Stories of Home: Generation, Memory, and Displacement among Jaffna Tamils and Jaffna Muslims

The Sri Lankan civil war has been ongoing for over twenty years. Fought out in the civilian areas of the North and East of Sri Lanka, between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) it has completely transformed the lives of ordinary people living in the primary battlefields of the North and East.. The last twenty years has seen massive internal and external displacement from the North and East as well as the complete reordering of physical and social landscapes of the past, the present, and thus the future. This thesis is centred roughly on stories of one place, Jaffna and the concept of ur/home that Daniel (1984) argues is central to ideas of Tamil personhood. I examine what home means when disproportionate movement occurs and what happens to displaced families and individuals. The thesis examines both Tamils and Muslims from the North, and takes at the heart of its inquiry, the nature of belonging, and who is allowed to belong and who is not. Through a few individual biographies I trace themes of displacements and memory. I look at what people's ideas of home are, and, what happens to these ideas of home in displacement. In particular I examine how people come to find that by inhabiting different places/homes, they may become different kinds of persons. This becomes folded into generational structures. Thus I look at the work of inheritance of property, memory, kinship that different generations attempt to transmit and pass on in an attempt to be related to each other. The intimate and the familial are linked to the ongoing political situation where the interior becomes the repository of stories disallowed in the exterior. I use the metaphor of houses and rooms in my thesis to point to the conditions of internal terror that framed my research. Tamils, living with internal terror, could only tell stories in the spaces of the interior. In contrast working with Muslims, outdoor ethnography was possible. I discuss the freedom to belong, denied to Muslims, and the freedom to speak, denied to Tamils. Thus, I reflect upon the different imaginations of speaking and silence, residence and belonging for different political and social locations within the same history and place. In the end this is a thesis about how individuals reflect upon their lives. While it is not based in Jaffna, it is on Jaffna past, Jaffna present, Jaffna imagined and Jaffna lost. It looks at the specificities of how people deal with the larger human dramas of love, loss, home and the relationship of the self to kin

Transforming Oneself, Transforming Society?: Tamils, Tigers, and Militancy in Sri Lanka

Dr. Sharika Thiranagama (Sakurako and William Fisher Family Faculty Scholar in the School of Humanities and Sciences and assistant professor of anthropology at Stanford University) discusses how Tamil and Muslim identities are shaped and re-shaped through conflict and its aftermath. Thiranagama addresses what the shaping of identity reveals about how people engage with fundamental questions of who they are while simultaneously reconciling themselves with notions of who they\u27ve been. This lecture is the 15th annual anthropology lecture at Linfield College. The annual anthropology lecture showcases diverse perspectives from all four subfields of anthropology

Muslims and ethnic identity in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Muslims are the second largest Tamil-speaking ethnic minority in Sri Lanka, comprising approximately 8 % of the population. They are also the second largest resident ethnic group in the Tamil-speaking and formerly disputed regions of the North and East, the warzone for the 25-year-old civil war which ended abruptly and bloodily in 2009. Sri Lankan Muslim lives have been inextricably caught up in the civil war, even as their perspectives and location within the larger issues surrounding ethnic conflict, war, and reconciliation, have been politically and academically neglected. The essay discusses: 1) the historical specificity of Sri Lankan Muslim identity to show how and why Sri Lankan Muslims consider themselves an ethnic minority and why these claims are significant; 2) the contemporary neglect of Sri Lankan Muslims within accounts of the ethnic conflict and civil war, because of a rigidity of representation of the conflict and who are considered to be victims and subjects of the conflict within a separatist war waged around ethnic homelands; 3) the new contemporary contours of social experience and identifications as Muslim which are increasingly more compelling for understanding what is at stake for Muslim communities.Les musulmans sri-lankais sont la seconde minorité tamoulophone la plus importante à Sri Lanka, représentant environ 8 % de la population. Ils sont aussi le second groupe ethnique d’habitants permanents des régions de langue tamoule du Nord et de l’Est, autrefois objet de litige, zone de combat durant 25 années de guerre civile achevée abruptement et dans le sang en 2009. Des vies musulmanes sri-lankaises ont été inextricablement entraînées dans la guerre civile, tandis que leurs perspectives et leur situation au sein des plus grandes questions entourant le conflit ethnique, la guerre, et la réconciliation, ont été politiquement et académiquement négligées. Cette étude examine premièrement la spécificité historique de l’identité des musulmans sri-lankais pour montrer comment et pourquoi ces derniers se considèrent comme une minorité ethnique et pour quelle raison leurs revendications sont importantes. Deuxièmement, l’article interroge la négligence contemporaine à l’égard des musulmans sri-lankais dans les études sur le conflit ethnique et la guerre civile, à cause de la représentation rigide qui en est donnée, les rendant victimes et sujets d’une guerre séparatiste menée autour de patries ethniques. Troisièmement, cette recherche se concentre sur les nouveaux contours de l’expérience sociale contemporaine et les identifications en tant que musulmans de plus en plus convaincantes pour comprendre ce qui est en jeu pour ces communautés

South Asian diaspora and the BBC World Service: contacts, conflicts and contestations

This article sets out the analytical framework of this special issue and outlines the development of BBC radio broadcasting in South Asia. It analyses the ways in which the BBC in South Asia is integrally and indissolubly intertwined with 'critical events' and shifting geopolitical priorities: from the imperial and diasporic imaginings of the Empire Service, to its dissolution and the expansion of South Asian language services during World War II for the purpose of countering 'enemy broadcasts'; from independence, partition and decolonisation, including the BBC's subsequent role in mediating postcolonial conflicts and wars and Cold War tensions, to its most recent 'war on terror' phase with its unspoken aim of promoting a British version liberal democracy around the globe. The article highlights how the often intimate engagements of diverse audiences in South Asia and its diasporas with the BBC have changed in response to technological innovation and geopolitics. We emphasise the distinctiveness of the BBC voice, especially the 'right kind of diasporic voice', and its acoustic power and presence in South Asia. We highlight how the rapid expansion of South Asian mediascapes - especially in India is unsettling the privileged position that the BBC South Asian services have enjoyed for nearly eight decades. Digital technologies are facilitating the emergence of 'digital diasporas' as South Asians across the world log on to consume news with alternative perspectives to news providers in South Asia and to engage in diasporic debates, often with unintended and unforeseen consequences

Constitution Day Conversation about Civility, Diversity, and Inclusion

In this Constitution Day event, Dr. Sharika Thiranagama (Sakurako and William Fisher Family Faculty Scholar in the School of Humanities and Sciences and assistant professor of anthropology at Stanford University) and Dr. Brandon Turner (associate professor of political science at Clemson University) discuss the relationship between civility, diversity, and inclusion with Linfield College students Pedro Graterol and Aspen Brooks. Each panelist delivers a short speech on the topic, followed by a conversation among the speakers