Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories

"Based on extensive fieldwork, this book is part ethnography of a marginal Cambodian hill tribe of rice farmers, the Jarai, and part eco/cultural treatise about the mutual influences between people and their land and between history and memory."

"[N]ot your average academic book...a truly interdisciplinary contribution...Its strength lies precisely in this interdisciplinarity, allowing Padwe to draw out novel and thought-provoking insights in an engaging writing style (complemented with beautiful photos)."

"[T]he book analyzes forest biota and agricultural practices, enabling a new approach to conceptualizing landscapes that melds representation, materiality and ecology."

"By zooming in on vernacular geography and ecology in combination with history and anthropology, Padwe has crafted a compelling addition to this small library of vernacular highland histories in mainland Southeast Asia. A highly readable book that does not suffer from overtheorization, Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories will be of interest for historians and anthropologists of the region and, more importantly, for those interested in how a “more-than-human anthropology” and history might look like in practice."

"Southeast Asia scholars in multiple fields will be drawn to the book for its impeccable attention to the ethnographic, oral, and archival record of the Vietnam-Cambodian borderlands."

"The stories that Padwe narrates are a pleasure to read and capture a sense of the world in which the highlanders of northeastern Cambodia live."

"Being of blurred genre, beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries of anthropology, human geography, Southeast Asia studies, or ethnohistory, this text may be of comparative interest for those anywhere engaged in bottom-up restoration—whether Native American revival of land stewardship through cultural burning, urban folk attempting to restore gift economies through permaculture garden systems, and others thinking deeply about ecological resilience and recuperation in the conjunctures of our post-pandemic world."

"This thought-provoking book...is excellent in its richness and detail."

"[A] beautifully written and insightful ethnography that draws on Jonathan Padwe's long-term work in the Jarai village of Tang Kadon, in Cambodia's Ratanakiri province...Although Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Lives is a wonderful example of more-than-human anthropology, it will resonate with broader audiences who work on frontier dynamics, violence, memory and the co-production of nature–society in and beyond mainland Southeast Asia."

"Building from sustained fieldwork, Padwe not only vividly depicts Jarai social life but also teaches us how to read forested landscapes, natural surroundings, and social life on the margins of the nation-state."

"A wonderful, original and timely intervention in Southeast Asian studies and studies of the land/habitat/histories of place and of border regions. It will find a place on academic, specialist, public, and student bookshelves alike."