James Brow was a British anthropologist who drifted from the nascent counter-culture of early 1960s London, to the mid-1960s West Coast of the USA, where
Sacrificing Accountability to Save the Official Narrative: The UK’s Legacy Act of 2023 and Parallels in Sri Lanka Daniel Holder In September 2023, the
I was recently, and abruptly, reminded of a conversation that a junior researcher at a research institute I previously worked at, had with a few
Demonstration held in front of the National War Heroes’ Monument by the National Collective of War Heroes (Jathika Ranawiru Ekamuthuwa), several other civil society organisations, and Members of Parliament of
30 years ago, the Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) of Sri Lanka began publishing in print an English-language periodical of progressive opinion on current affairs, under
There is nothing natural or inevitable about states. They are formed under certain historical conditions; they undergo change and under certain circumstances can even totally
The year of 1977 has become a highly charged symbol for understanding the current crisis. After the transition from a “closed” to an “open” economy,
The ways in which countries from the global North to the global South have politically managed the unprecedented public health emergency situation brought about by
Source The plantation economy took root in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) with the onset of British colonialism in the 19th century. The British government in
Delete Nothing is a trilingual platform that aims to document technology-related gender-based violence (GBV) in Sri Lanka, particularly—but not limited to—the experiences of girls, women,
“Here is the City Paranoiac. All these long centuries, growing over the country-side? like an intelligent creature. An actor, a fantastic mimic. Pointsman! Counterfeiting all
The last United States (US) security contingent left Afghanistan at midnight on 30th August 2021, ending a 20-year long occupation. George W. Bush along with
Much has been written about the insurrectionary Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP—Peoples Liberation Front). The main focus has been on the character of the organisation itself,
Rosa Luxemburg, the early 20th century Polish-Jewish revolutionary born in Zamosc 150 years ago on March 5th this year, had no reason in her frenetic political, intellectual,
Source Among elite policy makers and experts, there is an unshakeable belief that going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will provide a pathway for
During the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Sri Lanka for over two months, beginning 20th March 2020, workers in the export processing zones faced immense
For more than 35 years veteran photographer, Stephen Champion, has photographed Sri Lanka in all her complexities. He has observed stunning natural and urban landscapes, the every
Three women have been trampled to death during a stampede for an $8 cash handout in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo amid growing desperation among Sri
Sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) defines sociological imagination as a vivid awareness of how personal experiences and personal challenges are shaped by social factors, including
The Left in Sri Lanka—currently more of an aspirational idea, than an active movement—is once again at the crossroads. Those people who at least explicitly
Decades of majoritarian politics, and the more recent descent towards authoritarianism and militarisation, have eroded the foundations of our democracy. They have numbed us to
It is with deep sadness that Polity marks the untimely loss of not one but two great Sri Lankan scholars Malathi de Alwis and Qadri
Fuck 2021. Well, that seems like an appropriately Qadri-esque way[i] to open a reflection on his untimely and sudden death, only a few months after
I was in a trishaw recently trying out my discussion topic of the month — social violence — when the driver suddenly launched into a
Novels like all other texts take sides. Literary orthodoxy may hold, still, that fiction must be read and evaluated on purely aesthetic grounds. But leftist
The current literature on diaspora makes a break from the old assimilationist and methodologically nationalist perspective on migration. The older perspective took the nation-state as
