimilation into the Khmeridentity, though in some cases at least assimila-tion into the Khmer identity has probablyhelped to drive language loss. Describingassimilation by Kuy in Thailand observed in theearly 1900s, Seidenfaden (1952: 156) writesthat once people switched from speaking Kuy tospeaking Thai or Khmer they [did] not like to bereminded of their true origin. Many of the Kuypeople and people of Kuy ancestry with whomI spoke expressed the sentiment that to be Kuyone must be able to speak the Kuy language despite the fact that there are numerous com-munities in which people identify as Kuy andare locally accepted as Kuy (and are thus Kuy)but do not speak the Kuy language. In KangCham Commune in Stung Trengs Thalla BarivatDistrict, people told me that they had lost theirlanguage and therefore are Khmer. People Ispoke with in one village in Kompong ThomsSandan District said that they could not be Kuy though their ancestors were because theycould not speak the Kuy language. If one did nothave to speak the language to be Kuy, they said,then we are all Kuy.

Stigmatisation of the Kuy identity alsoappears to have been important in processesleading people to identify as Kuy, as well as inprocesses of cultural assimilation as describedabove. My informants told me that they thoughtthat Khmer is a higher status ethnicity than Kuy.Many Kuy I spoke with recalled feeling that theKuy were especially persecuted during the PolPot regime, and since then they have clearlybeen marginalised politically and socially,much as Chuengsatiansup (1998) describes in



the case of the Kuy of Thailand. Stigmatisationof identities of less powerful groups is common,even if there are minimal cultural differences(Eriksen, 2002), and Kuy face outright discrimi-nation for being identified as such (Heang andEk, 2009) though the situation is now chang-ing as will become clear below. I have heardKhmer describe the Kuy as dirty and lazy, and aKuy woman told me she was once asked by aKhmer if it is true that Kuy have tails. AnotherKuy woman told me that Khmer make plays onthe word Kuy and refer to people being darklike Kuy. White (2009) describes discrimina-tion faced by Kuy when going to markets. Wemay hypothesise that this stigmatisation isrelated to competition between Kuy and Khmerbecause of the similarities in livelihood strate-gies mentioned above, as has been found inother cases. It appears that Kuy have to a sig-nificant extent internalised this stigmatisation;these feelings have been aggravated by theirfeeling that their language is not important, pri-marily because (until recently) it did not have awritten script.

Individuals with a low status ethnic identitymay benefit from claiming a higher status iden-tity that is, from assimilating into that identity.Eidham (1969) describes such a situation in thecase of coastal Sami in Norway. There were nophysical differences or significant differences inmaterial culture between the Sami and Norwe-gians, though the Sami had a distinct language,and the Sami identity was stigmatised. WhenEidham visited Sami villages, villagers told himthat they were Norwegian and it was not untilhe had spent some time there that theyacknowledged being Sami. Sami performedNorwegian identities in the presence of Norwe-gians and only spoke the Sami language amongthemselves. Sami felt it benefited them to denytheir Sami identity because publicly expressingit incurred high costs. Kuy assimilation appearsto have occurred much as in the case of theSami. There are costs to publicly performing theKuy identity, as one could face discriminationfor doing so. People with Kuy ancestry haveapparently often performed the Khmer identitywhen possible; certainly many have claimed tobe Khmer to outsiders and have been able tobecause of physical and cultural similaritiesbetween Khmer and Kuy. Eidham describeslimits on the ability of Sami to assimilate, based

on language, other communication skills, socialskills in general and others knowledge of anindividuals descent. These factors have all alsolikely come into play for Kuy making the deci-sion to claim Khmer identity.

Laitin (1998) suggests that entire communitiescan switch ethnic identity quickly through atipping effect. If an entire community claims tobe of a certain ethnicity, it could be difficult forone member who shares descent with others inthe community to claim another ethnic identity.However, if many in the community think thatothers are likely to claim the new ethnicity, itbecomes easier for them to do so themselves. Ifany actually do make the switch, the entirecommunity may soon follow. Eidham found thatentire communities had completely assimilatedinto the Norwegian identity and yet were awareof their Sami ancestry. The tipping phenomenonmay explain the assimilation of entire villagesthat I have referred to above.

