Violence and the Dialectics of Landscape: Memorialization in Cambodia¹

1. It should be noted that state‐building is necessarily a violent process (Springer 2013).

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1979, approximately two million people were killed in the Cambodian genocide. To date, considerable research has examined the legacies of this period of Cambodia's history, as well as the geographies of memorialization associated with genocidal violence. In this paper we both critique and expand current understandings. We do so, first, through a destabilization of the periodization of Cambodia's violent past and, second, through a re‐theorization of violence itself. Specifically, we resituate the Cambodian genocide as part of a more systemic effort of post‐conflict reconstruction. We argue that from the perspective of the Khmer Rouge, those policies and practices imposed post‐1975 were forwarded in the context of state‐building following five years of civil war (1970–1975). Consequently, a view of genocide as post‐conflict reconstruction calls into question standard understandings of the genocide and especially the post‐1979 memorialization of genocide. To accomplish our goals, we introduce a dialectical understanding of both potential and realized violence, and potential and realized memorialized landscapes.

• violence
• genocide
• post‐conflict
• memorialization
• landscapes
• Cambodia

Notes

1. It should be noted that state‐building is necessarily a violent process (Springer 2013).

2. To facilitate the “standard” tour of the site, in 2010 the main entrance gate to S‐21 was relocated from the center wall to the southeastern corner.

3. Prey Damrei Srot is described as being a long, wooden building with a roof made of palm leaves. Nothing remains of the former security center.

4. Project description published online at http://www.yfpcambodia.org/index.php?p=submenu.php&menuld=3&subMenuld=42.

5. We acknowledge that the post‐independence period is decidedly more complex than the catchall category presented here. Space precludes, however, a more detailed discussion of the post‐1989 politics and the subsequent transformation of Cambodia's “post‐transitional” landscape. For more complete discussions, see especially SPRINGER (2009a, 2009b, 2010a,b).

6. The mass graves at Choeung Ek are officially recognized and promoted. It was at this site that most prisoners detained at Tuol Sleng were executed and buried in several mass graves. Most recently, the site where Pol Pot was cremated, in Anlong Veng, has been officially designated as a memorial site.

7. Scarce “official” mention is made, on the landscape, of the widespread bombing by the United States military in the years prior to 1970. And yet, the landscape—especially the eastern Cambodia landscape—remains pockmarked with bomb craters and littered with unexploded ordinance from this earlier period of violence.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Tyner

Dr. Tyner is a professor of geography at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242; [[email protected]].

Savina Sirik

Ms. Sirik and Mr. Henkin are Master's students in geography at Kent State University.

Samuel Henkin

Ms. Sirik and Mr. Henkin are Master's students in geography at Kent State University.