カンボジア農村における子の世帯間移動の互助機能

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the function of mutual assistance through children's inter-household mobility in rural Cambodia. Some scholars have noted that Cambodian peasant society is individualistic and lacks any kind of mutual aid system among its members. Through fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2007 in a rural village in Cambodia, this paper demonstrates that about 30% of households have made their children move to another household which belongs to their kinship. This research show how the numerous motives for the movement of children are related to issues such as parents' deaths, their remarriage, adoption, attending school, poverty, and so forth. However, this paper also makes clear that children do not necessarily stay at the household permanently rather in many cases they stay for only a few years to avoid crises. The children tend to move from poorer households to richer ones and from households which have many children to ones which have fewer. This movement allows children to receive better foods and continue their studies. The results of this paper show that kinship members redistribute income among themselves and share a norm whereby children are brought up by not only their parents, but also by kinship members. In the village researched, this study proves that the movement of children plays a role in a mutual assistance system in the kinship network, and provides the security to support the lives of village members.