Intervention

Two responses to my recent piece, “Resisting the Nationalist Right’s Framing of the Economic Alternative,” have appeared. One is by Uditha Devapriya and another, here in Polity, is by Shiran Illanperuma. Devapriya takes a sympathetic approach, raising underlying questions about industrialisation. Meanwhile, Illanperuma argues that my entire critique is misplaced. Rather than engage the latter …

The Left’s Choice: Revival or Surrender – Devaka Gunawardena Read More »

Two responses to my recent piece, “Resisting the Nationalist Right’s Framing of the Economic Alternative,” have appeared. One is by Uditha Devapriya and another, here in Polity, is by Shiran Illanperuma. Devapriya takes a sympathetic approach, raising underlying questions about industrialisation. Meanwhile, Illanperuma argues that my entire critique is misplaced. Rather than engage the latter …

The Left’s Choice: Revival or Surrender – Devaka Gunawardena Read More »

SWRD Bandaranaike, Philip Gunawardena, DA Rajapaksa and others, at launch of Chandrika Wewa in 1958 In a recent intervention for Polity, Devaka Gunawardena argues that Sri Lanka’s Old Left failed to theorise the “agrarian question” and had a “narrow focus on industrialisation”, leading to their “junior participation” in the 1970 United Front Government and the …

Resisting the Liberal Left’s Framing of the Economic Alternative – Shiran Illanperuma Read More »

Women’s empowerment through employment is not a new focus for international financial institutions and development agencies. It was also among the objectives of the ‘structural adjustment’ programmes introduced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) in the Global South during the 1970s (Campbell 2010). As many scholars point out, these initiatives had …

Structural Adjustment of Women’s Labour in Agriculture in Sri Lanka – Buddhima Padmasiri Read More »

Arguments about the economic benefits of women’s labour participation go hand in hand with assumptions about the personal value of women’s work, often framed in terms of empowerment and choice. Yet this notion of choice and empowerment elides not only the deeply unequal and often exploitative circumstances of women’s waged labour (Jegathesan 2022; Kodikara 2022), …

Meaning and Critique in Women’s Narratives of Care and Work – Nadia Augustyniak Read More »

Given the design of the Budget for 2023, it is unlikely that Sri Lanka’s working people will see relief anytime soon. The current Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa Government has dismissed, for example, the notion of a food subsidy outright. Instead, it remains committed to the vacuous rhetoric of creating an “entrepreneurial” culture. Considering the scale of the economic …

Resisting the Nationalist Right’s Framing of the Economic Alternative – Devaka Gunawardena Read More »

The Indian Ocean tsunami that was triggered on December 26, 2004[i], killed approximately 35,000 people in Sri Lanka, rendered 800,000 people homeless, destroyed 78,000 homes, and decimated 70 percent of the coastline (de Mel 2008: 240; Ratnasooriya et al. 2007: 22; Caron 2009: 178). The tsunami became a flashpoint through which Sri Lanka came into …

“The Disaster (Before and) After the Disaster”: Writing the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami – Gnei Soraya Zarook Read More »

Caring for household members. Well-being of the family. Putting food on the table. Washing clothes. Making ends meet. Looking after the young, the old, and differently abled family members. These are everyday activities performed by someone or some people for someone or some people. The questions to ask (but more often not asked) are, by …

Unpaid Care Work is Work – Sepali Kottegoda Read More »

Informality is highly prevalent in the Sri Lankan apparel industry in the Katunayake export processing zone where there has been a labour shortage since the 2010s (Ranasinghe et al. 2016). Against this shortage, informal labour plays a key role in guaranteeing uninterrupted production in the free trade zones (Skanthakumar 2019). Yet, the implications on informal …

‘Living for the Day’: Informality, gender, and precarious work in the Sri Lankan apparel industry – Shyamain Wickramasingha Read More »

In late December 2021, the Ministry of Plantation Industries announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Industries, Mine, and Trade of the Islamic Republic of Iran to settle a US$250 million outstanding debt of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation with the National Iranian Oil Company. The settlement outlined that …

Policing the Patriline: Reading the Current Economic and Political Crisis through the Plantation – Mythri Jegathesan Read More »