The Cultural Epigenesis of Gender-Based Violence in Cambodia: Local and Buddhist Perspectives

Maurice Eisenbruch

doi:10.1007/s11013-017-9563-6

Abstract

Almost one in four women in Cambodia is a victim of physical, emotional or sexual violence. The study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which Cambodians see its causes and effects and to identify and analyse the cultural forces that underpin and shape its landscape. An ethnographic study was carried out with 102 perpetrators and survivors of emotional, physical and sexual violence against women and 228 key informants from the Buddhist and healing sectors. Their views and experiences of it were recorded—the popular idioms expressed and the symptoms of distress experienced by survivors and perpetrators. From these results, the eight cultural forces, or cultural attractors, that are seen to propel a person to violence were identified. Violence stemmed from blighted endowment, or ‘bad building’ (sɑmnaaŋ mɨn lʔɑɑ) determined by deeds in a previous life (kam). Children with a vicious character (kmeeŋ kaac or doṣa-carita) might grow to be abusers, and particular birthmarks on boys were thought to be portents. Krʊəh, or mishap, especially when a female’s horoscope predicted a zodiac house on the descent (riesəy), explained vulnerability to violence and its timing. Astrological incompatibility (kuu kam) was a risk factor. Lust, anger and ignorance, the ‘Triple Poison’, fuelled it. ‘Entering the road to ruin’ (apāyamuk), including alcohol abuse, womanising and gambling, triggered it. Confusion and loss of judgement (mohā) led to moral blindness (mo baŋ). These were the eight cultural attractors that shaped the landscape of violence against women. The cultural epigenesis of violence against women in Cambodia is an insight which can be used to build culturally responsive interventions and strengthen the primary prevention of violence against women. An understanding of the epigenesis of violence could strengthen the primary prevention of violence against women.

Highlights

The most recent evidence confirms that gender-based violence (GBV) against women around the world is culturally constructed, shaped, and in some cases prevented
Inspired by Waddington and his brilliant exposition on epigenetic landscapes, the sequence set out here presents the reader with a Waddingtonian landscape that reveals the cultural drivers of gender-based violence in Cambodia (Fig. 1)
It starts with blighted endowment and continues as seeds of character, emerging as astrological forces. It erupts like poison and develops once the perpetrator enters the road to ruin, a powerful central ‘cultural attractor’. It sets the stage for the act of violence as the perpetrator’s mind becomes confused and seals his fate with the onset of moral blindness and an absence of shame and blame

Summary

Introduction

The most recent evidence confirms that gender-based violence (GBV) against women around the world is culturally constructed, shaped, and in some cases prevented. Examples of such studies include the Arab world (Standish 2014), Bangladesh (Fattah and Camellia 2017; Chowdhury 2014), Bosnia (Mufticand Bouffard 2008), China (Tang, Wong and Cheung 2002), India and China (Taylor, Xia and Do 2017), Myanmar (Norsworthy and Khuankaew 2004), Nepal (Puri, Shah and Tamang 2010), Nigeria (Oladepo, Yusuf and Arul 2011), Pakistan (Sadiq 2017), Rwanda (Zraly and Nyirazinyoye 2010), Senegal (Bop 2010), Thailand (Ezard 2014; Han and Resurreccion 2008), Turkey (Ozcakir et al 2008) and Vietnam (Krause et al, 2015). While government rhetoric tends to focus on alcohol and poverty, this article looks more closely at the cultural bedrock of these undeniably powerful factors so that they can be better understood and used in the national efforts to prevent GBV

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion