ABSTRACT
To date, research is scarce on determinants of violence operating within animist regions of the globe. While scholars increasingly study the nexus between genocide, organized religions, and the divine, they mostly stay within the standing classification of genocide and monotheist terms. Formal definitions of genocide include acts intended to destroy “national, ethnical (language), racial or religious” groups, as termed by Raphaël Lemkin in 1942. By highlighting the Khmer Rouge and taking an emic (within culture) approach to research, this chapter discusses the term “ritualcide” and shows how oppressive regimes gain traction for mass violence by destroying ritual infrastructure. Trauma aftermath is unending when regimes ruin nations’ ritual places, ceremonies, objects, and mediators, which collectively protect the cosmic and karmic order for all living matter.
