Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia: Beyond the Extraordinary Chambers (Memory Studies: Global Constellations) - Softcover

Manning, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0367085488 ISBN 13: 9780367085483

Publisher: Routledge, 2018

Synopsis

Memories of violence, suffering and atrocities in Cambodia are today being pulled in different directions. A range of transitional justice practices have been put to work in the name of redressing, restoring and renewing memory. At the centre of this stage is the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal established to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, under which 1.6 million Cambodians died of hunger or disease or were executed.

This book unpicks the way memory is reconstructed through appeals to a national memory, the legal reframing and coding of memories as crimes, and bids to locate personal memories within collective biographies. Analysing the techniques and interventions of the ECCC, as well as exploring the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the book explores the relationships in which Cambodian communities navigate memories of political violence. This book is essential for understanding transitional justice in Cambodia in, and beyond, the courtroom. Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia shows that the governing logic of transitional justice interventions – that societies are unable to 'deal with' memories of atrocity and violence without some form of transitional justice mechanism – neglects the complexity of memory and remembering in post-atrocity contexts and the agency of the subjects to which such mechanisms are addressed.

Drawing on documentary sources, legal transcripts, interviews and participant observation data, the book situates transitional justice processes in Cambodia within a wider context of social and cultural memory politics, examining (old and new) conflicts of memory that have emerged between the varied accounts and uses of the past that exist in Cambodia now. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars in sociology, human rights, law and criminology.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Manning is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bath. Peter has previously lectured in sociology at Liverpool Hope University and at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics, where he was awarded a PhD in 2014.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367085488
• ISBN 13: 9780367085483
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 180