Peace, power and pagodas in present-day Cambodia

摘要

This article draws upon several ethnographic vignettes taken from fieldwork conducted in Cambodia between 2003-2004 to explore how security and legitimacy are constructed in terms of Khmer culture. I propose that the cultural logic according to which these are formulated rests upon the containment and subordination of power, in its broadest sense, to the Buddhist virtues (sel), the sacred boundary around the temple (sima) and the saffron robe of Buddhist monks. The article presents an historical background to the changing role of Buddhism in Cambodia over the centuries, paying particular attention to its revival after the devastation of the Khmer Rouge period 1975-1979. The ethnography presented reveals the fears Khmer people express today at what would appear to be power escaping the regulation of the sel/sima/robe symbolic complex; the article argues that under these cultural circumstances Khmer imagine their universe and identity to be dissolving. Both security and legitimacy would seem to be at risk.