Reassertion of Kuy identity

While Kuy continue to assimilate, a revival ofKuy identity though apparently not so much ofKuy culture is occurring among a small part ofthe population. Yinger (1994) notes that assimi-lation is rarely complete and even after genera-tions traces of the original ethnicity oftenremain. Ethnic identities can be reasserted, par-ticularly as the relative power, advantages orinterests associated with identities change.

The reassertion of Kuy identity appears tohave been to a large extent strategic, driven inparticular by awareness of benefits of identifyingas Kuy with regard to making resource claims. In2000, NGOs began to encourage people toemphasise their Kuy identity in advocacy onland and resource issues in order to gain sym-pathy from the international community. Ini-tially, the focus of advocacy was loggingconcessions and their impacts on resin tapping.Beginning in 2003, Kuy people have becomefamiliar with the concept of IndigenousPeoples and begun to make claims as Indig-enous Peoples, especially communal landclaims enabled by Cambodias 2001 Land Law,as I will describe in the following section.Making claims as Indigenous Peoples was onlypossible if people identified as Kuy. By late2004, large numbers of people with Kuy ances-

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try who had previously claimed to be Khmernow claimed to be Kuy. In 2002 a woman fromThmear Commune in Preah Vihears Chey SenDistrict told that there were no Kuy in hervillage, but by 2004 such a claim was no longerpossible as the community strongly identified asKuy. By 2004 communities in Anlong PheCommune in Stung Trengs Thalla Bariwat Dis-trict also strongly identified as Kuy while notlong before they presented themselves to outsid-ers as Khmer. Over the years revival of Kuyidentity has continued as Kuy communities havecontinued to assert claims to communal land(though no Kuy communities are close to receiv-ing titles) as well as, increasingly, appealed tointernational concern for Indigenous Peoples.The revival received a significant boost with anadvocacy campaign to protect an area of forestknown as Prey Lang that lies at the intersectionof Kompong Thom, Preah Vihear, Stung Trengand Kratie provinces, and is of vital importanceto Kuy people. The campaign, which has beenpublicised internationally (The World, 2011),has generated concern for the Kuy, and commu-nities that never strongly identified as Kuy nowdo so as they call for the protection of Prey Lang.Baird (2011) writes about a similar revival ofKhmer Daoem (original Khmer) identity inCambodias Pursat province among people whohad recently claimed to be Khmer.

While resource claims have been important,the development of a Kuy script and introductionof bilingual education (IWGIA, 2011), a generalinterest in and concern for the Kuy shown byNGOs and others, the emphasis on Kuy identityby NGOs as a basis for social mobilisationamong Kuy, and participation of Kuy leaders ininternational events (see below) have also allprobably helped to reduce the costs and increasethe benefits of identifying as Kuy. In 2012, whenI asked informants about the resurgence in Kuyidentity, they attributed it to people knowing thatthe United Nations recognises IndigenousPeoples and is promoting Indigenous Peoplesrights. There may also be a degree of personalopportunism as NGOs make resources availableto people who speak out as Kuy.

There has been increased interest in the Kuylanguage in some villages, which can probablybe attributed to efforts to promote the languageas well as increased identification as Kuy. Therehave also been some efforts to re-emphasise

spirit ceremonies and the role of Animist leadersin community life. And the protection of naturalplaces associated with spirits and Kuy heritagehas been important for the growing identifica-tion as Kuy. Still, overall, the reassertion of Kuyidentity has involved only limited culturalrevival.

