Contribution short abstract:

Doing research with people who selfidentify as indigenous and Protestant not only leads to question a one-world view of commons but also creates a dissonance with prominent examples of uncommoning. It points to the need for a diversity of uncommons including those that bear the scars of proselytism.

Contribution long abstract:

In Cambodia, state cooptation of indigenous minority commons did not impose a Western ontology that excludes non-humans. Rather, it rendered spirit-relations normative for people to register as indigenous community. This affected highland dwellers who have been historically living at the margins of the dominant Buddhist Khmer society but gave up their spirit-practices to adopt Protestant Christianity. As they were claiming indigenous community land, government officials tried to delegitimize their request and exclude them by saying that they no longer worshipped local spirits.

Doing research with people who self-identify as both indigenous and Protestant in the highlands of Cambodia not only lead me to question a one-world view of commons, but also created a dissonance with prominent illustrations of uncommoning, or disrupting the idea of a “large space-time box that goes by itself” (Law 2015, 127). This talk not only aims at addressing the Cambodian state’s peculiar way of coopting indigenous commons, but also at reflecting upon the limits of existing examples or exemplars of uncommoning. I wish to emphasize the need to keep room for a diversity of uncommons, including those that bear the scars of (Western) proselytism. To do so, I will draw on a collective composed of Animist and Christian Bunong who recently showed an inspirational way of defending commons while accepting to “go[…] on together in divergence” (Blaser & de la Cadena 2017).