Svay: A Khmer Village in Cambodia

by May Mayko Ebihara, Andrew C. Mertha (Editor), Judy Ledgerwood (Introduction)

May Mayko Ebihara (1934–2005) was the first American anthropologist to conduct ethnographic research in Cambodia. Svay provides a remarkably detailed picture of individual villagers and of Khmer social structure and kinship, agriculture, politics, and religion. The world Ebihara described would soon be shattered by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Fifty percent of the villagers perished in the reign of terror, including those who had been Ebihara's adoptive parents and grandparents during her fieldwork. Never before published as a book, Ebihara’s dissertation served as the foundation for much of our subsequent understanding of Cambodian history, society, and politics.

364 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2018

About the author

May Mayko Ebihara was born in Portland, Oregon. As a child during World War II, she and her family were sent with other Japanese Americans to an internment camp in Idaho. She received her bachelor’s degree from Reed College in1955 and her PhD in 1968 from Columbia University, where she studied with Conrad Arensberg, Margaret Mead, and Morton Fried. She taught at Bard College from 1961 to 1964, then briefly at Mt. Holyoke, and then for many years at Lehman College. In 1959–60, she was the first American anthropologist to conduct ethnographic research in Cambodia. Due to the deteriorating political situation and the expanding and ultimately lengthy conflict throughout Indo-China, she would be the last to do so for nearly three decades. Her two-volume dissertation, 'Svay, a Khmer Village in Cambodia', is now recognised as a classic work of scholarship. Professor Ebihara was eventually able to return to Cambodia, and conducted additional research in the village on several visits between 1989 and 1996. At the time of her death, she was Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University of New York, and the CUNY Graduate Center.