Millennium development goals (MDGs) and indigenous peoples' literacy in Cambodia

Erosion of Sovereignty

Bibliographic Data

ID6305198
AuthorsRyerson Christie (0000-0003-4829-9411, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) University of Bristol Bristol UK, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume21
Issue2
Pages250-269
Publication date2015-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNations and Nationalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1345-5078 • E-ISSN: 1469-8129
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/nana.12096
OpenAlexW1940209967
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited29

Nation‐building throughout Southeast Asia has been undertaken in contexts where minority groups, living on the margins of society, are being forced into recent state constructions, and have had their cultures eroded as a result. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for education have provided international benchmarks for literacy. These have been adopted by the Cambodian state, and a number of donors and NGOs have funded and enacted policies with the explicit aim of improving the language skills of Cambodia's highland communities. However, these are being implemented in communities that do not speak Khmer (the Cambodian national language), and do not have indigenous systems of writing. Drawing on fieldwork in Cambodia, this paper argues that the impact of the MDGs has been to depoliticize an inherently contested terrain, and to ironically silence communities on fundamental issues by teaching them to read, write and speak the national language. This has limited their capacity to perform sovereignty by restricting the very voice they are entitled to speak

Aesthetics · Economic growth · Indigenous · Literacy · Media studies · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Silence · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Cambodian History and Society · Gender Studies · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Ecology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub