The incorporation and transformation of a ‘Hindu’ goddess

The worship of goddess Kannaki-Pattini is unique to Sri Lanka, a country in which one can discern two strands of worship that illuminate both the precarity and resiliency of a ‘Hindu’ ‘other’ within a primarily Sinhala Buddhist polity. This article will focus on the transformation of Kannaki into a unique Hindu deity as well as the incorporation and transformation of this same deity into a Buddhist one —worshipped as Pattini. This complex form of co-habitation/ syncretism is explored through the concept of ‘multireligiosity,’ as four major ‘world religions’ co-exist within Sri Lanka: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Divergences and convergences of origin myths and arrival narratives will be analysed along with a consideration of certain sacred spaces of ‘multireligiosity’ associated with this goddess that seem to be fissuring at the seams in a post-war context of Sinhala Buddhist hegemony and expansion

Post-tsunami reconstruction in contexts of war : a grassroots study of the geo-politics of humanitarian aid in Northern & Eastern Sri Lanka & Aceh, Indonesia; final technical report, August 2006 - January 2009

This 2-year, multi-sited, grassroots-based research project sought to study and compare the geopolitics of humanitarian aid in post-tsunami Sri Lanka and Aceh Province, Indonesia. Particular attention was paid to understanding the subsequent political outcomes in each region through the different articulations of humanitarian aid delivery with local communities as well as state and non-state actors. The report outlines research ouputs and outcomes, including publications, policy briefs, conferences and related activities

Double wounding? : aid & activism in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

Also published in “Tsunami in a time of war: aid, activism & reconstruction in Sri Lanka and Aceh,” de Alwis, Malathi and Hedman, Eva-Lotta E., eds. (2009)Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThose who argue for participation in development, “tend to believe that through this notion they have found a way of dealing with social contradictions generated by capitalism.” However, experts and animators, as mere ‘facilitators’ in this process also enable the development industry to shift responsibility (and thus accountability) for the consequences of their projects, to the participating folk. This paper questions intertwined notions of charity and wounding in war-torn, post-tsunami Sri Lanka where aid, in all its myriad forms from charity to cash-for-work to psycho-social therapy, appears at least at first pass, as a salve for those wounded by war and/or the tsunami

"Bodies, Shrines, and Roads: Violence, (Im)mobility, and Displacement in Sri Lanka"

In Sri Lanka, gender and national identities intersect to shape people's mobility and security in the context of conflict. This article aims to illustrate the gendered processes of identity construction in the context of competing militarised nationalisms. We contend that a feminist approach is crucial, and that gender analysis alone is insufficient. Gender cannot be considered analytically independent from nationalism or ethno-national identities because competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalist discourses produce particular gender identities and relations. Fraught and cross-cutting relations of gender, nation, class and location shape people's movement, safety and potential for displacement. In the conflict-ridden areas of Sri Lanka's North and East during 1999-2000, we set out to examine relations of gender and nation within the context of conflict. Our specific aim in this article is to analyse the ways in which certain identities are performed, on one hand, and subverted through premeditated performances of national identity on the other hand. We examine these processes at three sites-shrines, roads and people's bodies. Each is a strategic site of security/insecurity, depending on one's gender and ethno-national identity, as well as geographical location