The Cambodian case examines migration, land tenure and land management, in a
context of conflict and the use of force in land transfers since the time of the Khmer
Rouge regime to the present, by studying five agro-ecological zones close to the Kamping
Pouy irrigation system in Battambang Province. The study combines analysis of
demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of household use of land and labor with
a historical and ethnographic review of conflict and institutional factors in successive
land administrations. Continuing in-migration is reflected in population increases in
Battambang and other provinces of Northwest Cambodia in conditions of limited land
availability and landlordism, and conflict over expropriation of land by armed groups
and business interests. Land transfers to a growing wealthy class of businessmen and
government officials have contributed to the creation of a subclass of very poor, landless
households whose livelihoods depend on agricultural wage labor, locally and in Thailand,
and access to the commons. Access to land for a substantial proportion of the community
depends on either tenancy, sharecropping or wage labor on the land of wealthier farmers.
Three problematic processes that run counter to the Cambodian Constitution and Land
Law are systemic: 1) the usurpation of land rights by locally operating armed groups;
2) legitimation of such land acquisition by military-business-government officials by
corrupt officeholders and local government officials; and 3) the capture of rents or profits
by agencies responsible for safeguarding natural resources.