Ethnic mobilization of minorities in Sri Lanka

  • Malini Balamayuran

Western Sydney University thesis: Doctoral thesis

Abstract

The 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War, in which thousands were killed and many more displaced both locally and globally, finally came to an end with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. However, the war had created a deep sense of mistrust between people of different ethnic groups, destroying relationships and instilling fear for the future, which made the topic of national reconciliation central to political and academic debates. Scholars, however, when writing about the nature of the Sri Lankan Civil War and the attempts at conflict resolution focused primarily on inter-ethnic relations between the Sinhalese majority and the Sri Lankan Tamils, viewing them as the main conflicting ethnic groups. This renders Muslims and Indian Tamils culturally invisible and politically inconsequential. In an attempt at rectifying this imbalance, this study investigates the nature of the Sri Lankan minority groups and their mobilization, through historical and political analysis and examination of ethnographic data, in order to discover and understand how ethnic identities operate in relation to each other and in relation to the state. I present two key arguments. First, I argue that ethnicity is an instrument which is created and used for different strategic purposes, drawing attention to instrumentalists such as Cohen (1969) and Scott, JC (2009). From the "instrumental perspective", I contend that ethnicities of Sri Lankan minorities are strategically constructed and maintained as part of larger social processes. This means ethnicity is not an energetic force which aims to generate discontinuities between ethnic groups, but rather it is an element chosen by political actors who exaggerate cultural differences in order to achieve their own economic and political ends. Secondly, I draw attention to the 'political process perspective', arguing that ethnic mobilization is a political process, primarily determined by political opportunity structure and mobilizing structures. This perspective includes focus on political environment and organizations that provide incentives to the group members to act collectively. In the context of Sri Lanka, the ethnic mobilization of minorities closely bound to overarching political processes and greatly encouraged by state institutions and government policies. There is also emphasis placed on the organizational strength of the ethnic groups (at both local and global levels) as these play a vital role in generating group consciousness. In this regard, the ethnic mobilization of each minority group in Sri Lanka is different, depending on whether they have been forced to choose class, religious or ethnic lines in order to establish their group consciousness.
Date of Award2016
Original languageEnglish

Keywords

  • minorities
  • ethnicity
  • ethnic groups
  • Sri Lanka
  • history
  • Civil War
  • 1983-2009

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