As NGOs and Kuy leaders have encouragedpeople to reassert Kuy identity, they have fre-quently encountered people whose parents orgrandparents were Kuy but who say that theythemselves cannot be Kuy because they do notspeak the Kuy language. In assimilation into theKhmer identity, what mattered was whether onecould perform the Khmer identity convincingly;but as people now identify as Kuy, what consti-tutes a satisfactory Kuy ethnic performance hasbecome increasingly important. I mentionedabove that in some places people consider lan-guage to be important in identification as Kuy.People have said to me, I dont speak the lan-guage, so I am not Kuy. These places appear tobe primarily in areas where there are still size-able numbers of Kuy speakers, and in areaswhere there are few speakers one can be consid-ered Kuy without speaking the language. Thispoint warrants further research. Another con-straint identified by my informants as leadingsome people to feel that they cannot claim to beKuy is that their government-issued identitycards identify them as Khmer. An informantexplained, now, if we say that we are Kuy,authorities will say, but your ID card says youare Khmer. So how can we say we are Kuy?

Kuy Indigenous identity

Above I referred to Kuy people becoming famil-iar with the concept of Indigenous Peoples andmaking claims as Indigenous Peoples. In thissection I will explore the processes throughwhich this has happened and the implicationsfor identities, highlighting the important role ofagency on the part of Kuy people and differentorganisations. Too often the diffusion of theconcept of Indigenous Peoples or Indigenousidentity has been portrayed as spontaneouswhen in many cases (and certainly in the case ofthe Kuy) it has been anything but that.

Indigenous is a political term whose usagedeveloped in the context of international law.The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur of



the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimi-nation and Protection of Minorities, in hisStudy on the Problem of Discrimination againstIndigenous Populations (Cobo, 1983), gave aworking definition of Indigenous that has sincebeen cited frequently:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nationsare those which, having a historical continuitywith pre-invasion and pre-colonial societiesthat developed on their territories, considerthemselves distinct from other sectors of thesocieties now prevailing on those territories, orparts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are deter-mined to preserve, develop and transmit tofuture generations their ancestral territories,and their ethnic identity, as the basis of theircontinued existence as peoples, in accordancewith their own cultural patterns, social institu-tions and legal system.

No formal definition has been adopted,however, and the UN follows the principle ofself-identification. Many Indigenous groups alsoemphasise self-identification and reject anyefforts to define Indigenousness on the basis thatdefining it could allow the exclusion of somegroups whom it should include (Gray, 1995;Erni, 2008). The lack of a definition has been thecause of considerable confusion as the use ofthe term by the UN and the Indigenous Peoplesmovement is different from standard Englishusage. Many Asian governments refuse to rec-ognise specific groups as being Indigenous,claiming that the dominant ethnic groups are asIndigenous as other groups (Erni, 2008; Baird,2011). But as reflected in the working definitioncited above, for the Indigenous Peoples move-ment, Indigenous generally reflects a relation-ship of domination by other ethnic groups notimplied by standard usage of the term. Gray(1995) makes this point clear in describingIndigenous Peoples as colonized, a perspec-tive further developed by Baird (2008).

Baird (2011) and Ehrentraut (2013) describehow NGOs and donors were instrumental ingetting a chapter on communal titling of Indig-enous communities land included in the 2001Cambodian Land Law. Though not the first(Ehrentraut, 2013), this was an important earlystep in the process of introducing the concept ofIndigenous Peoples to Cambodia. UN agencies,

the Asian Development Bank (ADB), NGOs anddonors pressured the Cambodian government toinclude provisions for the protection of Indig-enous communities land in the new law andwere influential in shaping those provisions;the ADBs requirement that the governmentconduct a review of the existing land law createdpolitical space enabling them to do this.The termused to refer to Indigenous Peoples in the 2001Land Law, chuncheat daoem pheak tech, liter-ally means minority original ethnicity. Sincethe passage of the law, the term chuncheatdaoem pheak tech has been used consistently torefer to Indigenous Peoples, including the Kuyand other non-Khmer peoples living in Cambo-dias hinterlands, by government, civil societyand Indigenous Peoples alike (Baird, 2013).

