Institute Helps Prepare USC Students for Field Research in Cambodia

Wed, 01/06/2010 - 12:00am

Kosal Path, a lecturer at the USC School of International Relations, and Karen Jungblut, Institute Director of Research and Documentation, taught a course last summer called Conflict Resolution and Peace Research, part of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ Problems Without Passports program.  The course—which included two weeks’ field research in Cambodia—examined the politics of reconciliation and aimed to prepare students to interview genocide survivors and others in Cambodia to understand their thoughts about current reconciliation efforts (e.g., the memorialization of victims and the prosecution of former Khmer Rouge leaders). Before traveling to Cambodia, students spent a week at the Institute learning about its methodology for interviewing Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.  While in Cambodia, students learned about existing reconciliation efforts from Fatily Sa and Ratanak Leng, two staff members of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, who participated in an internship program at the Institute in the spring of 2009.

Click here to watch a short video of the students' trip to Cambodia.