Conceptualizing Healing in the Cambodian American Diaspora after the ECCC

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Transitional Justice and Reconciliation

Abstract

Genocide has left long-term psychological trauma on populations fleeing conflict, such as the refugee Cambodian American population who fled the Cambodian Genocide of 1975-79 (Chan 2004, Um 2015, Hach 2020). Yet, psychology, diaspora and Asian American studies, and political science have frequently assessed the impacts of psychological trauma rather than how this trauma manifests and affects healing processes. In this paper, I present data collected from interviews with members of the Cambodian American diaspora. Through these interviews, I attempt to understand deeper patterns of relationality, such as the generational differences between the first generation of genocide survivors, the 1.5 generation of younger survivors, and the second generation of Cambodians born in the US.
Some of these patterns include diverse approaches to culture and education, economic choices with placemaking, and disparate perspectives on reconciliation and post-genocide healing. Through relational interviews (Fujii 2017), I illustrate how the Cambodian American diaspora carries a range of perspectives on communal healing that are representative of other diasporas who have experienced genocidal violence and intergenerational traumas. These lived perspectives are crucial insights that inform how communities heal more broadly even after leaving the home country where genocide occurred, and demonstrate how mediums of trauma are reproduced within the community that is also pursuing healing, even generations after violence. With renewed perspective on what constitutes healing, more diverse forms of healing from the diaspora may help transform future transitional justice.

Author

• Saranyan Uthayakumar, University of Southern California