Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRANSCAMUS (NGOs, Transnational Networks and the Transformation of Muslim Communities in Cambodia)
Période du rapport: 2020-02-03 au 2022-02-02
Since the 1993 reinstallment of the monarchy after the devastating rule of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Vietnamese occupation, foreign NGOs have been mushrooming in Cambodia. Several among these are transnational charities that are based in Malaysia and the Arabian Gulf. They have established themselves in the country in order to provide aid to Cambodia’s Muslim minority. These charities also invest vast resources in order to reconstruct the Cambodian Muslims’ religious infrastructure and leadership that had been almost completely destroyed by the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79).
The main objective of TRANSCAMUS was to understand how transnational Muslim networks and charities based in the Middle East and Malaysia have transformed the religious identity, leadership and social fabric (especially the gender relations) of Cambodia’s Muslim minorities, and how they have contributed to the current shaping of Cambodia’s Islamic field.
In the framework of this main objective the project was concerned about several interrelated questions:
- How have the activities of Gulf and Malaysian charities s evolved in Cambodia?
- How have the transnational flows contributed to altering the concepts of masculinity and femininity?
- How does the Cambodian case study inform us about larger dynamics of the economy transnational of Islamic networking?
- How does the sociopolitical and sociocultural context of Cambodia shape the structure and activities of Islamic NGOs and networks?
- Since the COVID-19 pandemic made field research impossible for a long time TRANSCAMUS also focused on the online representations and social media presence of various Cambodian Muslim groups connected to the Middle East and Malaysia.
Beyond filling an important gap in the literature, which is scarce on Islam in Cambodia, TRANSCAMUS has immense benefits for society. The results of the project are highly relevant to policy makers, policy researchers and NGO community. Funding Muslim groups and institutions from the Persian Gulf is a major concern of the EU. The results of TRANSCAMUS provides comparative perspectives by showing how Middle Eastern funding has impact on Muslim minority communities in a Southeast Asian country. By this the publications came out or will come out of the project provide a broader picture on how Muslim transnationalism works, and thereby contribute understanding networks that transmit the flows of material capital and ideas from the Gulf to Europe.
-The project concluded that transnational NGOs and significantly contributed to shaping the social fabric of the Muslim communities in Cambodia. Middle Easter and Malaysian charities played crucial role in transmitting Islamic ideas that deeply influenced the religious practices of local Muslims. For example, local practices and rituals that characterized Cambodian Islam in previous times have been abandoned, and the pilgrimage to the graves of Muslim sites declined.
At the same time, the Cambodian social context also shaped the local manifestations of Islamic movements and schools of thoughts that set foothold in Cambodia along with the transnational NGOs.
While one might read contemporary Islamic discourses as patriarchal, in reality Islamic and NGOs contributed to the increased presence of Cambodian Muslim women in the country’s job work force, hence their empowerment in society. Both the Salafi and the Muslim Brotherhood inspired NGOs run boarding schools where thousands of Muslim women received education leading to better prospects in studying at higher education, and receiving relatively well-paying employments.
The main objective of TRANSCAMUS was to understand how transnational Muslim networks and charities based in the Middle East and Malaysia have transformed the religious identity, leadership and social fabric (especially the gender relations) of Cambodia’s Muslim minorities, and how they have contributed to the current shaping of Cambodia’s Islamic field.
In the framework of this main objective the project was concerned about several interrelated questions:
- How have the activities of Gulf and Malaysian charities s evolved in Cambodia?
- How have the transnational flows contributed to altering the concepts of masculinity and femininity?
- How does the Cambodian case study inform us about larger dynamics of the economy transnational of Islamic networking?
- How does the sociopolitical and sociocultural context of Cambodia shape the structure and activities of Islamic NGOs and networks?
- Since the COVID-19 pandemic made field research impossible for a long time TRANSCAMUS also focused on the online representations and social media presence of various Cambodian Muslim groups connected to the Middle East and Malaysia.
Beyond filling an important gap in the literature, which is scarce on Islam in Cambodia, TRANSCAMUS has immense benefits for society. The results of the project are highly relevant to policy makers, policy researchers and NGO community. Funding Muslim groups and institutions from the Persian Gulf is a major concern of the EU. The results of TRANSCAMUS provides comparative perspectives by showing how Middle Eastern funding has impact on Muslim minority communities in a Southeast Asian country. By this the publications came out or will come out of the project provide a broader picture on how Muslim transnationalism works, and thereby contribute understanding networks that transmit the flows of material capital and ideas from the Gulf to Europe.
-The project concluded that transnational NGOs and significantly contributed to shaping the social fabric of the Muslim communities in Cambodia. Middle Easter and Malaysian charities played crucial role in transmitting Islamic ideas that deeply influenced the religious practices of local Muslims. For example, local practices and rituals that characterized Cambodian Islam in previous times have been abandoned, and the pilgrimage to the graves of Muslim sites declined.
At the same time, the Cambodian social context also shaped the local manifestations of Islamic movements and schools of thoughts that set foothold in Cambodia along with the transnational NGOs.
