My Father's narrative of survival: His story told through Cambodian music

This ethnographic interview with my father fills the scholarly gap on the aesthetics of Cambodian survivors in the diaspora. Understanding the everyday, mundane aspects of pleng samay , Khmer popular music from the 1960s, is a step toward de-pathologizing Cambodian aesthetic cultural practices. This work proposes a politicized dimension of processing trauma through musical memory. Pleng samay is a layered nexus for postcolonial and imperial negotiations that open up spaces of reflection and therapeutic landscapes that are central to the lifeworlds of Cambodian survivors. However, these practices have been rendered inaudible within scholarly frameworks of trauma and tragedy. The Cambodian case also speaks to the importance of therapeutic approaches that deeply consider survivors’ politicized cultural practices and interrogate the logics of colonialism, war, and imperial violence. • Understanding everyday engagement with Cambodian popular music helps de-pathologize genocide survivors. • Continued performance of music in the Cambodia diaspora has often been overshadowed by discourses of trauma. •Therapeutic should make room for ongoing cultural innovation and improvisation.