Svay

Download or read book Svay written by May Mayko Ebihara and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May Mayko Ebihara (1934–2005) was the first American anthropologist to conduct ethnographic research in Cambodia. Svay provides a remarkably detailed picture of individual villagers and of Khmer social structure and kinship, agriculture, politics, and religion. The world Ebihara described would soon be shattered by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Fifty percent of the villagers perished in the reign of terror, including those who had been Ebihara's adoptive parents and grandparents during her fieldwork. Never before published as a book, Ebihara’s dissertation served as the foundation for much of our subsequent understanding of Cambodian history, society, and politics.