Rise of the Brao: Ethnic Minorities in Northeastern Cambodia during Vietnamese Occupation

In the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge had become suspicious of communist Vietnam and began to persecute Cambodian ethnic groups who had ties to the country, including the Brao Amba in the northeast. Many fled north as political refugees, and some joined the Vietnamese effort to depose the Khmer Rouge a few years later. The subsequent ten-year occupation is remembered by many Cambodians as a time of further oppression, but this volume reveals an unexpected dimension of this troubled past. Trusted by the Vietnamese, the Brao were installed in positions of great authority in the new government only to gradually lose their influence when Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia.
Based on detailed research and interviews, Ian G. Baird documents this golden age of the Brao, including the voices of those who are too frequently omitted from official records. Rise of the Brao challenges scholars to look beyond the prevailing historical narratives to consider the nuanced perspectives of peripheral or marginal regions.

Author: Ian G. Baird
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 01/28/2020
Pages: 392
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9780299326104
ISBN10: 0299326101
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia | Southeast Asia
- Social Science | Human Geography
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | General

About the Author
Ian G. Baird is an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Dipterocarpus Wood Resin Tenure, Management and Trade: Practices of the Brao in Northeast Cambodia and the coauthor of People, Livelihoods, and Development in the Xekong River Basin, Laos.