Forest of Struggle

Eve Zucker

Eve Zucker

Forest of Struggle

Moralities of Remembrance in Upland Cambodia

In: Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory, 49

Edited by: David P. Chandler and Rita Smith Kipp

University of Hawaii Press | 2013

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824838065

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About this book

In a village community in the highlands of Cambodia’s Southwest, people struggle to rebuild their lives after nearly thirty years of war and genocide. Recovery is a tenuous process as villagers attempt to shape a future while contending with the terrible rupture of the Pol Pot era. Forest of Struggle tracks the fragile progress of restoring the bonds of community in O’Thmaa and its environs, the site of a Khmer Rouge base and battlefield for nearly three decades between 1970 and 1998.

Anthropologist Eve Zucker’s ethnographic fieldwork (2001–2003, 2010) uncovers the experiences of the people of O’Thmaa in the early days of the revolution, when some villagers turned on each other with lethal results. She examines memories of violence and considers the means by which relatedness and moral order are re-established, comparing O’Thmaa with villages in a neighboring commune that suffered similar but not identical trauma. Zucker argues that those differing experiences shape present ways of healing and making the future. Events had a devastating effect on the social and moral order at the time and continue to impair the remaking of sociality and civil society today, impacting villagers’ responses to changes in recent years.

More positively, Zucker persuasively illustrates how Cambodians employ indigenous means to reconcile their painful memories of loss and devastation. This point is noteworthy given current debates on recovery surrounding the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Forest of Struggle offers a compelling case study that is relevant to anyone interested in post-conflict recovery, social memory, the anthropology of morality and violence, and Cambodia studies.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	ix
Prologue Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
1. Introduction Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	5
2. The Setting: People, Place, and History Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	23
3. Trust and Distrust Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	47
4. The Story of a Village Elder, Part 1 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	75
5. The Story of a Village Elder, Part 2 Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	94
6. The Wild and the Civil, Kinship, and Commensality Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	114
7. Mountains, Morals, and Memory Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	133
8. Bon Dalien Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	150
9. Conclusion Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	171
Epilogue Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	181
Appendix Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	189
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	195
Bibliography Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	211
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	229

Forest of Struggle

Moralities of Remembrance in Upland Cambodia

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