Ethnicity Engulfed by Nationalization: Who Are the Khmer?

Abstract

This article seeks, first, to elucidate the actual processes by which ethnic Chinese and ethnic Lao minorities in Cambodia have undergone Khmerization; second, to compare these processes with the Thaification of the ethnic Khmer of northeastern Thailand, who, in contrast to the Khmer majority in Cambodia, constitute an ethnic minority within Thailand; and third, through these comparisons, to examine the rapid advance of nationalization among ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asia. Here, “nationalization” refers not only to the strengthening of ethnic minorities’ sense of belonging to and identification with the nation-state, but also to their compulsory or voluntary assimilation into the dominant or central language and culture—a process that overlaps with the broader currents of centralization and homogenization now engulfing local societies throughout mainland Southeast Asia, sometimes termed “Bangkokization” and “Phnom Penhization.” Drawing on new materials gathered through field investigation, the article compares the Khmerization of the ethnic Lao of Stung Treng in Cambodia with the Thaification of the ethnic Khmer of Surin in northeastern Thailand—two peoples possessing nation-states of their own who were nonetheless separated from their co-ethnics by the drawing of borders and became minorities in neighboring countries. These cases are further compared with the earlier assimilation of the ethnic Chinese in both countries. The article also examines Cambodian perceptions of Thailand and Vietnam as a further clue to the sources of the powerful drive toward nationalization evident in Cambodia. The article finds that, particularly in its later stages, the nationalization of the Lao in Cambodia and the Khmer in Thailand has proceeded largely voluntarily and peacefully, much as it did among the ethnic Chinese of both countries. During the second half of the twentieth century, nationalization has thus increasingly engulfed the languages and cultures of ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asia, bringing ethnic diversity itself to the verge of disappearance.