TY - JOUR
T1 - Development or dispossession? Exploring the consequences of a major Chinese investment in rural Cambodia
AU - Mackenzie, Ellis
AU - Milne, Sarah
AU - van Kerkhoff, Lorrae
AU - Ray, Bunthin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Belt and Road Initiative
KW - Cambodia
KW - dispossession
KW - land grabbing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128457225&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/03066150.2022.2026929
DO - 10.1080/03066150.2022.2026929
M3 - Article
SN - 0306-6150
VL - 50
SP - 1478
EP - 1500
JO - Journal of Peasant Studies
JF - Journal of Peasant Studies
IS - 4
ER -