The Dead in the Land: Encounters with Bodies, Bones, and Ghosts in Northwestern Cambodia

Arensen, Lisa

doi:10.1017/s0021911816001662

Cited by 24 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…In fact, quite the contrary. Clothing in lieu of the all‐important human remains permits the family to liberate the dead from its otherwise liminal state of postgenocide mass wandering alongside other hungry uncremated ghosts (Arensen ) so that they might continue forward to their next incarnation or to Nirvana. The clothing, as solution to the cosmological crisis that befell the great majority of genocide victims, ultimately serves to dehistoricize the dead occluding familial genocide memory.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resurrecting Discontinued Bonds: A Comparative Study of Israeli Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide Trauma Descendant Relations with the Genocide Dead

Kidron¹

2018

Ethos

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This comparative study examines the way Israeli Holocaust descendants and Cambodian genocide descendants differentially reconstitute “discontinued” descendant‐ancestor relations with the genocide dead they never knew. Empirically examining the way distant bonds “discontinued” in contexts of warfare and mass suffering are restored in everyday life, this study fills a lacuna in the scholarship on genocide legacies, continuing bonds, and person‐dead contact. Descendants depict channels of engagement with the dead entailing person‐ person‐dead contact, person‐object interaction, and imaginal conversations, constituting copresence and intersubjectivity. Contrary to trauma theory, Holocaust and genocide studies, and the anthropology of absence that reduce relations with the dead to maladaptive identification or the burdensome presence of voided absence, the data points to normalized and empowering relations. Comparative findings contribute to our understanding of the way cross‐cultural meaning making differentially conceptualizes the porous border between the living and their ancestors and informs the restoration of (dis)‐continued bonds.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resurrecting Discontinued Bonds: A Comparative Study of Israeli Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide Trauma Descendant Relations with the Genocide Dead

Kidron¹

2018

Ethos

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“…I just want to pay respect to the deceased, for them to feel at ease'. 15 These ceremonies are crucial for people to deal with the past as they are needed to support the spirits of the dead in their quest for re-birth (Arensen, 2017). As such, the spiritual system interacts strongly with a perception of limited resources in the legal and economic systems, undermining resilience.…”

Section: Collective and Moral Reparationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia: Systemic Dimensions and the Limited Contributions of Transitional Justice

Williams¹

2021

Resilience, Adaptive Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice

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“…Even after war and economic development, these spirits may be displaced but maintain an ongoing presence (Arensen 2012 ). The inescapable element in Cambodia is the legacy of the Khmer Rouge era, and the dead of the mass graves can be as powerful and aggressive as the guardian spirits in responding to trespass (Guillou 2012 ) and human settlement (Arensen 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the Spirit into Culturally Responsive Public Health: Explaining Mass Fainting in Cambodia

Eisenbruch

2018

J Relig Health

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The study explores the cultural and religious meaning behind episodes of mass fainting sweeping through garment factories in Cambodia. An ethnographic study was conducted at 20 garment factories in Kandal, Preah Sihanouk, Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Takeo, and Kampong Chhnang provinces. Informants were 50 women who fainted or possessed and their families, factory and clinic staff, and monks. Informants described their views on the causes of the mass fainting. Based on the informants' views, the seeds were sown when factories were built on former Khmer Rouge killing fields, when local guardian spirits were disrespected and when the factories were not inaugurated with the proper rituals. We found that an inauspicious death, a conflict leading to violation of a vow, or culturally inappropriate interventions by management explained what triggered the episodes. The results show that people believe that mass faintings occur in parallel with tensions between the workers and the foreign owners of the factories and tensions between the human and spiritual owners of the land. The study has implications for the development of culturally responsive public health interventions in mass group phenomena.

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The Dead in the Land: Encounters with Bodies, Bones, and Ghosts in Northwestern Cambodia

Cited by 24 publications

References 20 publications

Resurrecting Discontinued Bonds: A Comparative Study of Israeli Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide Trauma Descendant Relations with the Genocide Dead

Resurrecting Discontinued Bonds: A Comparative Study of Israeli Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide Trauma Descendant Relations with the Genocide Dead

Resilience in Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia: Systemic Dimensions and the Limited Contributions of Transitional Justice

Putting the Spirit into Culturally Responsive Public Health: Explaining Mass Fainting in Cambodia

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