Representing Cambodia: French Cultural Politics in "Indochina"
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Representing Cambodia: French Cultural Politics in “Indochina”
Ellen Furlough, University of Kentucky
Teaching Cambodia workshop,
Marlboro College and the Hill Center for World Studies, 3 April 2005
Fig. 1 Cambodian Pavilion at the 1931 Colonial Exposition (Paris)
(from L’Illustration, May 23, 1931)
My talk today is about the cultural politics that led to the creation of this ersatz Cambodian
building in Paris, a building that was a part of a larger collection of buildings meant to represent “Indochina” in the midst of Paris. These structures were not merely architectural whimsy. They were part of the 1931 colonial exposition, a world’s fair organized by the French government to celebrate its empire.
France’s formal involvement in Cambodia lasted from 1863 to 1953, as part of French Indochina
(l’Indochine Française), itself a “geographical, cultural, and political construction, grouping different peoples.” I’ll begin with a brief historical overview of France in Indochina, with particular attention to Cambodia. I’ll focus also on the entangled relationship between the ideology of France’s “civilizing mission,” and the predominately economic practices of French colonialism in the region. I’ll then turn to two case studies of French cultural politics that analyze representations of Cambodia and Indochina: (a) travel and tourism and (b) colonial expositions as sites where France’s “civilizing mission” and “economic development” intersected.
France in Indochina: An Overview
The history of France in Cambodia was bound up with broader French economic interests in
Southeast Asia. Intervening in the late 1850s under the pretext of protecting Catholic missionaries, French economic and political interests--the acquisition of trading posts, naval supply stations, a land route to the ...