Through consultations to inform the draftingof the Land Law and through other related workby NGOs in Ratanakiri province in northeasternCambodia, Indigenous Peoples in that provincebecame familiar with the concept of IndigenousPeoples. However, prior to the laws adoptionthere was little awareness of the concept amongindigenous groups outside of Ratanakiri (includ-ing among the Kuy) or NGOs working withthem. In 2001 and 2002, NGOs working withKuy communities to help them protect theirrights with respect to forest use emphasisedtheir ethnicity but referred to them as ethnicminorities. A key moment in the introduction ofthe concept of Indigenous Peoples to the Kuywas when, in 2003, members of OPKC (a PreahVihear-based Kuy organisation) learned aboutthe concept of Indigenous Peoples in thecontext of the Land Law. This was one of the firstencounters of Kuy people with the concept.Individuals working with OPKC soon begantravelling from village to village in Preah Vihearand Kompong Thom provinces to raise aware-ness of communal land titling. Chuncheatdaoem pheak tech began to enter the lexiconof Kuy people in those provinces.

OPKC was not involved in discussions aboutwhether the Kuy were Indigenous or not; thatdecision had already been made (Ehrentraut,2013). A 2002 ADB report, for example,includes Kuy among Indigenous groups in Cam-bodia (Asian Development Bank, 2002). OPKCmembers were told that the Kuy are Indigenousand that the provisions for communal landtitling in the 2001 Land Law applied to them.

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NGOs working with OPKC at the time took thisfor granted, despite differences between the Kuyand other Indigenous groups in Cambodia.OPKC members accepted this perspective andcommunicated it to the Kuy villagers they met.

A series of consultation workshops organisedby NGOs in 2004 and 2005 were also key to thediffusion of the concept of Indigenous Peoples inprovinces other than Ratanakiri (Baird, 2011),including in Kuy areas. A nationwide forum onIndigenous Peoples land issues held in Septem-ber 2004 arose from collaboration betweenNGOs working with Indigenous Peoples (someof them not yet familiar with the concept ofIndigenous Peoples) and consultants working forGTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fr TechnischeZusammenarbeit), the German overseas devel-opment agency. Indigenous Peoples from 14provinces participated, for the most part identi-fied by NGOs. The forum was followed by con-sultation workshops that explored the concept ofcommunal land tenure of Indigenous communi-ties, held from September 2004 to February 2005in provincial towns around the country andorganised by NGOs, and another national-levelforum for Indigenous Peoples in March 2005.Kuy people from Kompong Thom, PreahVihear, Siem Reap, Banteay Meanchey, OddarMeanchey, Kratie and StungTreng provinces par-ticipated in these events. NGOs organised theforums and workshops in part to inform thedevelopment of a national government strategyfor the registration of Indigenous communitiesland, but while they had hoped the consultationswould be officially endorsed by the government,this did not happen.

The workshops focused on interpreting con-cepts in the Land Law (especially communalland, traditional authorities and Indigenouscommunity) in light of traditional land use andtraditional social organisation of Indigenouscommunities. It was taken for granted that Kuyare Indigenous. The question was how to applythe Land Law to them and other Indigenousgroups so that their lands could be protected. Aconsistent finding which applied to the Kuy aswell as other groups was that there was typicallya close association between individual commu-nities or groups of communities and specificareas of land which they had occupied prior tothe civil war and continued to utilise. The pro-visions of the Land Law could, it turned out, be

mapped onto traditional Kuy land tenuresystems.

The workshops had some immediate effects.For example, one of the participants in the work-shop in Kompong Thom province was a womanfrom a Kuy community in Siem Reap that was nolonger living on the land it had occupied prior tothe civil war but continued to cultivate swiddensthere. During the workshop she asked the NGOsif her community could build houses on thatland, and they told her that her community hadthe right to do so. In the following months, thecommunity resettled the area.

Following the workshops, OPKC continued totalk with Kuy communities in Preah Vihear andKompongThom about the concept of IndigenousPeoples and began to experiment with helpingthem make claims for communal land title. Theyhelped communities identify their members,their traditional authorities (kring srok and otherelders), and the boundaries of their communalland, and helped them map those boundariesusing global positioning system (GPS). Theclaims included all the area that had been asso-ciated with the respective community, includinglarge areas of forest. Assisted by another NGO,one community in Preah Vihears Chey Sen Dis-trict put up concrete boundary markers aroundits land though they never received official rec-ognition of their claim. Over the years, as Kuymade little progress in getting official recognitionfor their claims, efforts to register communal landformally subsided. However, Kuy continued topush for protection of their lands on the basis ofLand Law provisions for Indigenous communi-ties. Individual Kuy and other IndigenousPeoples who became members of two national-level peoples organisations, IRAM and CIYA,were also increasingly exposed to the concept ofIndigenous Peoples and helped to disseminate itin communities.The United Nations Declarationon the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted bythe UN General Assembly in 2007, was trans-lated into Khmer by the UN Office of the HighCommissioner for Human Rights, and copieswere distributed in Kuy and other Indigenouscommunities.

