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Sheltered by dhamma: Reflecting on gender, security and religion in Cambodia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2011

Alexandra Kent
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Abstract

This article draws upon recently-gathered anthropological and other data from Cambodia to explore how some Cambodians move beyond the constraints of social differentiation and order to access higher realms of meaning. This enables communion, security and liberation from social patterns of misrecognition. Gender is one of the primary principles of social differentiation and in recent years the relationship between gender, security and development has attracted the interest particularly of feminist scholars. Attention is often focused upon the misogynistic aspects of gender differentiation. Proponents of this kind of discourse tend not to concern themselves with how women and men may actually transcend rather than challenge gender order or with how they may commune with one another in ways that generate security. Focusing instead on the notions that are meaningful to the members of a given society may reveal some of the shortcomings of current security, development and feminist discourse. The material presented here is analysed by adapting some of the ideas that Roy Rappaport developed in his study of the ‘cognized models’ and liturgical rituals of the Maring of New Guinea. Rappaport's model helps to reveal how, by navigating multiple and overlapping levels of meaning, Cambodians may negotiate and even invert social order in ways that can be transformative, emancipatory and healing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 193 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2011

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References

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12 For instance, the trade union leader Chea Vichea was shot and killed in 2004. The murder investigation has been criticised for being politically biased. Poverty and the brutal flavour of Cambodia's current political economy certainly make men vulnerable, but I suggest that women's vulnerability is also affected by the feminisation of moral order; see Edwards, Penny, ‘The moral geology of the present: Structuring morality, menace and merit’, in People of virtue: Religion, power and moral order in Cambodia today, ed. Kent, Alexandra and Chandler, David (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2008), pp. 213–40Google Scholar; and Pettus, Ashley, Between sacrifice and desire: National identity and the governing of femininity in Vietnam (New York: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar.

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33 Phonetic transliteration.

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35 Dhamma (Pali) means both the teachings of the Buddha but also the conditions of nature and the duties that must be performed in accordance with the laws of nature — ultimate social and cosmic order.

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44 There are also laywomen who observe certain ascetic rules; some wear white blouses and black skirts.

45 Sadly, this nun passed away in 2008.

46 The Association of Nuns and Laywomen of Cambodia was pioneered with sponsorship and guidance from the German non-denominational Heinrich-Böll foundation. The sponsorship terminated in 2006.

47 Sam Bunthoeun was assassinated in early 2003 and no killer has so far been identified.

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50 I have written more extensively about this temple in Kent, Alexandra, ‘Purchasing power and pagodas: The sīma monastic boundary and consumer politics in Cambodia’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38, 2 (2007): 335–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 My thanks to Erik Davis (personal communication) for bringing this to my attention.

52 An article in the March 2006 issue of Khmer Apsara magazine, for instance, tells the story of a young Cambodian woman who became a don chee after first being cheated by her boyfriend and then being raped by a relative. The journalist quotes and also describes how the woman found peace of mind, security (sok) and merit by ordaining instead of making problems for other people by filing a report to the police or complaining to her boyfriend.