Resisting Gendered Norms

'A subtle and searching examination of the interplay of resistance and power in the dynamics of social change, Resisting Gendered Norms raises challenging questions about body, culture, discourse, identity, memory and space. Exploring these issues through richly textured evidence from Cambodia generates provocative reflections on women's and men's possibilities.' Jan Aart Scholte, University of Warwick, UK 'Resisting Gendered Norms explores gendered patterns of power and resistance in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Memories of the killing regime are revealed as sites of struggle, wherein various actors utilize mythologization, medicalization, and denial to gain control over the means of enunciation. Lilja's exploration of struggles over the meaning of forced marriages is a particularly powerful example of biopolitical practices of power and resistance in women's lives.' Kathy E. Ferguson, University of Hawai'i, USA 'Drawing on different case studies of discursive resistance in Cambodia, the book provides a powerful and dense analysis of the entanglements of power and resistance around gender in a post-conflict country. Spanning different arenas (the political sphere, civil society, the ECCC), it will attract the interest of researchers focusing on Cambodia as well as those working on gender studies, resistance studies or transitional justice.' Journal of Contemporary Asia 'This book will be of interest to Southeast Asianists who teach or study global/local gender relations. So, too, it will be of interest to scholars and students of Cambodia generally, and especially to those interested in post-1975 social developments.' Pacific Affairs

Mona Lilja is Associate Professor in Peace and Development Studies and Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Contents: Foreword; Preface; Introduction; Theorising power and resistance; Gender roles and practices in Cambodia. Part I Gender, Resistance and Gender-Based Violence: Theorising practice: understanding resistance against gender-based violence in Cambodia; The construction of a trauma: gender-based violence issues in the Extraordinary Court of the Chambers of Cambodia; Bearing witness: biopower and resistance in the ECCC. Part II Gender, Resistance and National Politics: Gendering political legitimacy through the reproduction of memories and violent discourses in Cambodia; Globalisation, women's political participation and the politics of legitimacy and reconstruction in Cambodia; Theorising resistance: mapping, concretism and universalism; The gaps of the 'linguistic turn': resistance in the nexus of representations, the 'surplus' and the material; Concluding reflections; List of references; Index.