Though the concept of Indigenous Peopleswas introduced in Cambodia by NGOs, Indig-enous Peoples themselves have begun to appro-priate it. Indigenous has become an ethnicidentity in Cambodia (Baird, 2011) that more



and more Kuy are assuming; some refer tothemselves as Kuy Indigenous (Heang and Ek,2009). I am unable to say how widespread thisidentification is. What is clear, however, is thatlarge numbers of people in numerous Kuy com-munities have participated in processes aimedat making land claims based on the discourse ofIndigenous land rights. And a sizeable numberof them have certainly been aware of the con-nection between those land claims and theiridentification as Indigenous as compared, say,with their identification simply as Kuy.

A smaller number of Kuy have also partici-pated in associations (IRAM and CIYA) forwhich being Indigenous is a formal basis formembership. Especially within IRAM, Kuyleaders are becoming increasingly visible andvocal. They are also speaking out on issuesaffecting Indigenous Peoples. For example, aPhnom Penh Post article quotes a Kuy leader ofIRAM, Ros Han, criticising economic land con-cessions: Those land concessions are on therotational farmland and spirit forests on whichindigenous people depend to make their livingand [preserve] their traditions (Sam, 2009).Another article quotes another Kuy leader ofIRAM, Um Mech, critiquing a draft law onNGOs for the obstacles that the laws registra-tion and reporting requirements would posedue to high rates of illiteracy among indigenouspeople (Miller and Vong, 2011).

I have been able to explore the question ofIndigenous identity in more depth with severalkey Kuy informants who are NGO workers.From those conversations and interviews, it isclear that the Indigenous identity has beenempowering to a degree that the Kuy identityhas not. These informants see the Indigenousidentity as conferring certain rights and being ofhigher status than the Kuy identity. As a result,they prefer to identify as Indigenous or KuyIndigenous rather than Kuy.

Over time, as hopes for being granted commu-nal land titles have gone unmet (Baird, 2013;Keating, 2013), more general conceptions ofinternationally recognised Indigenous Peoplesrights and the understanding that the world caresabout Indigenous Peoples have become moresalient. The higher status of the Indigenous iden-tity as compared with the Kuy identity is, in turn,due in part to the links it facilitates outside ofCambodia. A number of my Kuy contacts (par-

ticularly members of OPKC, IRAM and CIYA)have got to know Indigenous Peoples from othercountries whose status is higher than that of theKhmer around them. Participation in sessions ofthe United Nations Permanent Forum on Indig-enous Issues (UNPFII),3 preparatory meetings forUNPFII sessions and various regional IndigenousPeoples events have been key to making thesecontacts (Baird, 2013). Kuy people had their firstdirect contact with Indigenous groups fromoutside the country in 2007 when Kuy from anumber of provinces participated in a prepara-tory meeting for Indigenous Peoples from all overAsia that was held in Cambodia prior to theannual UNPFII session (IWGIA and TebtebbaFoundation, 2007). Also in 2007, two Indig-enous Peoples from Cambodia participated inthe UNPFII session for the first time; both wereKuy and leaders within IRAM. Since then, fourother Kuy leaders have also participated inUNPFII sessions. These events were transforma-tional for some, in part by making them aware ofthe broader Indigenous community. Throughthese contacts, Indigenous identity is becomingassociated (for these individuals at least) withunity with a broader Indigenous communityinside and outside of Cambodia which is becom-ing more and more respected.There are parallelswith the adoption of world religions by Indig-enous communities in other countries. WhatTapp (1989: 94) wrote about Christianity couldhave also been written about appropriation ofthe Indigenous identity by the Kuy in Cambodia:The adoption of Christianity by an ethnic minor-ity in effect enhances their status as an ethnicminority. Another factor in the relative statusesof the Kuy and Indigenous identities is thatKhmer continue to make plays on the word Kuyor make disparaging remarks about others bycomparing them to Kuy (as I have describedabove). When I asked some key informants ifthey preferred to identify as Kuy or Indigenous,one said, the word Kuy doesnt sound so nice.Indigenous sounds better.