While one might read contemporary Islamic discourses as patriarchal, in reality Islamic and NGOs contributed to the increased presence of Cambodian Muslim women in the country’s job work force, hence their empowerment in society. Both the Salafi and the Muslim Brotherhood inspired NGOs run boarding schools where thousands of Muslim women received education leading to better prospects in studying at higher education, and receiving relatively well-paying employments.
The COVID19 pandemic made field trips impossible to Southeast Asia until the end of 2021, therefore initially I carried out fieldwork online, and employed a Cambodian research assistant to conduct interviews on the field. I only managed to travel myself to Cambodia between the end of December 2021 and end of February 2022.
- During my online fieldwork I was interested in the representations of Cambodian Muslim groups in the country’s social media scene. I mainly followed the activities of these groups on Facebook, the most popular social media platform in Cambodia and analyzed the dynamics of their social media activities in the online and offline Cambodian sociopolitical context. I also interviewed some of those who I followed on Facebook via Zoom.
- My research assistant interviewed several employees and former employees of transnational NGOs in Cambodia and interviewed members of the rural Muslim communities about issues related to gender and family structure.
- In my offline fieldwork I followed the activities of various Islamic humanitarian organizations and observed their projects all around Cambodia. I interviewed employees of these organizations as well as their beneficiaries.
- TRANSCAMUS resulted in a large amount of ethnographic data collected offline and online. This data shows that transnational Muslim NGOs immensely contributed in transforming the social fabric of the Cambodian Muslim minority communities. These transformations include the adoption of aesthetics from the Malayan Peninsula and the Middle East, changes in religious practice and transformations in the family structure which in most cases lead the empowerment of women.
- The scientific results of TRANSCAMUS have already been published or will be published in peer reviewed journals. I have already published a journal article in the anthropological journal CyberOrient. I also have submitted a manuscript to the journal HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Currently I am working on two journal articles as well as on a book proposal which I intend to submit to a top tier university press.
- The results of the project were disseminated in a the IUAES 2020 conference organized online. TRANSCAMUS also resulted in a presentation in an offline workshop in Prague in November 2021 and I organized a workshop about transnational religious flows in Asia and the Middle East at the National University of Public Service in Budapest, Hungary.
- I presented the results of TRANSCAMUS on a seminar at the Avicenna Institute for Middle East Studies in Piliscsaba, Hungary, and on an online seminar in the Kőrösi Csoma Society, Budapest.
- I will also present the results of TRANSCAMUS at the EUROSEAS conference in Paris, 28 June-1 July, 2022.
- During my online fieldwork I was interested in the representations of Cambodian Muslim groups in the country’s social media scene. I mainly followed the activities of these groups on Facebook, the most popular social media platform in Cambodia and analyzed the dynamics of their social media activities in the online and offline Cambodian sociopolitical context. I also interviewed some of those who I followed on Facebook via Zoom.
- My research assistant interviewed several employees and former employees of transnational NGOs in Cambodia and interviewed members of the rural Muslim communities about issues related to gender and family structure.
- In my offline fieldwork I followed the activities of various Islamic humanitarian organizations and observed their projects all around Cambodia. I interviewed employees of these organizations as well as their beneficiaries.
- TRANSCAMUS resulted in a large amount of ethnographic data collected offline and online. This data shows that transnational Muslim NGOs immensely contributed in transforming the social fabric of the Cambodian Muslim minority communities. These transformations include the adoption of aesthetics from the Malayan Peninsula and the Middle East, changes in religious practice and transformations in the family structure which in most cases lead the empowerment of women.
- The scientific results of TRANSCAMUS have already been published or will be published in peer reviewed journals. I have already published a journal article in the anthropological journal CyberOrient. I also have submitted a manuscript to the journal HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Currently I am working on two journal articles as well as on a book proposal which I intend to submit to a top tier university press.
- The results of the project were disseminated in a the IUAES 2020 conference organized online. TRANSCAMUS also resulted in a presentation in an offline workshop in Prague in November 2021 and I organized a workshop about transnational religious flows in Asia and the Middle East at the National University of Public Service in Budapest, Hungary.
- I presented the results of TRANSCAMUS on a seminar at the Avicenna Institute for Middle East Studies in Piliscsaba, Hungary, and on an online seminar in the Kőrösi Csoma Society, Budapest.
- I will also present the results of TRANSCAMUS at the EUROSEAS conference in Paris, 28 June-1 July, 2022.
Currently in Europe and other parts of the world there is an increased need to understand Muslim transnationalism, the operation of religious networks and their impacts on Muslim societies. Cambodia, due to the openness of the country for research, and its exceptionally diverse Islamic scene served as an excellent case study to explore these issues. TRANSCAMUS already has made significant contributions despite delays it faced due to the pandemic. It already resulted a publication in a peer reviewed academic journal and the results have been disseminated in a conference and seminars. The journal article, due to EU funding is open access therefore easily accessible for the non-academic public such as policy makers, policy researchers and journalists.
Furthermore, the recent fieldwork in Cambodia produced important results which will be published in academic journals and will be disseminated in the EUROSEAS conference in Paris in June 2022, where I have been invited to join a panel.
Furthermore, the recent fieldwork in Cambodia produced important results which will be published in academic journals and will be disseminated in the EUROSEAS conference in Paris in June 2022, where I have been invited to join a panel.