In this article, we extend a theory of disorientations to reveal how attempts to fix and control both water and people are disrupting once-fluid relationships between the Tonle Sap Lake and communities who have lived with-on the lake for generations. Using ethnographic and participatory mapping methods, we examine the socio-ecological dynamics that preceded and succeeded in the forced relocation of three floating communities in 2018. We argue that communities’ experiences challenge land-centric and event-centric understandings of displacement that pathologise fluid lifeways and fail to account for the materiality of water that has shaped floating villages’ multi-generational relationships with their wetland ecology. We develop the concept of disorientations to illuminate villagers’ experiences of relocation within a collapsing aquatic ecosystem—a collapse catalysed by state efforts to impose fixity on both hydrological flow and community mobility. The lens of disorientations invites displacement debates to consider materialities of place—whether pulsing water or living, shifting soils.

中文翻译：

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迷失方向：柬埔寨洞里萨湖“取代”漂浮社区的政治生态

在本文中，我们扩展了迷失方向理论，以揭示修复和控制水和人类的尝试如何破坏洞里萨湖与世世代代生活在湖上的社区之间曾经不稳定的关系。我们利用民族志和参与式制图方法，研究了 2018 年三个流动社区被迫搬迁之前和成功的社会生态动态。我们认为，社区的经历挑战了以土地为中心和以事件为中心的对流离失所的理解，这种理解将流动的生活方式病理化并且没有考虑到水的重要性，它塑造了漂浮村庄与其湿地生态的多代关系。我们提出了迷失方向的概念，以阐明村民在崩溃的水生生态系统中重新安置的经历——国家对水文流量和社区流动性施加固定性的努力加剧了这种崩溃。迷失方向的镜头引发了关于位移的争论，以考虑地方的物质性——无论是脉动的水还是活生生的、移动的土壤。