Archive Actions: Cambodians and Cambodian Americans Producing Ethnographic Histories

In collaboration with Cambodians and Cambodian Americans in the Seattle area, Jenna Grant is designing public events and a digital exhibit to activate the Becker Archive at the University of Washington, a unique collection of texts and images from the latter part of the Khmer Rouge’s rule. Collected by US photojournalist Elizabeth Becker, one of only two journalists from mainstream Western media to visit the country during their regime, the archives include materials from a trip in 1978, just days before the Vietnamese invasion that ousted them. The project design will prioritize the perspectives of Cambodians who lived under or fled the Khmer Rouge, modeling a process for the University to be accountable to relevant communities in the production and interpretation of historical archives.