My Father's narrative of survival: His story told through Cambodian music
This ethnographic interview with my father fills the scholarly gap on the aesthetics of Cambodian survivors in the diaspora. Understanding the everyday, mundane aspects of pleng samay, Khmer popular music from the 1960s, is a step toward de-pathologizing Cambodian aesthetic cultural practices. This...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-06-01
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| Series: | SSM - Mental Health |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560325000489 |
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| Summary: | This ethnographic interview with my father fills the scholarly gap on the aesthetics of Cambodian survivors in the diaspora. Understanding the everyday, mundane aspects of pleng samay, Khmer popular music from the 1960s, is a step toward de-pathologizing Cambodian aesthetic cultural practices. This work proposes a politicized dimension of processing trauma through musical memory. Pleng samay is a layered nexus for postcolonial and imperial negotiations that open up spaces of reflection and therapeutic landscapes that are central to the lifeworlds of Cambodian survivors. However, these practices have been rendered inaudible within scholarly frameworks of trauma and tragedy. The Cambodian case also speaks to the importance of therapeutic approaches that deeply consider survivors’ politicized cultural practices and interrogate the logics of colonialism, war, and imperial violence. |
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| ISSN: | 2666-5603 |