Tracing the Past, Uncovering the Present: Intergenerational Hauntings among Cambodian-Australian Women

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the affective force of the Cambodian genocide among Cambodian-Australian women. It draws on Lily Cho and Avtar Brah’s understanding of diasporas as communities that are connected to histories of loss, grief and displacements (Cho [2007]. The Turn to Diaspora. Topia, 17, 11–30) and embodying a ‘homing desire’ (Brah 1996) and Avery Gordon’s ([2008]. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.) theory of ‘haunting’ to explore the traces of historical trauma. Through anaccount of a Cambodian-Australian woman living in Cambodia, this paper demonstrates that intergenerational hauntings can provoke affective states that are embodied, encompassing emotions such as sadness, guilt, pain, and joy, tied to longings and connections with one’s history and heritage. Certainly, embodied hauntings reflect histories of grief and loss, and yet from this loss, something else, something beyond psychopathology emerges. Highlighting the generative possibilities of affect, this paper examines how intergenerational hauntings can open up new ways of thinking about identity and agency. As illustrated by Sanna’s story, hauntings can be expressed by a desire to actively engage with the past, recover histories and ‘return’ to Cambodia. In particular, this paper explores how trauma is experienced and embodied from mother to daughter, highlighting the gendered nature of intergenerational hauntings.

KEYWORDS:

• Cambodian diaspora
• subjectivity
• intergenerational hauntings
• affect

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Maria Hach is PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne in the school of Culture and Communication and Gender Studies. She completed her BA degree at Monash University in 2007 and a Master of International Development at Monash University in 2010.

Notes

1 It is outside the scope of this paper to provide a detailed analysis of Cambodian history and politics. Several scholars have written about Cambodian history and the period of Khmer Rouge occupation in Cambodia. See Chandler (2000), Kiernan (1996), Vickery (1984), and Hinton (2005).

2 This is a well-known phase among Cambodians, as it the amount of time that the Khmer Rouge were in power.

3 It is not certain how many Cambodians perished during the Khmer Rouge period. Most scholars agree on an estimate of 1.5 to 1.7 million. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal concluded that between 1.75 and 2.2 million died, and the US government estimated that another 700,000 died after the Vietnamese invasion in 1978. For analysis of the death toll see Etchenson 2000, and Kiernan 2003 (Um 2015: 266–267).

4 Pauline Hanson was an independent backbencher from Queensland. In 1996, in her maiden speech to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament, she raised deep concerns over Australia’s Aboriginal welfare and multicultural policies. Among other things, she stated ‘I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos, and do not assimilate’ (Hanson 1997).

5 See Tomkins 2008, Sedwick 2003, Massumi 2002, Bennett 2009, Deleuze and Guattari 2007, Blackman 2010.

6 There is a significant body of work by feminist affect theorists who conceptualise affects as visceral, psychic and bodily, and yet inseparable from social meaning. See Ngai 2005, Blackman 2012, Mankekar 2015, Brennan 2004, Blackman 2015.

7 Socheata Poeuv’s (2006) documentary New Year Baby is an autobiographical documentary, which tells the story of her parent’s experiences during the Cambodian genocide. In it, Poeuv travels back to Cambodia with her father in order to learn more about her family’s history and secrets.

8 Asian American Studies theorist Cathy J. Schlund has written about how Cambodian Americans of the 1.5 and second-generation explore memory, trauma, heritage, and history through artist mediums such as film, memoir and music. See Schlund-Vials (2012).

9 Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison (1987), tells the story of a family who are grappling with the legacies of slavery and transgenerational trauma. In it, the protagonist Sethe, a former slave, is haunted by a malevolent ghost, who is believed to be the spirit of her eldest daughter.

10 ‘Sansei’ (Japanese for third generation), is a term used to describe the children of children born to ethnically Japanese people in a new country (usually the United States or Canada).