Music work: Traditional Cambodian music and state-building under the Khmer Rouge
Corresponding Author
Mark A. Rhodes II
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931 USA
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Mark A. Rhodes II
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931 USA
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Recent scholarship has opened questions as to the everyday actions of the Khmer Rouge and those living under the regime which led to the Cambodian Genocide. Current work examines the critical cultural geographies of the Khmer Rouge: photography, poetry and music, for example. Music specifically has an interesting underpinning, as it was previously understood to be have been eradicated in the genocide as the standard narrative has us believe. This paper instead investigates the pieces of evidence that exist, which explain the use of music by the Khmer Rouge. I explore the geographies of music beyond the lyrics and look at the transformation and use of music in Cambodia and Democratic Kampuchea. What elements of traditional Khmer music were used during the regime? What modifications occurred to the music of Cambodia during the regime, and how did the Khmer Rouge modify existing Cambodian (and other) music to best fit their desired uses (state-building and genocide)? This paper goes beyond traditional geographies of music, which rely on lyrical analyses, to bring an ethnomusicological perspective to the work of music and its role in shaping the idea of the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea.
References
- Anderson, B., F. Morton and G. Revill (2005) Editorial: Practices of music and sound, Social & Cultural Geography 6(5): 639–644.
- Barg, L. (2008) Paul Robeson's Ballad for Americans: Race and the cultural politics of ‘people's music’, Journal of the Society for American Music 2: 27–70.
- Buciek, K. and K. Juul (2016) ‘We are here, yet we are not here’: The heritage of excluded groups, in B. Graham and P. Howard (eds.), The Ashgate research companion to heritage and identity. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Butler, J. and G. Spivak (2007) Who sings the nation-state? Language, politics, belonging. London: Seagull Books.
- Chorn-Pond, A. and L. Simms (2002) Between tigers and crocodiles: An interview with Arn Chorn-Pond, Parabola 27(4): 24–31.
- Cresswell, T. (2006) ‘You cannot shake that shimmie here’: Producing mobility on the dance floor, Cultural Geographies 13(1): 55–77.
- Daniels, S. (2006) Suburban pastoral: Strawberry fields forever and sixties memory, Cultural Geographies 13(1): 28–54.
- Denisoff, R.S. and M. Levine (1971) The one dimensional approach to popular music: A research note, The Journal of Popular Culture 4(4): 911–919.
10.1111/j.0022-3840.1971.0404_911.x Google Scholar
- Dyer, J. (2017) Nationalist transformations: Music, ritual, and the work of memory in Cambodia and Thailand, Yale Journal of Music & Religion 3: 26–42.
10.17132/2377-231X.1072 Google Scholar
- Glatzer, J. (2003) The flute player. Video.
- Gold, J. (1998) Roll on Columbia: Woody Guthrie, migrants' tales, and regional transformation in the Pacific northwest, Journal of Cultural Geography 18(1): 83–97.
10.1080/08873639809478314 Google Scholar
- Gottesman, E. (2014) Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge: Inside the politics of nation building. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
- Grant, C. (2014) Perspectives of culture-bearers on the vitality, viability and value of traditional Khmer music genres in contemporary Cambodia, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15(1): 26–46.
- Grant, C. (2015a) Learning and teaching traditional music in Cambodia: Challenges and incentives, International Journal of Music Education 35(1): 5–16.
- Grant, C. (2015b) Endangered musical heritage as a wicked problem, International Journal of Heritage Studies 21(7): 629–641.
- Hawkins, H. (2015) Creative geographic methods: Knowing, representing, intervening. On composing place and page, Cultural Geographies 22(2): 247–268.
- Ho, W. (2006) Social change and nationalism in China's popular songs, Social History 31(4): 435–453.
- Jones, C. (1987) Cambodians revive classical dance after near-destruction of heritage. Christian Science Monitor, 17 June.
