Jonathan Padwe

This talk looks at the practices of forest management of the highland people of the Annamite Mountains of mainland Southeast Asia. The livelihoods and cultural lives of highlanders are closely tied to the forests they inhabit and which they have managed for millennia. Specific forest types in the region are the product not only of patterns of resource use but also of cultural practices including the ways that living humans interact with the spirit world and the world of the dead. A close examination of highlanders' productive systems, their role in regional economies, and their belief systems provides insight into the relationship between the ecology of the region's forests and the societies that inhabit them.

Speaker Biography

Jonathan Padwe - Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Jonathan Padwe is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His research investigates the relationship between cultural memory and landscape among Jarai highlanders of Cambodia and Vietnam. His most recent book, Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories: Jarai and Other Lives in the Cambodian Highlands (2020, University of Washington Press) is based on extensive field research, explores the changing landscape Cambodia's northeast borderland from pre-colonial times to the present, through periods of war and rapid social change. Padwe holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies from Yale University. He previously worked with Aché foragers in Paraguay.

Recommended Reading

Padwe, J. (2020). Disturbed forests, fragmented memories: Jarai and other lives in the Cambodian highlands. University of Washington Press.