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.