Volume 2 issue 1 April 2014
The Dislocated Children of Violence and Memory:
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This paper argues that ‘ghosts’ occupy the crevices of our socio-cultural structures and institutions, latently animating the recesses of national consciousness. It is proposed that when the degree of empirical violence exceeds thresholds of the acceptable potential of power, the excess in energy produces spectres. Illustrating the hypothesis through the example of post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, and drawing comparisons to other prominent instances of transitional justice, it is demonstrated that, notwithstanding attempts to impose nationalised amnesia, ghosts linger in the psyche of the polity and possess its cultural instruments such as the law, literature, language and the arts. Only when pacified, may the ghost finally be put to rest.
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