Reclaiming Cambodian identity: media, memory, and culture in the Bophana Center

This dissertation explores how cultural identity is reconstructed in a post-conflict society, focusing on the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center's mobilization of media archives and documentary production in Cambodia. Through nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, this study illuminates the daily operations of cultural reconstruction, traces the emergence of voice through complex negotiations, and analyzes how institutions navigate international funding dependencies. The central argument is that Cambodia's cultural reconstruction unfolds not as a passive reception of external aid or a purely autonomous process, but within a strategic, hybrid space where local actors actively redefine the meaning of identity and memory. The research reveals how the Bophana Center strategically navigates to preserve cultural authenticity while meeting diverse international requirements. Key findings address the complexity of collaborative authorship in documentary production, the nuanced understanding of female agency through partial acceptance and partial resistance, and the concept of “cultural reconversion.” Ultimately, this study argues that cultural reconstruction is not a grand narrative but a process of daily, strategic negotiation embedded in social relations. It offers a critical contribution to existing scholarship on aid dependency, moving beyond a simple dichotomy of imperialism and autonomy to reveal the complex, dynamic, and strategically negotiated agency of cultural institutions in a global development context.