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Southeast Asia
Organized Panel Session
While there has been a flurry of attention on social media's role in contemporary politics in Southeast Asia, there has been little to no attention on the impacts of digital online media and technologies on present-day and past mass violence events in the region. This panel’s aim is to forge a new line of inquiry into this unchartered area of Southeast Asian studies through the presentation and discussion of specific cases from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia that illuminate some of the dimensions of digital media and technology usage in relation to mass violence. Peckler’s paper explores the benefits and limitations of a digital Khmer Rouge history app in providing access to knowledge about the Khmer Rouge past. Djakababa and Prasse-Freeman both direct their attentions to the role of social media. Djakababa analyzes debates on social media sites over the veracity of official state narratives of historical mass atrocities in Indonesia. Alternatively, Prasse-Freeman presents social media as a socio-political process where non-Muslim Burmese produce and reproduce nationalist discourses that exclude their Muslim neighbors. Using a wider lens, Zucker reviews a number of digital realms and processes that intersect or shape understandings and narratives about the Khmer Rouge past in Cambodia and highlights some of the possibilities and issues emerging through the increased use of digital technology in genocide memorialization.
Eve Zucker
Yale University
Elliott Prasse-Freeman
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Yosef Djakababa
Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia
Adena Peckler
Columbia University
Eve Zucker
Yale University