The rapid growth of low-fee private schools in developing countries has attracted much scholarly attention in recent years. In contrast with the traditional private schools that mainly serves elites and the rich, low-fee private schools target the relatively poor households by charging low tuition fees. Some believe that low-fee private school is “the poor’s best chance” to receive quality education while others question the quality of low-fee private schools and whether they are affordable to the most disadvantaged population. The present paper is a case study on a low-fee private school in Cambodia, a country where the low-fee private sector is unexplored. Through in-depth interviews with households and other stakeholders including the government officers, school owner, teachers and students from the low-fee private school, the study seeks to understand reasons beyond the growing popularity of the low-fee private sector and its implications to education in Cambodia. Findings revealed that interviewees believe that the low-fee private school is of better quality and expressed dissatisfactions toward the public sector. The paper discusses the implications of low-fee private schooling on the issues of quality and equity and the role of state in the education provision in Cambodia. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This dissertation engages with processes of social and spatial organisation of the Brao, a Mon-Khmer language-speaking ethnic group whose approximately 60,000 members reside mainly in the provinces of Attapeu and Champasak, in the southern-most part of Laos; and Ratanakiri and Stung Treng, in the northeastern-most part of Cambodia. Divided broadly into eight different sub-groups—the Jree, Kavet, Hamong, Ka-nying, Lun, Umba, Kreung and Brao Tanap—the Brao are, historically, swidden cultivators whose livelihoods were, and often remain, heavily dependent on fishing, hunting and the collection of various forest products, and who have particular ways of organising spatially, with concomitant rules and norms, including spatial taboos. Over the last number of centuries, various powers have tried to dominate the Brao and Brao spaces, including the Khmer, Lao and Siamese, followed by the French, Japanese, Vietnamese, Americans, Lao (royalist and communist), Khmer (royalist and communist), and the present-day Lao and Cambodian governments working together with international development agencies. These various groups, including those typically considered to be precolonial and postcolonial, are theorised in this thesis as representing different forms of colonialism, each with particular objectives and implications for the Brao. This dissertation examines these various forms of colonialism and their effects on the Brao over history. The role of the international border between Lao and Cambodia in constituting Brao 'places of resistance' is also examined. I demonstrate how differing forms of colonial domination have had varying impacts on the Brao; through effecting social and spatial change that in turn impact—amongst other things—Brao places. These places are constituted with meaning by the Brao, and are closely linked to their identities. All forms of colonialism have spatial repercussions, and frequently include processes of (re)territorialisation and attempts to rescale the spatial systems of dominated groups like the Brao. However, colonial powers are never omnipotent or fully successful. Their efforts are frequently resisted, even if negotiation, compliance and other nuanced responses are important. Overall, human agency is crucial for determining the outcomes of attempts to dominate.

<p>By any standard, victim participation is a relatively new phenomenon in international criminal law proceedings. Incredible advances have been made in the effort to end impunity for crimes against&nbsp / umanity, war crimes, genocide and, more recently, aggression. As a result, great strides have been made in ensuring the direct participation of victims of grave violations of human rights&nbsp / in court proceedings against their perpetrators. Prior to this, grave violations of human rights committed during conflicts or periods of mass violence were either largely ignored or even if action&nbsp / was taken, victims of the crimes hardly had a &lsquo / say&rsquo / in the proceedings. With the advent of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)&nbsp / &nbsp / new dawn in the proceedings of international criminal law has emerged. The statutes that govern the ICC and ECCC have given a voice to victims in court proceeding buy ensuring&nbsp / victims participation.Despite these advances, scholars have criticized victim participation for being inconsistent in its application at the International Criminal Court.1 The criticism has come from&nbsp / scholars who have highlighted the unintended consequences of victim participation in court proceedings, arguing that their participation has resulted in the under- or misrepresentation of the&nbsp / actual experience of survivors of war, mass violence, or repression. These problems have arisen largely because the need to establish the guilt or innocence of the accused and to protect their&nbsp / due process rights, to abide by the rules of evidence and procedure, and to conserve judicial resources all cut against victim-witnesses'ability to tell their stories at these tribunals thereby&nbsp / resulting in a limited, and sometimes inaccurate, record of victims' experience.</p>

The subject of this paper is of cultures of terror, and more specifically of the possibility of resistance in a context of extreme fear. The focus is upon ways in which survivors of the Pol Pot regime devise strategies of embodied resistance, and rebuild notions such as identity and bodily integrity, within a Buddhist framework, to the dominant discourse of terror in contemporary Cambodian society. / The paper problematizes the concept of "order" and questions its validity as a dominant paradigm in anthropology. Further, in searching for new ways of theorizing and writing about resistance and terror, it suggests that a more power conscious analysis of popular religion and ritual may prove enlightening. / A theoretical framework is derived from a review of anthropological studies of terror and political violence. Of particular interest is the concept of "spaces of resistance" and the notions of "spaces of violence" and "bodily resistance" which it invokes. From within this framework the Dhammayietra, or peace walk, is considered as an embodied symbol of resistance and empowerment. It is hypothesized that the Dhammayietra may provide a way in which, through the symbolic "washing away" of Khmer Rouge memories; through the creation of new collective memories; and through the reclaiming of a physical manifestation (Angkor Wat) of the Buddhist-centered world view, some Cambodians may be able, at least in part, to emerge from the sensorially numb space which they created in order to survive the bodily, intellectual, and emotional assault upon their persons, culture, and religions by the Khmer Rouge.

