UC Berkeley

If there is a space for ordinary people in the history of Cambodia, that space has been on the ground, beneath kings and monuments, in the distant background of glory and tragedy. Ordinary people remain placeless, nameless, voiceless, and invisible. But they existed. This thesis aims to redress such élitist historiography by introducing a different historical narrative that is fragmentary and episodic narratives of ordinary people. It explores the role of flesh-and-blood individuals, and the worlds they lived in and imagined, in Cambodia in the nineteenth-century, a period of radical change that remains comparatively unexamined, especially prior to the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1863.

The thesis excavates archival sources, including testimonial narratives and local literature, and pieces together such shards and fragments into vivid narratives of ordinary people who lived at the fringes of society yet traversed vast stretches of Cambodian territory. It is a quilt of the life-stories of individuals –of Khmer, Siamese, Vietnamese, and Chinese descent– who traveled, dreamed, adventured and agitated in order to make their lives better in the here-and-now felt and material world. In that sense, it is a quotidian history. But it is also a history of imagination and belief, and of how the visions of, and quests for, other worlds sustained the everyday practices and decisions of the extraordinary, common folk whose journeys are at the core of this thesis.

The thesis analyzes practices that deviated from élite Buddhist norms and were dismissed as immoral, superstitious, and irrational by authorities. Such practices have been similarly marginalized and neglected in histories of Cambodia. The thesis argues that these practices were more than a survival strategy. They offered a means to a better life rooted in the here-and-now.

The thesis also examines axes of connection between commoner and élites realms, and reveals significant worlds of difference between the commoners and the ruling élites in their motivations for supporting movements that challenged the status quo. One such movement was the rebellions led by Prince Votha in 1876-1890. The thesis offers a new lens on this rebellion, bringing to light the motivations of his supporters. It considers the temporary nature of historical events such as the Votha rebellion, against the permanent and continuous nature of story telling. In examining their testimonies and the multiple journeys they made, the thesis also challenges the primacy of the patron-client model in Southeast Asian studies. It shows that commoners exercised agency and mobility, and highlights the various factors that determined support for a patron, and that led commoners to switch allegiance from one patron to another, or to move from one village or town or kingdom, to another. The thesis further analyzes testimonies for rhetorical resistance to the imposition of French colonial rule. It also examines the tensions between narratives of the future (prophecy) and the past (as both legend, and history) in Khmer oral and written texts. Finally, it examines how rebels and their memories kept alive different ways of seeing and possibilities for being outside of the authority of the state.