Date : 2012
Editeur / Publisher : Ann Arbor : UMI Dissertation Services , 2006
Type : Livre / Book
Langue / Language : anglais / English
Pol Pot -- 1928-1998 -- Pensée politique et sociale
Parti communiste du Kampuchea -- Propagande
Slogans politiques -- Cambodge
Propagande communiste -- Cambodge
Résumé / Abstract : Using theoretical frameworks from archival studies, anthropology, and culture studies, this dissertation traces the social life of a collection of mug shots taken at the notorious Tuol Sleng Prison in Cambodia and their role in the production of history about the khmer Rouge regime. It focuses on three key moments in the social life of the mug shots: the moment of their creation; their inclusion in archives; and their use by survivors and victims' family members in establishing narratives about the Khmer Rouge. The dissertation explores the ways in which silences were encoded in each of these moments, how the meaning of these records changes depending on their contexts, and how their reuse creates an infinite layering of the archive. The first chapter outlines the key theoretical and methodological frameworks employed, namely Trouillot's conception of silences and the production of history, the records continuum model, and the social life of objects approach. The second chapter details the French colonial roots of the mug shot as a photographic genre in Cambodia, places the creation of the Tuol Sleng mug shots within the Khmer Rouge bureaucracy, and describes the discursive social function the records played in transforming suspects into enemies of the state.The third chapter outlines the confluence of political and economic forces that shaped the mug shots into museum displays, archival collections, and digital databases.The fourth chapter addresses both how the mug shots are being used by Cambodians to spark narratives about the past through legal testimony, documentary films, newletter articles, and how the circulation of photographs of people looking at the mug shots transforms viewers into withnesses and performs human rights in the present. Finally, this dissertation argues that through these many reuses of the mug shots, archival institutions such as the Documentation Center of Cambodia are ensuring that some of the silences embedded in the records at their creation are not perpetuated in the making of archives and narratives about the past. From their original functin as bureaucratic records, to their subsequent acquisition into archives, digitization, and publication, and their current reuses as legal and historical evidence, Khmer Rouge mug shots play an active role in an ongoing drama of suffering, memory, and accountability in Cambodia.