Interview with Richard Rechtman (1/2): "Cambodian refugees overwhelmed by their dead"

Phnom Penh (Cambodia) February 5th 2009: Richard Rechtman, psychiatrist, and Soko Phay Vakalis at the Bophana Center workshop for visual artists. (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)

06-02-2009
By Stéphanie Gée Ka-set

Richard Rechtman never imagined he would be spending so much time working with Cambodian refugees living in France. The psychiatrist, who also happens to be an anthropologist, is medical director of the Institut Marcel Rivière, a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Social Issues (IRIS) Institute of the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in Paris and editor-in-chief of the French magazine l'Évolution Psychiatrique. Since 1986, he has been listening to, healing, curing and leading researches on the Cambodian diaspora living on the French territory, a community now composed of some 40,000 beings. He set foot for the first time on the Cambodian territory after accepting an invitation to work on creation workshops organised in Phnom Penh by the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre. In a two-part interview by Ka-set, he goes back over his experience and career, his approach as a professional and man with a cause as well as his views and theories.

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