ROSA YI

PhD Student

Research Title: Understanding Agrarian Change in Cambodia: Migration, Rural Differentiation, and the Smallholders
Research Group: Politics, Economics And Space (PEAS)
Thesis Advisor: Dr. W. Nathan Green

My research explores the changing rural spaces and agrarian smallholding households in Cambodia in the context of deep-seated structural change. It examines the changing face of rural society and the changing relations between urban and the rural. It intends to think through how new forms of migration, from rural-to-urban in Cambodia, but also from rural-to-rural regionally (for example between Cambodia and Thailand), are shaping rural Cambodian society today. It will primarily draw on multi-sited ethnographic research. Through life history, land history, rural production history, and migration history interviews, participants will be invited to share their thoughts and explanations of rural and agrarian changes and life as migrants.

Before coming to Singapore, I was a lecturer of development studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I obtained my MA in International Relations from Waseda University, Japan and my BA in Education from the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At NUS, I am an awardee of NUS-Harvard Yenching Institute (HYI) Joint PhD Scholarship.