Khmerness and the Thai ‘Other’: Violence, Discourse and Symbolism in the 2003 Anti-Thai Riots in Cambodia

Abstract

On 29 January 2003, a Cambodian mob burned down the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. This article explores the roots of this violence, arguing that the anti-Thai riots were linked in part to a set of discourses and imagery that have long been central to assertions of ‘Khmerness’ and constructions of the ‘Other’.