The peasants in turmoil: Khmer Rouge, state formation and the control of land in northwest Cambodia

Over the past 15 years, northwest Cambodia has seen dramatic agrarian expansion away
from the central rice plain into the peripheral uplands fuelled by peasant in-migration.
Against this background, we examine the nature of relations between the peasantry
and the state. We first show the historical continuities of land control processes and
how the use of violence in a post-conflict neoliberal context has legitimised
ex-Khmer Rouge in controlling land distribution. Three case studies show the
heterogeneity of local level sovereignties, which engage the peasants in different
relations with authority. We examine how these processes result in the construction
of different rural territories along the agricultural frontier and argue that, in this
region of Cambodia, the struggles between Khmer Rouge and neoliberal modes of
land control are central to state formation processes.