Lessons for the Future: Khmer Rouge Survivor Testimonies as Sites of Individual and Social Regeneration

Lesley, Elena

doi:10.1080/00141844.2019.1681487

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…These (alter)narratives, and the 'ugly feelings' (Ngai 2005) associated with them should not be repressed. Just as clinical and ethnographic studies have demonstrated the potential value of telling -and listening to -diverse narratives in processes of post-traumatic and post-conflict healing and reconciliation (Esala and Taing 2017;Lesley 2019;Van Dijk, Schoutrop, and Spinhoven 2003), so too does teasing out the diverse experiences of the pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand stands to be a more constructive way of reckoning with the tremendous, and often traumatic, disruption inflicted by CoVid-19 and the lockdown restrictions than reiterating a singular triumphalist narrative of victory. It can, moreover, allow us to envisage the alternatives that could have been, and that might be advocated for should the nation ever find itself in a similar situation.…”

Section: Supermarkets and Supermarket Workersmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Alter)narratives of ‘winning’: Supermarket and healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID19 in Aotearoa New Zealand

Appleton

Long

Aikman³

et al. 2021

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COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the leading nations ‘winning’ over the virus will be important historical documentation. The ‘team of 5 million’ is writing its narratives of life with/out COVID-19 – stories of ‘living in bubbles’, of ‘being kind’ and ‘being in it together.’ These are narratives of success which need to be examined alongside the narratives that have been absent from public national discourse but complicate understandings of ‘winning.’ To that end, in this article we map out (alter)narratives from supermarket and healthcare workers and highlight their stories of living and caring under lockdown. We posit that we need to pay attention to (alter)narratives of winning over COVID-19 in order to pay attention to the bodies and spaces that are often invisible but make winning possible. Thus, we see (Alter)narratives not as counter or anti to the nation’s winning narrative, but rather essential and adjacent.

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Section: Supermarkets and Supermarket Workersmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Alter)narratives of ‘winning’: Supermarket and healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID19 in Aotearoa New Zealand

Appleton

Long

Aikman³

et al. 2021

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“…Mat was one of 22 Cambodian Muslims I interviewed as part of a larger research project tracking the implementation of “testimonial therapy” in Cambodia (Lesley 2019). The therapy was introduced to Cambodia in 2009 as a “reparation” for survivors in the country's UN‐backed Khmer Rouge tribunal (Agger et al.…”

Section: Islam and Buddhism In Contemporary Cambodiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Lesley

2020

Ethos

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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.

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“…While local counselors administering TT confronted this challenge partly through careful, future-oriented shaping of narratives, which I have described elsewhere (Lesley, 2021), they also adapted the therapy through the addition of embodied elements. Initially, staff from the country's Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO) enhanced the memory retrieval and narrative creation component of therapy with a modified Buddhist offering ceremony.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Therapeutic improvisation in Cambodia: Moderated exposure, the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes, and the quest to weave the “world’s longest krama”

Lesley

2023

Memory Studies

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This piece examines efforts by Cambodian mental health workers to incorporate two sites of cultural significance into narrative psychotherapy among Khmer Rouge survivors. As part of the “exposure” element of an imported form of Testimonial Therapy (TT)—in which patients retrieve traumatic memories from the past—a subset of patients was taken to the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes. While embodied engagement with the memorial site served as an effective mnemonic device for participants, it also proved more emotionally overwhelming than counselors initially anticipated. As an antidote, counselors then decided to add another site to the patients’ therapeutic itinerary—an exposition where they could participate in efforts to weave the world’s longest krama. In examining this case of “therapeutic improvisation,” I explore the dynamic social life of memory sites and how they may assist people in renegotiating cultural memory (and identity) in the wake of traumatic social rupture.

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Lessons for the Future: Khmer Rouge Survivor Testimonies as Sites of Individual and Social Regeneration

Cited by 6 publications

References 35 publications

(Alter)narratives of ‘winning’: Supermarket and healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID19 in Aotearoa New Zealand

(Alter)narratives of ‘winning’: Supermarket and healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID19 in Aotearoa New Zealand

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

Therapeutic improvisation in Cambodia: Moderated exposure, the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes, and the quest to weave the “world’s longest krama”

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