Abstract
Since they converted to Protestant Christianity in the 1970s, the Bunong inhabitants of the Cambodian Highlands have yearned to lead a New Life, which they defined as the rejection of spirit practices and adoption of a modern existence. While in the 1990s the Protestant highland rice farmers took up new economic practices, relying on skills introduced by missionary trainings, they largely remained embedded in a network of religiously moralized social bonds. However, a rapid rise of the market economy at the beginning of the twenty-first century as well as a coincidental and substantial revision in missionary teachings shook the Bunong Protestants’ social embedding by disturbing their moral framework.
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Acknowledgments
This research would not have been possible without the valuable assistance of Neth Prak, and the support of the villagers of Bu Sra and the local C&MA and ICC representatives. Thanks are due to the editors, Juliette Koning and Gwenaël Njoto-Feillard, the co-authors of this volume and Philip Fountain for their feedback. I would also like to acknowledge Rich Garella for his careful reading of the manuscript.
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Scheer, C. (2017). New Life in an Expanding Market Economy: Moral Issues among Cambodia’s Highland Protestants. In: Koning, J., Njoto-Feillard, G. (eds) New Religiosities, Modern Capitalism, and Moral Complexities in Southeast Asia. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2969-1_4
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