Puleliya Revisited: Kinship, State Formation and Globalization

Prof. Jude Fernando

Prof. Jude Fernando, who is an Associate Professor of International Development at the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment at Clark University in the USA, presented his findings from his study of Puleliya today on the 12th of August 2013 at 5pm at the SSA.

Prof. Fernando research draws on E. R. Leach’s study “Puleliya: A Village in Ceylon” which examined land tenure and kinship in a village in the North-Central Province of Sri Lanka. Leach’s book is widely recognized as a classic in the field of Social Anthropology. Since 2008, Prof. Fernando has been revisiting Puleliya to study the ways in which the inhabitants of this village, who still maintain the kinship ties documented by Leach, relate to the twin dynamics of globalization and state formation.