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NGOs, Transnational Networks and the Transformation of Muslim Communities in Cambodia

Project description

The reconstruction of Cambodian Muslim communities

The reconstruction process of the social and religious infrastructure of the Cambodian Muslim minority that followed the disastrous Khmer Rouge rule (1975-79) and the Vietnamese occupation (1979-89) opened the ground to foreign NGO activity. Many of these NGOs were Islamic charities based in Malaysia and the Arab Gulf states. The EU-funded TRANSCAMUS project will conduct an ethnographic study in Cambodia, Kuwait and Malaysia. It will study the role of transnational networks linked to transnational NGOs in the restructuring the Cambodian Muslim community. It will inquire into how these networks influenced the transformation of the socio-political makeup and religious identity of the Cambodian Muslim community, including the transformation of gender relations.

Objective

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 charities that are based in Malaysia and the Arabian Gulf, and which have become the core of Muslim transnational networks that intersect in the country. These charities invested vast resources in order to reconstruct the Cambodian Muslim religious infrastructure and leadership, that had been almost completely wiped out during the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, they spread their own religious ideas and discourses among the country’s Muslim minorities. This research will inquire into how transnational Muslim networks and charities based in the Middle East and Malaysia have transformed the religious identity, leadership and infrastructure of Cambodia’s Muslim minorities. I will look into the evolution of the Gulf and Malaysian charities in the country, the patterns of the existing competition between them, and how the transnational flows and the transformation of the Islamic field altered the structure of gender relations among Cambodian Muslims. The chief method of data collection will be ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Cambodia, Malaysia and Kuwait.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

MSCA-IF-EF-RI - RI – Reintegration panel

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018

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Coordinator

OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Net EU contribution
€ 174 167,04
Address
DR. IGNAZ SEIPEL-PLATZ 2
1010 Wien
Austria
Region
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 174 167,04