Stories of Loss and Adaptation: Threatened Indigenous Heritage in South and Southeast Asia

This article examines the representations of socioecological change in Indigenous short films created during smartphone filmmaking workshops by the Munda people in Bangladesh, the Tampuan people in Cambodia and the Dao people in Vietnam. Change can mean the irreversible loss of a place, species, resource or relationship. But change can also refer to damage that can be overcome, a reality to which one can adapt while preserving their identity. The Indigenous stories reveal that change—in the form of cultural erosion, livelihood disruption, and the loss of linguistic and biocultural diversity—is not a new concept in Indigenous vocabularies due to the long histories of land dispossession, resource extraction, forced displacement, and cultural assimilation. Still, the climate crisis represents a major new challenge that Indigenous communities navigate thanks to their rich repositories of local knowledge and extensive experience in environmental adaptation. Analysing eight short films from this collaborative film archive from South and Southeast Asia, the article argues that, whether grieving or accepting change, Indigenous peoples in the region demonstrate an understanding of culture that continuously regenerates, incorporating decay, encounters with outside influences and the lived experience of the unknown.