The role of the Arts in Cambodia's Transitional Justice Process (Co-hosted with Visual Politics Seminar)

Presented by Professor Renée Jeffery (Griffith University). 

At the end of the Khmer Rouge period, less than ten percent of Cambodia’s artists, dancers, musicians and film makers remained in Cambodia. Forty years on, however, the arts are experiencing an ongoing revival and have assumed a central role in the country’s attempt to come to grips with its violent past. This paper examines roles played by the arts in Cambodia’s transitional justice process, from early grassroots arts/human rights activism to more reparations orders. Renée Jeffery is a Professor of International Relations at Griffith University. Her most recent publications include Amnesties, Accountability and Human Rights (U of Penn 2014), Reason and Emotion in International Ethics (Cambridge 2014) and Transitional Justice in Practice (Springer 2017).