Theses & Dissertations

According to the current situation and challenges of processing prahok among women prahok makers around Tonle Sap Lake, it is important to understand what happened to prahok production and consumption patterns among women prahok makers who used to make prahok at the household level for either home consumption or selling purposes and why they decided to continue or not continue processing prahok due to those matters. Thus, this study was undertaken to document how the changes in prahok production and consumption patterns among different women prahok makers around Tonle Sap Lake are shaped. In response to this issue, two main research questions were used to investigate in this study: (1) What are the changes in prahok production and consumption patterns among different women prahok makers? (2) Why have women prahok makers changed the production and consumption patterns differently? The qualitative method (phenomenology) was applied to answer these questions. There were 20 female and 11 male respondents selected for in-depth interviews. This study was conducted in two different categories of areas: seasonally flooded village (Preaek Sramaoch and Mok Wat villages) and displaced village (Chhnok Tru village).

The results of this study indicate that prahok production and consumption patterns among different women prahok makers changed differently and in certain ways by the different influential factors. The key different changes in prahok production patterns among women prahok makers included types of prahok for producing, purposes of producing, sources of fish for processing, production scale, labor use, gender roles, income getting from prahok, amount of producing, and significant roles of prahok production. The key different changes in prahok consumption patterns among them included types of prahok for consumption, where to get prahok, amount of use, and ways of using prahok. Moreover, this study also indicates that different women prahok makers had different reasons for changes in their prahok production and consumption patterns. It can be seen that the reasons for changes among women prahok makers came from the issues of gender norms, livelihood constraints, and the relationship between women’s prahok production and culture, which shaped the engagement of women in prahok production in various ways. As a result of these changes, this study also concluded that women who had abilities for working with other jobs might less engage in prahok production. Conversely, those women who mainly relied on prahok production as their primary career or family income might like to continue processing prahok though there were some changes in prahok production. Remarkably, women who were no longer relying on prahok production as their primary career or family income might like to switch career as prahok makers to do other jobs to adapt to their livelihoods. Meanwhile, women who were no longer in good health and had assistance from their family members or those who could find other better jobs than processing prahok might like to quit prahok production. The results of this study can be useful inputs or theoretical information for further research or project on how to address the issues for these changes among women prahok makers around Tonle Sap Lake, and other topics that are related to women prahok makers.