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Constructing memory in Cambodia: “Cautious resistance and calculated conformity”

Mon, April 15, 3:15 to 4:45pm, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Pacific Concourse (Level -1), Pacific O

Proposal

This presentation explores Cambodia’s on-going process of history curriculum development, highlighting the balance government officials make between regional and national priorities. The presentation develops the idea of “cautious resistance and calculated conformity,” first proposed by James C. Scott in 1985, in the context of disputed state legitimacy. Instead of looking at the material practices of peasantry (as Scott did in Malaysia), this presentation explores the struggle government officials face in Cambodia who are tasked with re-producing state ideology. Based on interviews with members of the government’s history curriculum development team and document analysis of textbooks and curriculum frameworks, this presentation shows where curriculum developers challenge state ideology, where they conform, and offers reasons why this may be the case. In terms of collective memory, this presentation shows that the state is not a unitary actor advancing a stable construction of history but comprised of a group of actors vying for power and influence. This struggle alters the version of history presented inside school textbooks and shows the ideological resistance and conformity in the production of collective memory.

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