This dissertation engages with processes of social and spatial organisation of the Brao, a Mon-Khmer language-speaking ethnic group whose approximately 60,000 members reside mainly in the provinces of Attapeu and Champasak, in the southern-most part of Laos; and Ratanakiri and Stung Treng, in the northeastern-most part of Cambodia. Divided broadly into eight different sub-groups—the Jree, Kavet, Hamong, Ka-nying, Lun, Umba, Kreung and Brao Tanap—the Brao are, historically, swidden cultivators whose livelihoods were, and often remain, heavily dependent on fishing, hunting and the collection of various forest products, and who have particular ways of organising spatially, with concomitant rules and norms, including spatial taboos. Over the last number of centuries, various powers have tried to dominate the Brao and Brao spaces, including the Khmer, Lao and Siamese, followed by the French, Japanese, Vietnamese, Americans, Lao (royalist and communist), Khmer (royalist and communist), and the present-day Lao and Cambodian governments working together with international development agencies. These various groups, including those typically considered to be precolonial and postcolonial, are theorised in this thesis as representing different forms of colonialism, each with particular objectives and implications for the Brao. This dissertation examines these various forms of colonialism and their effects on the Brao over history. The role of the international border between Lao and Cambodia in constituting Brao 'places of resistance' is also examined. I demonstrate how differing forms of colonial domination have had varying impacts on the Brao; through effecting social and spatial change that in turn impact—amongst other things—Brao places. These places are constituted with meaning by the Brao, and are closely linked to their identities. All forms of colonialism have spatial repercussions, and frequently include processes of (re)territorialisation and attempts to rescale the spatial systems of dominated groups like the Brao. However, colonial powers are never omnipotent or fully successful. Their efforts are frequently resisted, even if negotiation, compliance and other nuanced responses are important. Overall, human agency is crucial for determining the outcomes of attempts to dominate.

Thesis (M.A.) in History--University of Maine, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-128).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 389-402).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 423-478).

From the fall of Phnom Penh, to the hyper-Marxist Khmer Rouge, to the decades-long civil war and reconstruction of the country following Vietnam's invasion in 1979, Cambodia has seen a cultural upheaval that brought with it the destruction of institutions and ways of life that have been slow to recover. This two site study examines the reconstruction of one those institutions, the Buddhist monastery, in Prey Thom commune in the southwestern province of Kampot. The loss of traditions, texts, and clergy has meant that the centre of village life -- the local temple -- has had to regain many of those aspects that defined it throughout the centuries. Two of these, the power the monastery commanded in the eyes of locals and the monastic identity which defined how that power was expressed, have historically been vital to the monastery's existence and allowed for temples to be the epicentre of villages, defining individuals' lives and the agrarian economy they depended on. The monastery's reconstruction has also meant that the reliance on local folk and Hindu beliefs continued, and in some instances, grew in prominence in the absence of a viable and competent cadre of Buddhist monks. As the monastery continues to regain its former stature, how this affects merit-making traditions and the local economies which rely on them in many ways reflects the importance of local temples from village to village. While monastic schooling has proved to be important in recreating a knowledgeable cadre, how this affects local attitudes regarding the status of monks is further shaped by those outside of the monastery who either purposely or unknowingly determine local perceptions of it. The future of the monastery will depend on how it can maintain a degree of separation from these larger entities while continuing to serve in the time-honoured roles that sustain villages and the traditions they have historically relied upon.

This study traces the attempt by Pol Pot's Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) - renamed the party of Democratic Kampuchea (PDK) in 1982 - to regain the power it lost in January 1979 as a result of a Vietnamese invasion. It describes broadly the CPK/PDK armed struggle from 1979 to 1991 and examines in detail PDK efforts to return to power through the 1991 Paris Agreements, a peace settlement implemented by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). The study reinterprets the determinants of PDK political behaviour between its signature of the Paris Agreements and its decision in June 1992 not to implement the Agreements' provisions for demobilization of its armed forces under UNTAC auspices. It argues that despite the bitter souring of relations between Pol Pot and the Vietnamese Communists, PDK's turn-around can only be understood by taking seriously the doctrinal roots of PDK thinking within the Marxist-Leninist tradition, and in particular by treating it as an offshoot of the Vietnamese-dominated Indochinese Communist Party that gave birth to the CPK. It shows that the key concept upon which Pol Pot relied to fight his enemies after 1979 was the Vietnamese doctrine of "people's war", including its tactical prescriptions on Communist participation in parliamentary struggle and "peace agreements", such as that which the Vietnamese had signed in 1973. A major theme of the study is the self-delusional aspects of PDK's obsession with the Vietnamese-derived notion of people's war. The key self-delusion was the belief that by ever-more-correctly following properly-selected aspects of the script of people's war, PDK could renew the political support among the Cambodian peasantry that had supposedly been the basis of Pol Pot's seizure of power in 1975. The study shows how such hopes were revealed as illusory under the domestic political circumstances resulting from UNTAC's implementation of the Paris Agreements. UNTAC created political openings that PDK's non-Communist rival, the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), was able to exploit, while PDK was too unpopular to take advantage of similar opportunities and thus floundered.