Genocide as Metabolic Rupture: Appropriation, Expropriation, and Extirpation in Democratic Kampuchea

Keywords: genocide, ecocide, metabolic rift, Cambodia, violence, agrarian transformations
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 48

Abstract

In recent years the field of genocide studies has experienced an environmental turn; this is most clearly articulated in the forwarded of ecocide as a criminal act. In doing so, scholars have examined more closely the linkages between ecocide and genocide. On this point, most studies have focused on extirpation--the intentional destruction of populations or the environment. This paper contributes to the genocide-ecocide nexus through an empirical interrogation of the Cambodian genocide. Using an historical-materialist framework, specifically the concepts of appropriation, expropriation, and extirpation, we apply Marx's concepts of metabolism and metabolic rifts to document the structural violence of agrarian transformations initiated by the Khmer Rouge. Metabolic rifts are inherently spatio-temporal disruptions in that flows of material and energy necessary for the reproduction of human and non-human life are fundamentally transformed. We argue that the processes of expropriation, and not simply extirpation, underscore the spatiality of metabolic rift-making.