2020-21 Abstract: Becoming Urban: Understanding the Urban Transformation of Migrants to Phnom Penh

Sabina Shaikh studies the process of “late late urbanization” in Phnom Penh and the environmental factos driving people to migrate including climate change, agro-industrial development, deforestation, and dam construction. Her current project aims to help scholars understand how rural migrants make their place in the city by investigating how they use and navigate urban space and the distinctly urban relations they form. This research aims to produce a deeper understanding of the lived experience of migrants and a better account of their transformation from villagers to urbanites using traditional and distributed ethnography to develop narrative-based landscapes.