Contested Living with/in the Boeng Chhmar Flooded Forests, Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

The paper is based on empirical research of a territorial transect in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap floodplain. flooded forests the Lake are determined by significant seasonal flood up to 13 m, where large gradient wetness and alluvia flow dramatically transform territory. zooms into case study inhabited RAMSAR area Boeng Chhmar with its five floating villages, which dispersed along waterways. one richest symbiotic habitats world inhabitants completely rely forest’s natural cycles for settling, subsistence fishing, forest−gathering activities. From two opposite landscape transformation processes, Khmer indigenous practices State development procedures, unravels logics coexistence, contestation. On hand, local daily embedded floods forest lifecycles, coexisting, reconfiguring wild living. other through history has centered (de)−(re)forestation modern construction commercially exploitative practices. Forest logging large−scale fishing lots extracted enormous quantities resources compromised health regenerative capacity ecological system. This also undermined ago−old legacy inhabitant’s ways settling landscape. Today, operations face challenges from both nature itself cultural resistance. findings multi−scalar interpretive mapping. tracing morpho−typologies processes allows multiple narratives be translated spatial terms. coexistence contestation can provide insights contemporary water urbanisms, especially concerning material transformation.