Livelihood pragmatism: Economic precarity and informal animal health management in rural Cambodia.

The emergence of zoonotic diseases is increasingly recognized as a critical global health threat, especially in rural Southeast Asia experiencing rapid socio-demographic and environmental changes. However, the socio-material and economic dimensions influencing spillover risks remain poorly understood by institutional health frameworks. This ethnographic study examines how economic precarity, environmental degradation, and inadequate veterinary services shape human-animal relations and animal health practices in three rural communities of Battambang province in Cambodia. Based on ethnographic observations and 60 interviews (55 respondents) conducted between December 2023 and July 2025, we document how farmers rationally navigate animal husbandry and disease management within structural constraints that limit their options. Rather than viewing these practices as cultural barriers to disease prevention, we highlight how they represent adaptive responses to poverty, service gaps, and ecological stress. We analyze how dead animal commerce functions as both an informal economic safety net and an unregulated disease exposure pathway. This analysis provides anthropological knowledge - processual, relational, and embodied - revealing the situated complexity through which animal health risks emerge and are managed in practice. We argue that effective interventions must address the economic and environmental drivers of risk while partnering with local community knowledge rather than attempting to replace it.