- Kallio, A. and H. Westerlund (2016) The ethics of survival: Teaching the traditional arts to disadvantaged children in post-conflict Cambodia, International Journal of Music Education 34(1): 90–103.
- Kampuchea Review (1979) Phnom Penh reports membership of new KNUFNS central committee, 4, 30 October: H1.
- Kampuchea Review (1982) Chheng Phon [and] others address drama day ceremony, 4, 31 March: H1.
- Kennedy, R. (2013) Soul music dreaming: The sapphires, the 1960s and transnational memory, Memory Studies 6(3): 331–344.
- Kong, L. (2006) Music and moral geographies: Constructions of ‘nation’ and identity in Singapore, GeoJournal 65(1–2): 103–111.
10.1007/s10708-006-0013-1 Google Scholar
- Kong, L. (1995) Popular music in geographical analyses, Progress in Human Geography 19(2): 183–198.
- La Mort, J. (2009) Soundtrack to genocide: Using incitement to genocide in the Bikindi trial to protect free speech and uphold the promise of never again, Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law 4(1): 43–66.
- Lafreniere, B. and D. Kravanh (2000) Music through the dark: A tale of survival in Cambodia. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
- Levin, T. (1996) Dmitri Pokrovsky and the Russian folk music revival movement, in M. Slobin (ed.), Returning culture: Musical changes in central and Eastern Europe. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
10.1215/9780822397885-002 Google Scholar
- Leyshon, A., D. Matless and G. Revill (1995) The place of music, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20(4): 423–433.
- Lindholm, S. (2017) Hip hop practice as identity and memory work in and in-between Chile and Sweden, Suomen Antropologi 41: 60–74.
- Mamula, S. (2008) Starting from nowhere? Popular music in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge, Asian Music 39(1): 26–41.
- Marston, J. (2002) Khmer Rouge songs, Crossroads 16(1): 100–127.
- Mbonimana, G. and J. de Dieu Karangwa. (2006) Topical analysis of the songs Twasezereye: We bade farewell; Nanga abahutu or Akabyutso: I hate the Hutu or The Awakening; and Bene Sebahinzi or Intabaza: The descendants of Sebahinzi or The Alert by Simon Bikindi. Expert report prepared for the Prosecution. Case No. ICTR-01-72-A. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from Website: http://jrad.unmict.org/webdrawer/webdrawer.dll/webdrawer/rec/199282/view/BIKINDI%20-%20JOINT%20EXPERT%20REPORT%20PREPARED%20FOR%20ICTR%20BY%20GAMALIEL%20MBONIMANA%20AND%20JEAN%20DE%20DIEU%20KARANGWA,%20ENGLISH%20VERSION.PDF
- Minutes (1976a) Meeting of the Standing Committee of 9 January 1976. Document No. D00680, archived at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
- Minutes (1976b) Minutes of Meeting of Propaganda Work 8 March 1976. Document No. D00685, archived at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
- Moss, P. (2011) Still searching for the promised land: Placing women in Bruce Springsteen's lyrical landscapes, Cultural Geographies 18(3): 343–362.
- Naliwajek-Mazurek, K. (2013) Music and torture in Nazi sites of persecution and genocide in occupied Poland, 1939-1945, The World of Music 2: 31–50.
- Pack, S. (1989) ‘Cambodian odyssey,’ Long Beach, California. Press Telegram, 30 April: J1–J5.
- Pedelty, M. (2008) Woody Guthrie and the Columbia River: Propaganda, art, and irony, Popular Music and Society 31(3): 329–355.
- Pedelty, M. (2012) Ecomusicology: Rock, folk, and the environment. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.
- Post, C. and M. Rhodes (2019) Lyrical geographies and the topography of social resistance in popular music in the United States, in S. Brunn and R. Kehrein (eds.), Handbook of the changing world language map. Cham: Springer.
10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_70-1 Google Scholar
- Rhodes, M. (2016) Performing history: Remembering Paul Robeson and the Peekskill Riots though Tayo Aluko's call Mr. Robeson, Excellence in Performing Arts Research 3(1): 1–17.
