Understanding Everyday Peace in Cambodia: Plurality, Subtlety, and Connectivity

Abstract

This article explores the nature of everyday peace in local communities in Cambodia. Drawing on interviews and observation and focusing on the reconstruction of relationship between community residents and former Khmer Rouge leaders, the analysis demonstrates that everyday peace in these communities is characterised by three features: plurality, subtlety, and connectivity. The findings demonstrate how the nature of social relationships with former harm-doers varies within and between communities; sheds light on the subtle, mundane, and episodic ways in which peace is sustained and manifested; and highlights the connectivity of local agency with broader political contexts that contribute to shaping everyday practices and experiences of peace. In conclusion, this article revisits the fixity and homogeneity of the peace in a society which is assumed by many studies, calls for further exploration of the prepolitical nature of everyday peace, and discusses implications for a recent academic debate over victims’ silence.

5 “They treat us like visitors in our own house”

“…A relational analysis of peace also contributes to recent scholarship in critical and feminist peace studies that challenges the notion of a neat dichotomy between war and peace, and explores how war and peace coexist and overlap (Klem 2018;Gusic 2020;Porter 2016). Moreover, our analysis adds to the growing literature on everyday peace, locating and exploring how peace is manifested and experienced in people's everyday practices and interactions (Mac Ginty 2014; Blomqvist et al 2021;Lee 2021;Ware and Ware 2021). More specifically, our findings add to previous work on everyday peace indicators (see for example Firchow and Mac Ginty 2017).…”

The Contribution of Seventh Day Adventist Transnational Organizations in Building Global Peace Through Tolerance: A Case Study in Indonesia

“…People of various religions live side by side and foster peace together. Research conducted by Lee (2021) in Cambodia shows that everyday peace is characterized by plurality, where multiple levels and forms of peace coexist within and between local communities. Tolerance emerges as a necessity in social plurality.…”

Peace beyond the Absence of War: Three Trends in the Study of Positive Peace

“…Those debates will not be summarized here; rather the focus is on the key development relevant for exploring peace: the trend to ask people in conflict-affected areas what peace means to them in their everyday lives. In the past 10 years, studies have been published on the meanings that indigenous peoples [53,54], young people [55], women [56,57], or more generally people in local communities in conflictaffected areas [48,58,59] or traditional peaceful societies [60] attach to peace.…”

“…One other striking aspect of these studies is that often the (explicit) objective of them is to "give a voice to people who have not been heard before" [64]: the victims of armed conflict, in particular marginalized groups like youth or women. Lee [58] is an exception in that he also included former Khmer Rouge combatants in his study of everyday peace in Cambodia, but often the focus seems to be on making additional voices heard, rather than on finding consensus between different groups or actors. While this is certainly laudable, and a much-needed correction on overly Westerncentric conceptualizations of peace, it would be interesting to apply the same methodology to Western peacebuilders.…”