Floating Villages focuses on living spaces and communities that were constructed on water and inhabited by many ethnic Vietnamese of Cambodia who were displaced by the Cambodian Genocide and as a result became stateless, without a country to claim as their home and without a country which would recognize them as citizens.
Floating Villages focuses on living spaces and communities that were constructed on water and inhabited by many ethnic Vietnamese of Cambodia who were displaced by the Cambodian Genocide and as a result became stateless, without a country to claim as their home and without a country which would recognize them as citizens. For most of the world’s population, the concept of having a nationality is so common and natural that it can be difficult to imagine what life without it would be like. Under the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal rule, between 1975-1979, policies were implemented to forcibly deport large numbers of the ethnic Vietnamese minority from Cambodia. Those that remained were enslaved, tortured, and executed. After the war, many of those returning from exile no longer had identification papers or documents establishing their legal status in Cambodia. They were treated as immigrants and foreign residents and considered to be stateless despite the fact that the ethnic Vietnamese had been long-term residents, born and raised in Cambodia for generations. Unrecognized and forgotten as citizens, they were deprived of their most fundamental human rights including access to education, healthcare, legal employment, identity and legal documents. Without a nationality, the ethnic Vietnamese also forfeited their ability to own and sell property. Many of the ethnic Vietnamese who continued to consider Cambodia to be their home found ways to survive on water, floating in limbo without citizenship in a post-conflict Cambodia.