School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemEveryday Traces: Diasporic Hauntings and the Affectivity of Historical Trauma Among Cambodian-Australian Women( 2020)This thesis explores how traces of the Cambodian genocide affectively haunts Cambodian-Australian women. I draw upon postcolonial theory, affect theory and feminist studies, to analyse the ways in which Cambodian-Australian women mediate memories and experiences in relation to broader cultural, social and historical structures. I contend that intergenerational trauma, gendered norms, and the politics of racism and belonging shape women’s connections to their Cambodian heritage and Cambodian identities in diverse and significant ways. My methodology, which includes qualitative in-depth interviews with Cambodian-Australian women is informed by a feminist approach that foregrounds women’s lived experiences. Yet, this thesis is not only about haunted diasporic subjects; it is also written from the perspective of a haunted diasporic subject. Given my positionality as an ‘insider’ researcher, I use a reflexive, autoethnographic approach, to writing, in order to challenge conventional modes of storytelling in academia and to interrogate what counts as ‘evidence’ in social science research. To this end, I situate my autoethnographic pieces alongside my participants’ narratives in an attempt to disrupt the subject-researcher distinction. My thesis adopts Grace Cho’s (2008) creative and reflexive approach and Avery Gordon’s (2008) method of ‘linking imagination and critique’, to not only explore the hauntings legacies of the Cambodian genocide, but to perform the very thing that my research tries to capture: ‘affective hauntings’. Using Avery Gordon’s (2008) theory of ‘haunting’ as an overarching framework, I argue that for many of my participants, all of whom were raised in Australia by one or both parents who survived the Cambodian genocide, the collective traumas of Cambodia’s devastating history have affected and continue to affect their lives, in subtle and not so subtle ways. Intergenerational hauntings, while sometimes difficult to locate, can provoke affective states that are embodied, and reflect emotions such as confusion, guilt, unease, melancholy, sadness, sorrow, pain, pride, and gratitude. These affective states are relational, contextually driven, cultural, discursive and continually negotiated. Certainly, embodied hauntings speak to histories of grief and loss, and yet from this loss, something else, something beyond psychopathology emerges. Drawing on feminist theories that highlight the generative possibilities of affect (Dragojlovic and Broom 2018; Ahmed 2010), I explore how intergenerational hauntings are sites of possibility that can open up new ways of thinking about identity and agency. As illustrated by my participants’ narratives, hauntings can be expressed by desires to actively engage with the past, recover histories, and ‘return’ to Cambodia.
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ItemModernity and contemporaneity in "Cambodian Arts" after independence( 2017)This study of “Cambodian arts” since national independence understands modernity and contemporaneity as conceptually coextensive categories. Through detailed analyses of different artworks and their contexts—comprising painting, architecture, performance, cinema, and literature—this thesis proposes that modern and contemporary “Cambodian arts” are defined by coeval new and old forms, intersections between media, and an intertwining of art and ideology. It focuses primarily on the years 1955-1975, while also making trans-historical comparisons by interspersing more recent art practices into its discussion.
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ItemWriting Cambodia: representations of the ‘other’ in contemporary short fiction and ‘The Real Cambodia’( 2011)The critical component of this thesis, ‘Writing Cambodia: Representations of the ‘other’ in contemporary short fiction’, is concerned with the problematic relationship between two of the dominant discourses of otherness theory –postcolonial and psychoanalytic theory – and the practice of creative writers drawn to topics of otherness. Focusing on ten short stories about Cambodia by Cambodian and non-Cambodian writers – Anonymous, Soth Polin, Bith Pollie, Brian Fawcett, Joel Arnold, Santel Phin, Madeline Thien, Sharon May and Chakriya Phou – I argue that theories that emphasise ‘contact’ allow for a more productive intercultural analysis of representation. Using Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of ‘contact zones’ in combination with Shameem Black’s notion of ‘border-crossing fiction’ and Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s term ‘transgressive texts’, I argue that otherness in cross-cultural contemporary short fiction can be mapped through the lens of ‘intersubjectivity’. I utilise Marcia Langton’s model, which focuses on authenticity, stereotype and contact. This is used as a practical and critical tool for discussions of contact and otherness in the production and realisation of short stories about Cambodia. The creative component of this thesis comprises six short stories from a collection of 15 titled ‘The Real Cambodia’. This linked collection of stories about Cambodia, tourism and its effects, demonstrates a practical application of contact theories, in particular that of border-crossing fiction, by fictionally exploring the consequences and outcomes of writing about an ‘other’ culture. Using multiple viewpoints, the stories look at otherness through themes of sex work, alienation, racism, poverty, war and love. The selection of stories from ‘The Real Cambodia’ are a practical demonstration of fiction that crosses borders, contributing to a literary community of Cambodian and non-Cambodian authors who are writing about Cambodia and challenging traditional forms of representation.