Marie Alexandrine Martin

Marie-Alexandrine Martin (1932−2013), affectuously nicknamed Mam, was a botanist and ethnologist who, as a CNRS researcher (and later Director of the CNRS Research Center), conducted ethnobotanical, ethnolinguistic and sociological fieldword across Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s.

Between 1965 and 1972, she conducted ethnobotanical and ethnolinguistical fieldwork in the Cardamom mountains (Khmer and Pear villages) and also with Khmer and Pear people from Thailand. Her work as a botanist and ethnobotanist led her to study the Cambodian diet and nutrition patterns after the civil war. 

In addition to her scholarly publications, including the reference study L’ethnobotanique du Cambodge, and Les Khmers daeum,“Khmers de l’origine” (PEFEO PAris, 1997), Marie Alexandrine Martin wrote an essay on post-war Cambodia, Le mal cambodgien (Paris: 1989), translated into Engish as Cambodia, A Shattered Society (New York: 1994).