Towards intimate geographies of peace? Local reconciliation of domestic violence in Cambodia

Abstract

This paper addresses the dearth of writing in geography on domestic violence and its misplaced absenteeism in dialogues on geographies of war and peace. It challenges a preoccupation with (inter)-national landscapes of war and militarism through its focus on the (im)possibilities of (liberal) peace within the home. The paper attends to the everyday politics of efforts to reduce spousal violence via local reconciliation -a customary practice of conflict resolution that has attracted criticism from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. On the basis of 120 interviews and a quantitative household survey in two provinces of Cambodia (2012Cambodia ( -2014, the paper argues that political economy considerations are crucial to understanding the path and outcome of various domestic violence interventions. By analysing the situated beliefs and experiences of domestic violence victims, legal professionals, NGO workers, police officers and other authority leaders, it also stresses the importance of questioning what peace equates to for different stakeholders. The research shows a strong moralistic commitment to 'harmony' and the unyielding continuity of the marital unit by national and local government machinery intent on securing its own intimate security through local reconciliation. For many women who suffer abuse, and for legal professionals in particular, local reconciliation represents, by contrast, an ambiguous departure from intimate war to peace that can lead to the detriment rather than betterment of victims' lives. Its continued use contravenes the country's 2005 domestic violence law in 'severe' cases and belies the promise of justice. Exposing and responding to the cultural ideals and norms promulgated, as well as the political and material realities operative, geographers have a greater role and responsibility to play in producing research that examines the multi-scalar connections between these dynamics and the vested interests of their various interlocutors who have the potential to render peace putative.

Intimate war

“…Multi-scalar and gendered analysis of warfare not only illuminates ways forward for conflict resolution (Cockburn, 2004;Moser, 2001), but adds to recent debates around peace in political geography, particularly given Koopman's (2011b, 194) assertion that war and peace are not separate states, but 'peace(s) are always shaped in and through the space and times through which they are made' (see also Brickell, 2014, who connects this analysis to domestic violence). Koopman (2011a) has also been a leading advocate of a pro-peace agenda in geography that involves scholars directly in resistance and social change, strategically deploying our own hearts and minds.…”

“…The intersection of such spatial accounts with analysis of emotions, resistance and activism in domestic violence provides another potential line of enquiry (Pain, 2014b). The relations between state responses to private and public violences also demand further interrogation (Phillips, 2008;Pratt, 2012); for example, the logic of masculinist protection has been drawn out in domestic violence policing in the US (Cuomo, 2013) and in family reconciliation in Cambodia (Brickell, 2014).…”

Gendered violences and rule of/by law in Cambodia

“…As the official glossary to domestic violence Law reads, this meeting in the case of ‘minor’ domestic violence is designed to allow and facilitate the ‘communication process between quarrelling parties that aims at maintaining family life’ ( Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC), 2007 : 11). As I elaborate ( Brickell, 2015 ), governmental involvement in lawmaking and their championing of reconciliation has arguably aggravated the potential for further physical violence. It also heightened symbolic violence through the de facto hushing of women.…”

Waging peace: militarising pacifism in Central Africa and the problem of geography, 1962

“…Second, within geography, emphasis has been placed on routine ‘moments of cooperation and coexistence, exchange and encounter’ in order to address questions of peace, violence and agency within the micro‐politics of daily life (Williams and McConnell , 928). This has rightly prioritised the oft‐overlooked ‘intimate’ (Brickell ), ‘everyday’ (Williams ) or ‘peopled’ (Woon ) geographies of peace. Yet these studies ‘from below’ can become unhelpfully positioned, implicitly or otherwise, against traditional international accounts of ‘liberal’ peace framed by the terms of policymaking elites and peace professionals, housed in a range of prestigious, international agencies.…”