ASEAN Women Cultural Workers in the Film and Theater Industry and Their Role in Addressing the Negative Societal Impacts of Traumatic Historic Events: The Case of Cambodia and Indonesia

Abstract

Southeast Asian societies are marked by traumatic histories: from the period of colonization, the brutal struggle for independence, the painful, nascent stages of nation-building, to oppressive dictatorships and murderous regimes. Even as these nation-states continue to forge ahead through these histories, the wounds from particularly painful episodes, such as mass killings and atrocities perpetrated by one’s own countrymen, continue to change the societies and citizenship in complex and profound ways This can manifest as intergenerational trauma, wherein the collective trauma that the society experienced remain unaddressed and is transmitted from one generation to the next. Artists and cultural workers play a key role in providing an avenue for deconstructing the histories of past political violence and restoring the severed social bonds from these events. The focus on women cultural workers is because women have played a central role in “preserving and passing on the traditions, languages, and (daily) practices from one generation to the next and in maintaining family and community relationships” (Card, 2003, p. 76). This is especially significant since traumatic events like genocide cause disruption or, in some cases, a major rupture in family and communal relations. Thus, the women cultural workers in Indonesia and Cambodia may play an important role in addressing the negative societal impacts of the Indonesian Anti-Communist Purge (1965-66) and the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975-79).