Cambodian Bureaucracy: Public Forms of Commemoration as Vehicles in Constructing Social Memory

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Abstract:

My senior thesis provides an anthropological analysis of social memory and state construction in genocide and post-genocide Cambodian society through a close examination of the Tuol Sleng Museum. Using the site as its background, my research focuses on five key actors: the Khmer Rouge regime that had employed documentation practices as a means of population management; succeeding governments like the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) that have used Khmer Rouge documents, especially the victims’ mugshots, as public Museum displays to establish its governing legitimacy; the local and foreign publics that have been brought into direct interactions with these displays and the “official” genocide narrative they represent; and non-governmental organizations that have initiated various projects to counteract this official narrative and change the ways in which the genocide is learned about and remembered. While works of renowned scholars like David Chandler and Judy Ledgerwood provide an extensive overview of one or two of these actors, it is just as important and even necessary to consider a broader layout of the interconnections between and among the five actors. My senior thesis, in turn, aims to see at once how public perception converges or diverges from state intent, how civil society responds to a dominant social authority, and how official memory is affected by contesting interpretations of the past from both an unknowing and knowing public.