Within the two national Indigenous Peoplessorganisations, IRAM and CIYA, Kuy havebecome prominent. A number of Kuy have heldleading positions within IRAM, in part becauseKuy live in so many provinces (7 of the 15provinces where Indigenous Peoples live inCambodia and that are represented withinIRAM). The perceived greater ability of Kuy in

P. Swift


negotiating the ways of Khmer NGOs may alsobe a factor. Kuy are increasingly filling CIYAsranks as more Kuy go on to college, and in 2012,34% of CIYAs members were Kuy. In addition,more Kuy have participated in sessions of theUNPFII than have members of any of Cambo-dias other Indigenous groups. The Prey Langcampaign has also contributed to the visibility ofthe Kuy, both domestically and internationally,as they are the primary Indigenous group in thePrey Lang area. That campaign is now central tothe agenda of IRAM. The prominence of Kuywithin national Indigenous Peoples organisa-tions as well as national and international advo-cacy means, effectively, that Kuy are becomingincreasingly prominent within the Indigenousidentity in Cambodia, as within a given con-glomerate ethnic identity there are often one ormore dominant sub-groups.

Some of my Kuy informants are, however,concerned that the Ministry of Interior which ischarged with registering Indigenous communi-ties before they can receive communal titles will not recognise the Kuy as Indigenous. Onerecalled being told by a Ministry official that ifthey had large houses they were not Indigenous,and that he said, since the government recog-nised Indigenous Peoples, everyone says they areIndigenous. States may exercise the power ofclassification and play a significant role in deter-mining what categories are available and who isa member of which (Laitin, 1998). While govern-ment officials have shown little interest in tryingto determine what makes someone Kuy, theyhave been more engaged in the question of whatmakes someone Indigenous (Baird, 2013).

Conclusion

There is ongoing scholarly debate over theconsequences of employing the concept ofIndigenous Peoples because of its supposedlyexclusionary and potentially chauvinistic under-current (Erni, 2008: 15). I have not tried toengage in that debate here, but I have describedsome of the consequences for the Kuy of appro-priating this concept which are relevant to thatdebate. That appropriation began with the intro-duction of Kuy to the Land Law, but has movedbeyond it as Kuy communities make use ofbroader conceptions of indigenous peoplesrights in making resource claims and Indig-

enous has become the preferred ethnic identifi-cation of at least some individuals.

The Indigenous identity has linked Kuy peoplewith a larger community outside of Cambodiawho are of higher status than the Khmer aroundthem as well as with a larger community insideCambodia. It has been able to inspire pride andconfidence in a way that the Kuy identity has not.While the dominant trend has long been for Kuyto assimilate into the Khmer identity, the Indig-enous identity has clearly played an importantrole in letting people of Kuy ancestry becomeKuy. And the Indigenous identity appears toprovide a basis for agency in a way that Kuyidentity has not.

Notes

1 The shaded area includes areas (mostly forested but alsosome non-Kuy settlements) around and between Kuysettlements. I include settlements with majority popula-tions or significant minority populations that self-identify to outsiders as Kuy. I also include settlementswith significant populations identified as Kuy by indi-viduals who self-identify as Kuy, even if most or all ofthose populations do not themselves self-identify as Kuy.

2 For a description of resin tapping, see Evans (2003) andBaird (2009).

3 The UNPFII is an advisory body under the Economic andSocial Council of the UN and provides a formal mecha-nism for bringing concerns of Indigenous Peoples intothe UN system. Its meetings are held once a year at theUN headquarters in New York and Indigenous Peoplefrom around the world participate as observers (seeGarcia-Alix, 2003).

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