The Dead in the Land: Encounters with Bodies, Bones, and Ghosts in Northwestern Cambodia

Abstract

This article explores one Cambodian village's engagement with the remains of the dead encountered during postwar resettlement. For Khmer Buddhists, the correct material transformation of the bodies of the dead is critical, but these processes were often disrupted in Cambodia's recent troubled past. This article describes the subsequent ramifications of these interrupted processes for both the living and the dead in Reaksmei Songha village in northwestern Battambang. Various residents had encountered the bones of the war dead, and some described sightings of ghosts. Kinship played a vital role in villagers' responses to unearthed bones. However, residents tended to downplay the impact of these remains and their ghostly counterparts, possibly because of their own affective identification with the plight of the dead.