| Abstract: |
Cambodian scholarship remains marginalised after over a century of intense interest and research in archaeology, conservation, and history of the Angkorian world. This chapter addresses the problem of ‘invisible Cambodians’ by focusing on Cambodia’s education and knowledge production during the ‘modernisation’ period of the 20th century. How did Cambodians perceive heritage and archaeology prior to the creation of a formal education system? What roles did Cambodians play in heritage management and knowledge production? We argue that four factors contribute to the ‘invisible Cambodians’: (1) disjunctions caused by competing Western and Khmer perceptions of heritage; (2) colonial dominance by the École française d’Extrême-Orient and its predominant focus on Angkor-Period Cambodia; (3) a mid-20th-century desire to ‘modernise’ Cambodia reflected in the range of Khmer studies as the study of Buddhism, Khmer language and literature, and folk life; and (4) a lack of colonial commitment to local capacity-building in Cambodian heritage scholarship. Examining the formation of indigenous knowledge production within the context of modernisation and nationalisation of higher education and evolution in 20th-century Cambodia brings into sharp focus the complex relationship between archaeology, heritage, education, knowledge production, colonisation, decolonisation, identity, and the nation-state.
|
