Music, Nature, Power, and Place: An Ecomusicology of Khmer Rouge Songs

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1979, approximately 2 million men, women, and children died in Cambodia during the brutal regime of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK; the Khmer Rouge). To date, much scholarship has focused on the widespread practices of torture, starvation, and execution; decidedly less attention has been directed toward the cultural or aesthetic practices of the Khmer Rouge. We maintain that this omission is exceptionally important, in that it risks minimizing the importance of the performing arts, and especially music, held by the Khmer Rouge. In this article we employ narrative analysis within an ecomusicology framework in an attempt to better understand how music was used as a political instrument by the Khmer Rouge. Specifically, we document how the Khmer Rouge used songs as a means of conveying policy into practice; as a form of public pedagogy, songs provided instruction to the men, women, and children of Cambodia as to both proper political consciousness as well as the right attitudes toward labor. More precisely, Khmer Rouge–era songs presented nature as the pivot on which a new revolutionary society was to be built.