Series:

ASAA Southeast Asian Publications

2 total works

Cover of Cham Muslims of the Mekong Delta
This fascinating account of the vigorous survival of an Islamic community in the strife-torn borderlands of the lower Mekong delta, and of its creative accommodation to the modernizing reforms of the Vietnamese government, shows how Islam provides a unifying focus for Cham Muslims in their diversely constituted rural settlements. Full of Cham Muslim people's stories and voices, this highly readable ethnographic study reverberates with the texture of everyday life in rural Southeast Asia. Its original insights into the sources of religious and ethnic differentiation in the Mekong delta will enrich the comparative study of culturally pluralist societies, while its contributions to the study of Islam, cosmopolitanism, trade, rural development and resistance, as well as to our understanding of Vietnam, Cambodia and the Malay diaspora, are equally new and important.

Cover of The Khmer Lands of Vietnam

The Khmer Lands of Vietnam

by Philip Taylor

Published 30 April 2014

The indigenous people of Southern Vietnam, known as the Khmer Krom, occupy territory over which Vietnam and Cambodia have competing claims. Regarded with ambivalence and suspicion by nationalists in both countries, these in-between people have their own claims on the place where they live and a unique perspective on history and sovereignty in their heavily contested homelands. To cope with wars, environmental re-engineering and nation-building, the Khmer Krom have selectively engaged with the outside world in addition to drawing upon local resources and self-help networks.

This groundbreaking book reveals the sophisticated ecological repertoire deployed by the Khmer Krom to deal with a complex river delta, and charts their diverse adaptations to a changing environment. In addition, it provides an ethnographically grounded exposition of Khmer mythic thought that shows how the Khmer Krom position themselves within a landscape imbued with life-sustaining potential, magical sovereign power and cosmological significance. Offering a new environmental history of the Mekong River delta, this book is the first to explore Southern Vietnam through the eyes of its indigenous Khmer residents.