Destruction of Heritage as a Strategy of Mass Violence: Assessing Harm to Inform Meaningful Measures of Repair

This contribution builds upon research on the reconstruction of cultural heritage, reparations and victimhood in post-conflict settings. It mainly focuses on the example of Cambodia but reference other more distant and recent cases as well. It combines a legal human rights approaches with those of heritage studies to propose that the harm done to individuals and communities by violence against cultural heritage is more complex than we have thus far considered. We explore measures to develop meaningful forms of repair that can contribute to overcoming the long-term effects of cultural violence through processes of co-creation and heritage development across generations. Cambodia serves as the main case to exemplify the unfolding of community-led heritage recovery and its links with psycho-social recovery. We advocate that the psycho-social recovery of the community be central to heritage recovery work and not a hoped-for side-effect of it.