In 2018 I earned the prestigious Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Core Fellowship for the project “Human-environment interactions: Nomadic fishing communities and state development in the Lower Mekong Basin“. This is the abstract of the project as it was written. I now use the term “mobile fishing communities” instead of “nomadic fishing communities”, but I thought it would be better to leave this as is to better understand how concepts evolve and change after one is done with the research. The link to the outputs of this project can be found at the end of the post.
The premise and relevance of the project
The phenomenon of nomadic fishing communities of the lower Mekong River basin has never been acknowledged in the context of state development in the region. During the course of my doctoral studies I came across ethnographic and environmental data –supported by iconographic and archaeological data– that strongly suggests that the movement patterns of these nomadic communities were likely active in historic (and likely prehistoric) periods. For the past century, archaeological theories regarding the establishment and development of the Angkor empire (802-1432 CE) have focused on the introduction of agriculture, the establishment of urban settlements and the importance of overseas trade. Historical narratives have stemmed from terrestrial approaches to the subject, largely ignoring the relevance of aquatic resources and the communities that exploited them. However, the data I gathered indicates that these nomadic fishing communities were instrumental to Angkor’s economy, and that their role within the empire affected the geopolitics of the region and the empire’s landscape of power. By discerning the impact of maritime or fluvial cultures in their social framework, which tends to be ignored, I expect to bring a balance to the narratives of the past in regions with amphibious landscapes like Angkor. In order to test the proposed premise, this research project will address the following research questions:
1.-Livelihood: What was the role of these nomadic fishing communities during the height of the fishing season? How did they relate to the main rice harvest season? How did these nomadic communities affect the livelihood of the agricultural communities of Angkor?
2.-Economy: How did the movement of these communities affect the movement of goods across the region and the local economy?
3.-Culture: Did the back and forth movement of these communities contribute to the dispersal of culture in the region and its homogenization below the Phapheng-Khone falls? Can we ascribe the rapid indianization of the region detected in the archaeological material to these communities?
4.-Politics: How did these communities affect the landscape of power in the region? How did their role in the food production system influence the geopolitics of Angkor? What was their impact on material culture and warfare?
5.-Climate change: How did the two climatic events of the 14th and 15th centuries affect the actions of these nomadic communities? What impact did these events have in the demise of Angkor?
First output of the project (winner of the ISEAA Early Career Award 2020):