Immaterial Alliances: Constructions of Self‐Other Relations and Conceptions of Belonging in the Therapeutic Narratives of Muslim and Buddhist Cambodians

Abstract

Although religious worship was banned during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–79), spiritual practices are once again flourishing in Cambodia. These include both the practices of the majority Buddhist population and a small but visible Cham Muslim minority. While popular Buddhism in Cambodia today incorporates the legacies of Hinduism and animism in the country, the majority of Cham Muslims have adopted a more orthodox version of Islam due to the influence of global proselytization. This article argues that these dominant strains of religious practice divergently train conscious attention in habitual patterns, cultivating different orientations of intentionality among Khmer Buddhist and Cham Muslim Khmer Rouge survivors. The patterns of attention encouraged by current religious practices shape the narrative organization of memory as survivors engage in an NGO‐sponsored form of psychotherapeutic “testimonial therapy.” As my ethnographic findings demonstrate, these divergent narrative constructions and their public performance reinforce different relational experiences of selfhood and engagement with supernatural others among Cambodian Buddhists and Muslims, with significant implications for perceived social belonging in contemporary society.