The Politics of Difference in Transitional Justice: Frictions and Meaning Production around the Notion of Genocide in Cambodia

Transitional justice literature has increasingly highlighted the ways in which friction unfolds in the interaction between legal and local perspectives on and practices of dealing with the past. This paper proposes to reflect on such frictions through an empirical analysis of the multiplicity of meanings surrounding the notion of genocide in the context of Cambodia. It analyses the mismatch between political, social and legal perspectives on the meaning of genocide and deconstructs the related micro-politics of meaning production and victimhood construction at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. It thereby highlights the ways in which transitional justice are always perceived through, and mediated by, the prism of local relations of power in intricate and at times unforeseen ways. It further reflects upon the construction of difference and consolidation of identities through transitional justice processes and asks whether the creation of specific victim groups in relation to the genocide charges at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal introduces difference in a way that possibly disrupts strategies of assimilation of groups who continue to be subject to xenophobia in contemporary Cambodia. This paper is based upon the analysis of the testimonies of victims on charges of genocide in Case 002/02 at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and video recordings of oral histories of victims from the Cham Muslim and Vietnamese minorites in Cambodia. It also draws from empirical fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2016 in the capital city and in rural areas with civil parties.