”The Ancient Ones: Articulating the land and its people in Cambodia”

 

時間 ： 2022年9月26日(一)15:00-17:00

地點 ： 中研院民族所第三會議室(2319室)

講者 ： Courtney Work 吳考甯 (政治大學民族學系副教授)

題目 ： The Ancient Ones: Articulating the land and its people in Cambodia

        Across the world we find evidence of human social interactions with land and water. ‘Modern’ ontologies classify these interactions as ‘religion’ or ‘animism’, and also as ‘superstition’ or engagements with the ‘supernatural’. Based on long-term ethnographic research in Cambodia, working with people in forested landscapes, I find these classifications to be both misleading and functionally shallow. Rather than ‘religion’, social relationships with the land and water as agentive actors are associated with economic and political concerns: How to gain and maintain productive access to the raw materials necessary for existence and the ongoing work of maintaining collaborative relations within human communities. This said, the entities that are land and water, known in Cambodia as Neak Ta, the Ancient ones, are often participants in religious events and offerings made to them on the Buddhist holy days are equivalent to temple offerings. 

        This talk will discuss elements from Chapter 3, Neak Ta: Articulating the Boundaries, in my book, The Tides of Empire: Religion, Development, and Environment in Cambodia.