Justice and Judicial Systems

Location

University of Dayton

Start Date

10-2-2015 10:30 AM

End Date

10-2-2015 12:00 PM

Abstract

Through an innovative student-faculty collaborative research externship program supported by the Ohio University Center for Law, Justice & Culture, several undergraduate students spent the summer of 2014 in Cambodia conducting independent ethnographic research on issues of law, memory, and justice in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Utilizing the students’ research in Cambodia, this proposed panel session presents three case studies for a conversation regarding how ethnographic methods can inform transitional justice mechanisms by emphasizing local experiences. Much of the research is in light of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal that began in 2007 to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and those deemed most responsible for crimes committed between 1975 and 1979.

Collectively, the projects explore connections between international justice and contemporary Cambodian society, including how international justice mechanisms produce global legal consciousness, how this consciousness is claimed and contested by local actors, and how legal categories shape collective identity, memories of the past, and imaginations of the future. The research projects reveal a spectrum of issues related to law, memory, and justice. One of the projects discusses the politics of the word “genocide” as it is used in the Cambodian case, drawing upon the experiences and perceptions of the Cham Muslim minority and Case 002/02 of the ECCC.

Another project explores representations of victimhood at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes as they manifest in debates surrounding a new, ECCC reparations-related memorial on the site. The last project investigates the politics of the cultural production, representation, and translation in genocide exhibitions at three contrasting memorial museums across Cambodia.

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Oct 2nd, 10:30 AM Oct 2nd, 12:00 PM

Imagining International Justice in Post-Genocide Cambodia (abstract)

University of Dayton

Through an innovative student-faculty collaborative research externship program supported by the Ohio University Center for Law, Justice & Culture, several undergraduate students spent the summer of 2014 in Cambodia conducting independent ethnographic research on issues of law, memory, and justice in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Utilizing the students’ research in Cambodia, this proposed panel session presents three case studies for a conversation regarding how ethnographic methods can inform transitional justice mechanisms by emphasizing local experiences. Much of the research is in light of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal that began in 2007 to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and those deemed most responsible for crimes committed between 1975 and 1979.

Collectively, the projects explore connections between international justice and contemporary Cambodian society, including how international justice mechanisms produce global legal consciousness, how this consciousness is claimed and contested by local actors, and how legal categories shape collective identity, memories of the past, and imaginations of the future. The research projects reveal a spectrum of issues related to law, memory, and justice. One of the projects discusses the politics of the word “genocide” as it is used in the Cambodian case, drawing upon the experiences and perceptions of the Cham Muslim minority and Case 002/02 of the ECCC.

Another project explores representations of victimhood at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes as they manifest in debates surrounding a new, ECCC reparations-related memorial on the site. The last project investigates the politics of the cultural production, representation, and translation in genocide exhibitions at three contrasting memorial museums across Cambodia.