Counterframing Truth? Interactions in Art and Justice in Post-Conflict Cambodia

ABSTRACT

Authoritarian dynamics often produce a fundamental mismatch between what can be said publicly, and what is hidden and takes place out of plain sight. This raises the question: how do interactions between subordinates and the dominant shape artistic interventions in post-conflict Cambodia? This article explores the dialectical relationship between the public and the ‘hidden’ transcript in intergenerational art dialogues on the Khmer Rouge. It contends that interactions in art and justice create openings to circulate discourses, images, and meanings that differ from the public transcript, thereby, providing a means to defy the powerful and counterframe dominant narratives of the past.

KEYWORDS:

• Transitional justice
• art
• youth
• truth-telling
• local agency
• Cambodia

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the co-editors of this special issue, Denisa Kostovicova and Sanja Vico, for inviting me to join this project, their thoughtful engagement with my work, and editorial guidance along the way. I am also indebted to participants of the ‘Inside the Local Turn in Transitional Justice’ workshop held at the London School of Economics on 2 July 2022 for their valuable comments on an earlier draft. Thanks also to Julie Bernath and participants of the University of Basel’s Graduate School of Social Sciences research colloquium for providing an additional round of feedback. Finally, I thank Lucie Belzile, Alexandra Dudink, Sydney Luca-Lion, and Shirley Wang for providing research assistance and Daryn Touch for helping with translations. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board on 9 December 2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jordan and Henderson (1995, 39) define interaction analysis as ‘an interdisciplinary method for the empirical investigation of the interaction of human beings with each other and with objects in their environment’. See also the introduction to this special issue (Kostovicova and Vico forthcoming).

2 Not all of the older participants are direct victims of the Khmer Rouge or even elders. Some are middle-aged and would have been children when the Khmer Rouge was in power. It is also unclear what role they played during the regime or whether they were even in the country. Hence, the term ‘survivor generation’ refers more generally to the participants’ age (usually 40 years or older), rather than their actual lived experiences under the Khmer Rouge regime.

3 See also Fairey's (2024) article in this special issue, which discusses how photography brings people together and facilitates dialogue on otherwise difficult topics.

4 To avoid selection bias, research sites were chosen to include provinces that were liberated immediately following the Khmer Rouge's ouster in 1979 (Takéo) and those where fighting continued well into the 1990s (Battambang).

5 YfP’s Facebook page has photos from intergenerational art dialogues that were held in Kampong Chhnang and Pailin in 2013, and Battambang and Takéo in 2020.

6 While the UN Secretary-General (1981) has defined youth as a numerical group, comprising the ages from 15 to 24, I prefer Parrin et al.’s (2022, 3) approach, which sees youth as a ‘socially constructed concept or category – lived as a transitional experience rather than defined by a pre-selected cut-off age, or a simple biological or psychological demographic assumption’.

7 Distortional framing is ‘a preventive discursive strategy designed to selectively present the facts concerning an issue with the intention of subverting a policy initiative’ (Kochanski 2021a, 477).

8 See Thomson (2011b) for a more detailed discussion of each of these forms of resistance, which is beyond the scope of this article.

9 The CPP, whose leadership is made up entirely from early Khmer Rouge defectors, has governed Cambodia since 1979—first, during the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) dictatorship of the 1980s, when the country was under Vietnamese occupation, and since 1991 as the CPP.

10 The CPP’s main opponent at the time was the royalist Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia party.

11 Interview with a donor official, Phnom Penh, 29 January 2014.

12 The other notable NGOs are Kdei Karuna and Youth Resource Development Program (YRDP).

13 Interview with Long Khet, Executive Director, YfP, Phnom Penh, 22 January 2014.

14 This description is based on the author’s participation in three such intergenerational art dialogues in 2014–15.

15 For example, 81 per cent of respondents to a survey conducted by Berkeley’s Human Rights Center who were not yet alive during the Khmer Rouge regime described their knowledge of that time as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ (Pham et al. 2009, 26). This point was reiterated in several interviews.

16 Interview with Kristina Chhim, independent researcher and consultant, Phnom Penh, 19 March 2014.

17 Interview with a local NGO staff, Phnom Penh, 13 February 2014.

18 Participant observations, intergenerational art dialogue, 25 January 2014, Takéo province.

19 Participant observations, intergenerational art dialogue, 25 February 2014, Battambang province.

20 Interview, Phnom Penh, 19 February 2014 (identity withheld).

21 Interview with Kristina Chhim, independent researcher and consultant, Phnom Penh, 19 March 2014.

22 Participant observations, intergenerational art dialogue, 25 January 2014, Takéo province.

23 Interview, Phnom Penh, 18 February 2014 (identity withheld).

24 While this sample is not representative of all intergenerational art dialogues on the Khmer Rouge that YfP has held, the results are emblematic of the ones I observed and have analysed on YfP’s Facebook page.

25 At other dialogues, I have also seen images of forced labour on large-scale agrarian projects like dams and irrigation systems. Participant observations, intergenerational art dialogue, 25 February 2014, Battambang province.

26 Interview, Phnom Penh, 19 February 2014 (identity withheld).

27 This point was reiterated in several interviews with NGO staff and donor officials.

28 Interview, Phnom Penh, 19 February 2014 (identity withheld).

29 Interview with Kristina Chhim, independent researcher and consultant, Phnom Penh, 19 March 2014.

30 Interview with a donor official, Phnom Penh, 17 February 2014.

31 Interview, Phnom Penh, 19 February 2014 (identity withheld).

32 Interview with a donor official, Phnom Penh, 29 January 2014.

33 At another dialogue I attended, I saw another such outlier image depicting a B-52 bomber dropping bombs over the countryside (referring to the United States’ extensive and indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia during the 1970–75 phase of the war, which prompted many civilians to join the Khmer Rouge). Participant observations, intergenerational art dialogue, 20 November 2015, Takéo province.

34 Interview with Im Sophea, Former Head, Victims Support Section, ECCC, 23 February 2015.

35 Interview with Ly Bunthea and Hang Soviet, Youth Empowerment Officers, YRDP, Phnom Penh, 30 January 2014.

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 752-2010-0385] and was also carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada [grant number 107473-99906075-033]. Information on the Centre is available on the web at www.idrc.ca.