10.21038/epar.2016.0303 Google Scholar
- Roberson, J.E. (2001) Uchinaa pop: Place and identity in contemporary Okinawan popular music, Critical Asian Studies 33(2): 211–242.
- Roberson, J.E. (2009) Memory and music in Okinawa: The cultural politics of war and peace, Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 17(3): 683–711.
- Roberson, J.E. (2010) Songs of war and peace: Music and memory in Okinawa, Asia-Pacific Journal 8(31): 1–21.
- Rogers, T. (2004) “Roll on, Columbia, roll on” rolls on, Canadian Folk Music 38: 11–12.
- Sam, S. (1994) Khmer traditional music today, in M. Ebihara, C. Mortland and J. Ledgerwood (eds.), Cambodian culture since 1975: Homeland and exile. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
- Sam, S. and P. Campbell (1991) Silent temples, songful hearts: Traditional music of Cambodia. Danbury, Connecticut: World Music Press.
- Sam, S. (2002) Musical instruments of Cambodia. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
- Saphan, L. (2013) Norodom Sihanouk and the political agenda of Cambodian music, 1955–1970, The Newsletter, International Institute for Asian Studies 64: 4–5.
- Saphan, L. (2016) Gendered modernity in Cambodia: The rise of women in the music industry, Khmer Scholars Journal: 1–28.
- Shapiro, B. (2015) ‘Ballad for Americans’ sent ‘message of unity’ in 1940 presidential race. National Public Radio. Retrieved 23 November 2015, from Website: http://n.pr/1RZ90OW
- Simpson, P. (2017) Sonic affects and the production of space: ‘Music by handle’ and the politics of street music in Victorian London, Cultural Geographies 24(1): 89–109.
- Som, V. (2006) Crime deserves judgment. Searching for the truth, Third Quarter: 55–58.
- Sonevytsky, M. and A. Ivakhiv (2015) Late Soviet discourses of nature and the natural: Musical avtentyka, native faith, and ‘cultural ecology’ after Chornobyl, in A. Allen and K. Dawe (eds.), Current directions in ecomusicology: Music, nature, environment. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Tuohy, S. (2001) The sonic dimensions of nationalism in modern China: Music representation and transformation, Ethnomusicology 45(1): 107–131.
- Tyner, J.A. (2008) The killing of Cambodia: Geography, genocide and the unmaking of space. Aldershot: Ashgate.
- Tyner, J., S. Kimsroy and S. Sirik (2015a) Nature, poetry, and public pedagogy: The poetic geographies of the Khmer Rouge, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105(6): 1285–1299.
10.1080/00045608.2015.1066740 Google Scholar
- Tyner, J., S. Kimsroy and S. Sirik (2015b) Landscape photography, geographic education, and nation-building in democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979, Geographical Review 105(4): 566–580.
- Tyner, J., M. Rhodes and S. Kimsroy (2016) Music, nature, power, and place: An ecomusicology of Khmer Rouge songs, GeoHumanities 2(2): 395–412.
10.1080/2373566X.2016.1183464 Google Scholar
- Tyner, J.A., S. Kimsroy and S. Sirik (2019) The nature of revolution: Art and politics under the Khmer Rouge. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
10.2307/j.ctt22nmc98 Google Scholar
- Ung, C. (1978) Liner notes. Cambodia Traditional Music #1. Folkways Records. Vinyl.
- Ung, C. (1979) Liner notes. Cambodia traditional music volume II: Tribe music, folk music and popular dances. Folkways Records. Vinyl.
- Vannareak, P. (2009) Wait for tomorrow. Searching for the truth, Third Quarter: 52–61.
- Wood, N. (2012) Playing with ‘Scottishness’: Musical performance, non-representational thinking and the ‘doings’ of national identity, Cultural Geographies 19(2): 195–215.