« Les feuilles amères avaient un goût sucré » : la faim dans le Kampuchéa démocratique (1975-1979)
The Khmer Rouge, active between 1975 to 1979, committed Cambodia to an agrarian revolution which caused one of the deadliest famines in the twentieth century. This violence, which was produced by both forced labour and food shortages, must be understood as a form of state violence. However, famine c...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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ENS Éditions
2021-12-01
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| Series: | Tracés |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/traces/12740 |
| Summary: | The Khmer Rouge, active between 1975 to 1979, committed Cambodia to an agrarian revolution which caused one of the deadliest famines in the twentieth century. This violence, which was produced by both forced labour and food shortages, must be understood as a form of state violence. However, famine cannot be comprehended solely through rational logic, in which starving the population to death comes down to a purely mechanical endeavour. We propose to study the 1975-1974 famine on a human scale, from a micro-historical perspective with a view to addressing it at “I” and “eye” level, enabling us to perceive the innermost dimension of this experience. A survey conducted at the Peam Ek cooperative, in the Battambang area, helps us to approach this experience of hunger and grasp the extreme vulnerability of a population engaged in a quest for food so obsessive it can be passed on to others. Particular attention is paid to the action of social workers and the interaction between Khmer Rouge executives and members of cooperatives. It allows us to see that, in the confined space of cooperatives, local logics and mechanisms were emerging, strategies that reflected or influenced the policy of the central committee, which at the time was engaged in “starvation warfare”. |
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| ISSN: | 1763-0061 1963-1812 |