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Maria Hach

Maria Hach
The University of Melbourne
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Ana Dragojlovic (2016)

Ana Dragojlovic (2016)
Australian National University
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Home | Research | Research Projects | Intergenerational Hauntings: Memory, Embodiment and Affectivity of Historical Trauma among Cambodian-Australian Women

Intergenerational Hauntings: Memory, Embodiment and Affectivity of Historical Trauma among Cambodian-Australian Women

The affective force of the Cambodian genocide – a period marked by extreme suffering, death, loss, fear and dislocation – goes beyond spatial, temporal and generational boundaries and is manifested through invisible ‘hauntings’. The generation that followed, who did not directly experience the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period, embody these traumatic histories through affective, discursive, immaterial and mediated forces.

 

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My project explores the affective hauntings of family trauma within the Cambodian experience; particularly the traumas of war, dislocation and loss. I am interested in this experience as it pertains to 1.5 and second-generation Cambodian-Australian women. My research questions include: How is trauma affectively transmitted across time and space? How are ‘intergenerational hauntings’ embodied, expressed and negotiated? How does the second-generation experience and recover invisible histories and unspoken traumas?

My research is underpinned by an intersectional feminist framework and methodology, consisting of critical analysis of literature, discussions with Cambodian-Australian women and ‘writing of the self’.

Supervisor

Dr Ana Dragojlovic


Image: Still from Rithy Panh’s documentary, ‘The Missing Picture’, https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/cannes-2013-fragile-history-rithy-panhs-the-missing-picture