Location
The Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) was established in 1998 at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Thailand in response to the need for integration of social science and natural science knowledge in order to gain a better understanding of sustainable development issues in upper mainland Southeast Asia. RCSD has, since that time, striven to become a truly regional center for sustainable development issues, linking graduate training and research to development policy and practice. It does this by drawing upon the three-decade long research and teaching experience of Chiang Mai University in fields such as resource management, highland agricultural systems, social science and health, environmental impact assessment and ethnic and gender relations.
RCSD was initially supported by a Ford Foundation endowment grant to the amount of US$ 1 million, and this Fund has allowed RCSD to implement and run international graduate programs, non-degree training courses and other support activities whose aim to promote information sharing among scholars in the Mekong Region. Additional support from the Ford Foundation through scholarship funding for Vietnamese and Chinese students - to attend the M.A. program at RCSD and also PhD. scholarships for staff of the Faculty of Social Sciences, has helped significantly enhance human capacity in the Mekong Region, in the fields of social science and development. Recent scholarship support from the Heinrich Bőll Foundation has also enabled RCSD to reach-out to Burmese students who would otherwise have little chance of progressing on to higher education.
Tremendous political, economic and social change in the Mekong Region resulting from recent, regionalized development is a new challenge for RCSD, and will mean having to take another look at the region - both across geo-political boundaries and as an interconnected entity -from diverse and multiple perspectives. Timely and significant support from the Rockefeller Foundation, for the recently implemented 'Program on Knowledge and Educational Enhancement in the Mekong Region' (PKEEMR), has allowed RCSD to pro-actively work and collaborate with partner institutions in the Mekong Region, the aim being to promote understanding, information sharing and mutual learning regarding emerging issues, and to link these issues to a deeper and broader conceptual understanding of the regionalized context within which they are set, as well as understand their impacts at the local level. The PKEEMR includes a comprehensive range of activities, such as collaborative research, visiting scholar and non-degree research fellowships, inter-university collaborative workshops, regional and international conferences and also the writing and issuing of publications.
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Resources
Displaying 1 - 5 of 10Transnationalization of Resistance to Economic Land Concessions in Cambodia
The granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) over large parts of Cambodia has begun to attract global attention. It has also become a key focal point for civil society mobilization in Cambodia as well as for transnational activism directed at targets both within and outside Cambodia.
Resistance to Land Grabbing and Displacement in Rural Cambodia
In rural Cambodia indiscriminate, illegitimate and often violent land grabs in the form of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) have triggered myriad local responses by peasants facing evictions from private and communal lands. Drawing on fieldwork in Kratie and Koh Kong provinces, this chapter looks at the various forms of local resistance to government-sanctioned dispossession and displacement and discusses their effectiveness in bringing about socio-political and institutional change.
Land Acquisitions in Northeastern Cambodia: Space and Time matters
Over the last decade, the highlands of Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia have witnessed massive land acquisitions and profound land use changes, mostly from forest covers to rubber plantation, which has contributed to rapidly and profoundly transform the livelihoods of smallholders relying primarily on family-based farming. Based on village- and households-level case studies in two districts of the province, this paper analyses this process and its mid-term consequences on local livelihoods. We first look at who has acquired land, where, how and at what pace.
Politics of Land Grabbing in the Borderland: A Case Study of Chongjom Border Market, Kabcheong District, Surin Province
Chongjom border is a contested area which reflects power-related relationship between center and its marginal space. From deserted borderland in the buffer zone during Khmer Rouge period, Chongjom becomes an emerging 4th ranking of cross-border trading between Thailand and Cambodia, where value of exporting goods have been increased up to 224.05 % in 2013. The politics of changes in land use and property relations change lead to widen of land grabbing in the area.
Different Regions, Different Reasons? Comparing Chinese land-consuming outward investments in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
Research indicates that key parameters of “land grabbing” differ across regions (e.g., ILC 2012) – particularly in view of who invests and/or when the bulk of investments occurred. At the same time, my review of the “land grab” literature since 2008 reveals that hardly any comparative assessments of “land grabbing” from a home country perspective exist that study whether and/or in which way and why “land grabs” of a single investor country differ across regions.