Postmemory and the Geographies of Violence at Kraing Ta Chan, Cambodia

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of affective and embodied connections understood through the transmission of memory and memorialization practices in the context of spaces of extreme violence. It is concerned with the legacies of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge’s violent subjugation of Cambodian space and life that continue to persist on the landscape today. The politics of memorialization of Cambodia’s violent past institutionalize carefully crafted political narratives and have drawn considerable academic inquiry. Less attention has focused on the “connective” relations of violent spaces and how they are material, affective, and embodied. Accordingly, a geographical understanding of the importance of affective and embodied connections at spaces of extreme violence is promoted. I draw conceptually on postmemory and practices of memorializing the genocidal acts committed at Kraing Ta Chan Security Center in Cambodia, where traces of violence, torture, and death continue to transform memorial space.