The Killing Of Cambodia Geography Genocide And The Unmaking Of Space

Between 1975 and 1978, the Khmer Rouge carried out genocide in Cambodia unparalleled in modern history. Approximately 2 million died - almost one quarter of the population. Taking an explicitly geographical approach, this book argues whether the Khmer Rouge's activities not only led to genocide, but also terracide - the erasure of space. In the Cambodia of 1975, the landscape would reveal vestiges of an indigenous pre-colonial Khmer society, a French colonialism and American intervention. The Khmer Rouge, however, were not content with retaining the past inscriptions of previous modes of production and spatial practices. Instead, they attempted to erase time and space to create their own utopian vision of a communal society. The Khmer Rouge's erasing and reshaping of space was thus part of a consistent sacrifice of Cambodia and its people - a brutal justification for the killing of a country and the birth of a new place, Democratic Kampuchea. While focusing on Cambodia, the book provides a clearer geographic understanding to genocide in general and insights into the importance of spatial factors in geopolitical conflict.

This groundbreaking book brings an important spatial perspective to our understanding of genocide through a fresh interpretation of Germany under Hitler, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and China’s Great Leap Forward famine under Mao. James A. Tyner's powerful analysis of these horrifying cases provides insight into the larger questions of sovereignty and state policies that determine who will live and who will die. Specifically, he explores the government practices that result in genocide and how they are informed by the calculation and valuation of life—and death. A geographical perspective on genocide highlights that mass violence, in the minds of perpetrators, is viewed as an effective—and legitimate—strategy of state building. These three histories of mass violence demonstrate how specific states articulate and act upon particular geographical concepts that determine and devalue the moral worth of groups and individuals. Clearly and compellingly written, this book will bring fresh and valuable insights into state genocidal behavior.

Offering a comprehensive overview of the current situation in the country, The Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia provides a broad coverage of social, cultural, political and economic development within both rural and urban contexts during the last decade. A detailed introduction places Cambodia within its global and regional frame, and the handbook is then divided into five thematic sections: Political and Economic Tensions Rural Developments Urban Conflicts Social Processes Cultural Currents The first section looks at the major political implications and tensions that have occurred in Cambodia, as well as the changing parameters of its economic profile. The handbook then highlights the major developments that are unfolding within the rural sphere, before moving on to consider how cities in Cambodia, and particularly Phnom Penh, have become primary sites of change. The fourth section covers the major processes that have shaped social understandings of the country, and how Cambodians have come to understand themselves in relation to each other and the outside world. Section five analyses the cultural dimensions of Cambodia’s current experience, and how identity comes into contact with and responds to other cultural themes. Bringing together a team of leading scholars on Cambodia, the handbook presents an understanding of how sociocultural and political economic processes in the country have evolved. It is a cutting edge and interdisciplinary resource for scholars and students of Southeast Asian Studies, as well as policymakers, sociologists and political scientists with an interest in contemporary Cambodia.

Authors from a variety of disciplines dealing with diverse historical cases engage with the spatial deployment of violence and the possibilities for memory and resistance in contexts of state sponsored violence, enforced disappearances and regimes of exception. Contributors include Aleida Assmann, Jay Winter and David Harvey.

This book explores how the legacy of violence during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia is memorialized. Engaging with war, violence and critical heritage studies, the book looks at how the selective production of heritage diminishes opportunities for justice and reconciliation beyond the violence. It should be of particular interest to students and scholars interested in heritage studies, memory, trauma, genocide, dark tourism, and Cambodia.

Reconstruction - the rebuilding of state, economy, culture and society in the wake of war - is a powerful idea, and a profoundly transformative one. From the refashioning of new landscapes in bombed-out cities and towns to the reframing of national identities to accommodate changed historical narratives, the term has become synonymous with notions of "post-conflict" society; it draws much of its rhetorical power from the neat demarcation, both spatially and temporally, between war and peace. The reality is far more complex. In this volume, reconstruction is identified as a process of conflict and of militarized power, not something that clearly demarcates a post-war period of peace. Kirsch and Flint bring together an internationally diverse range of studies by leading scholars to examine how periods of war and other forms of political violence have been justified as processes of necessary and valid reconstruction as well as the role of war in catalyzing the construction of new political institutions and destroying old regimes. Challenging the false dichotomy between war and peace, this book explores instead the ways that war and peace are mutually constituted in the creation of historically specific geographies and geographical knowledges.

Historical geography is an active, theoretically-informed and vibrant field of scholarly work within modern geography, with strong and constantly evolving connections with disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Across two volumes, The SAGE Handbook of Historical Geography provides you with an an international and cross-disciplinary overview of the field, presenting chapters that examine the history, present condition and future potential of the discipline in relation to recent developments and research.

Drawing on 15 years of fieldwork and over 300 interviews, Home SOS argues that the home is central to the violence and gendered contingency of existence in crisis ordinary Cambodia. Provides an original book-length study which brings domestic violence and forced eviction into twin view Offers relational insights between different violences to build an integrated understanding of women’s experiences of home life Mobilises the crisis ordinary as a critical pedagogy and imaginary through which to understand everyday gendered politics of survival Positions domestic violence and forced eviction as manifestations of intimate war against women’s homes and bodies located inside and outside of the traditional purview of war Reaffirms and reprioritises the home as a political entity which is foundational to the concerns of human geography