Reestablishing National Identity by Reevaluating A Nation’s Past—A University’s Effort to Recover from War in the Late 1990s Cambodia: An Ethnographic Account

Abstract

The current chapter presents two arguments: (1) that national identity should be considered a product of the cultural process and (2) that in order to construct such an identity some material object is needed as a symbol. The author was engaged in a project implemented by the Cambodian sector of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (hereafter, UNESCO Cambodia) in the late 1990s. The data used in this chapter are mainly based on the author’s experience, namely, field research from an anthropological perspective. The project was concerned with the reestablishment of an educational program at the Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh (hereafter, RUFA), within a larger framework of UNESCO’s capacity-building efforts for the Cambodian nation.¹ In this context, the chapter discusses three points. First, it discusses the usefulness of establishing an educational program at the university to reflect on what Cambodian ancestors did, and, through such activity, look at the self from various angles. Second, it discusses how material symbols can work effectively to achieve reconciliation in a nation exhausted and torn by war. Third, it extends the discussion concerning the role of heritage education in modern society. The chapter concludes that people reconsider their past through cultural heritage.