The Khmer Rouge forbade the conduct of any funeral rites at the time of the death of the estimated two million people who perished during their rule (1975–79). Since then, however, memorials have been erected and commemorative ceremonies performed, both public and private, especially at former execution sites, known widely as the killing fields. The physical remains themselves, as well as images of skulls and the haunting photographs of prisoners destined for execution, have come to serve as iconic representations of that tragic period in Cambodian history and have been deployed in contested interpretations of the regime and its overthrow.
expertise,28 as a counterpoint there has sprung a whole industry of ‘dark tourism’, a ‘thanatotourism’, along with a leisure and entertainment industry revolving around the creation of permanent displays or temporary exhibitions in museums, as well as dramas, documentaries and publications of all types. Sites of burial and exhumation may in this respect be regarded as symbolic and material ‘resource banks’, containing a highly varied selection of resources to suit a range of actors who differ radically from one another in terms of their investments. For instance, in the