Biography and prosopography in Cambodian history, Cambodian Ministres during the time of the French Protectorat (1863-1953), / 2015 / Past conferences / SHS encounters cambodia / IRD

Project initiators and partners

Biography and prosopography in Cambodian history, Cambodian Ministres during the time of the French Protectorat (1863-1953),

Friday, July 31st, 2015, at 5:30 pm

Marie Aberdam PhD student in History from Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, I am working about the biography of Samdech Veang Thiounn, the most famous Ministre of the colonial period. My study,Thiounn, le « Ministre du Palais » (1864-1946), biographie, étude du milieu social et contribution à une prosopographie des élites administratives khmères du traité de Protectorat (1863) jusqu’à l’indépendance du Cambodge (1953),would like to propose an understanding of the Cambodian high society during the French gouvernance. Through the career of one of them, I would like to understand the relations, practices and culture of the members of the Conseil des Ministres du Protectorat.

I would like to present my methodological approach of the colonial sources from the National Archives of Cambodia and the Archives de la France d’Outre-Mer : indeed, how those administrative documents can they help to enrich the social history of Cambodia ? I would expose the prosopographical method through the notion of network and social relation during the Cambodian Colonial Period context. I would then question the biographical approach in history based on individual story-telling in the Cambodian society.

I am graduated in licence degree in Khmer language from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris) and in master degree in History from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. As member of the Association d’Fchanges et de Formation pour les Etudes Khmères (AEFEK), I just published a biographic notice on Samdech Thiounn.