Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Boat people – Sri Lanka'

This thesis emerges from a critical event; the Asian tsunami of 26th December 2004. It takes an analytical approach to narratives of everyday life events in two coastal communities in southern Sri Lanka. The villages of Po and Thomale, were both severely affected by the tsunami. They received varied and contrasting outside attention and aid in the aftermath of the disaster as a consequence of their different geographic and social characteristics. The thesis draws on my extended contact with these two communities over almost a decade, in the beginning as an aid worker, and later as a field-researcher. This extended contact has enabled me to explore the transformations in social and spatial organisation in the two communities, from the immediate aftermath of the tsunami up to the present day. Whilst Po benefited from numerous projects, aid, and development, as a result of its tourism and capital-generating potential, the fishing village of Thomale was largely side-lined. The characteristics of Po, and the changes that took place post-tsunami, promoted ‘outsider’ driven development and the appropriation of local land, by both foreign and Sinhalese entrepreneurs. The thesis answers two key questions: a) what strategies have locals developed to counteract this uninvited intrusion into their community? And b) how have the events and developments that have transpired as a result of the tsunami, affected locals’ ‘sense of place’ and their social relations? In tackling these questions, I explore local interpretations of kin and community, the role of kin-based factions, and the subsequent reconfiguration of a sense of place around novel kin-based social networks. Narratives of place are also explored, and in this context the thesis outlines how ritual is utilised to voice individual and communal concerns over the changing face and politics of place, as well as exploring violent conflicts that arise as a result of seemingly misplaced power relations, and identity. Ultimately, this thesis presents a segment of an on-going narrative of the relationship between people, politics and place in the aftermath of a disaster.

Policy analysis has not been a part of mainstream Sri Lankan research or academic tradition, and hence there exists a lack of research on policy studies in Sri Lanka. Given also a paucity of research on illicit drug use and contemporary drug policy, this research study generated and analysed a body of evidence about the response to drug misuse and its related policies in Sri Lanka between 1984 and 2008. As the subject of drug policy can be viewed through a variety of perspectives, this thesis adopted a multi-disciplinary approach. It drew on ideas, theories, concepts and research from a variety of social science disciplines such as sociology, political science, international relations, public administration and social policy and included an historical approach to understanding policy development. The study provides an informed narrative describing the rationale for the development of Sri Lanka’s drug policies, their course and outcome and the roles of the various actors, institutions, organisations and interest groups already established, or which came into existence to respond to drug misuse. This shows how, and why, particular policies are shaped and influenced by the actors, institutions and organisations, and by particular discourses. The conceptual foundations for this study were epistemic community theory, stakeholder analysis and policy transfer theory; and the thesis will seek to explain policy in changing contexts. Semi-structured key informant interviews and documentary analysis were the main research methods employed. The analysis revealed that external influences, stakeholder dynamics, consensus in policy approaches, and moral frameworks have combined to sustain a criminal justice model to the management of drug problems and to ward off attempts to introduce a system with a stronger focus on treatment and public health. This study demonstrates that the interests of stakeholders and their relative power significantly influenced the legitimisation of consensual knowledge diffused by epistemic communities which underpinned policy outcomes.

In Sri Lanka, the Tamils' demand for a federal state has turned within a quarter of a century into a demand for the independent state of Eelam. Forces of secession set in motion by emerging Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism and the resultant Tamil nationalism gathered momentum during the 1970s and 1980s which threatened the political integration of the island. Today Indian intervention has temporarily arrested the process of disintegration. But post-October 1987 developments illustrate that the secessionist war is far from over and secession still remains a real possibility. This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of Tamil armed secessionism. To better understand the forces responsible for the armed secessionist insurrection, this, thesis analyzes the preconditions leading to the violent conflict between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. The consistent failure of the political system to accommodate the basic Tamil demands has contributed to the emergence of Tamil armed secessionism. Further, diverse factors have given impetus to the growth of Tamil secessionist movements. However, the three main political actors in the secessionist struggle — the Sri Lankan government, the Indian central government together with the state government of Tamil Nadu and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — have had a major impact on the vicissitudes of the Tamil secessionist insurrection.
Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate

Sri Lanka has a strong social development record and throughout the civil conflict of the past two decades the country's welfare state has remained in place. In the wake of the controversial defeat of the armed separatist movement, the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government faces the challenge of convincing its citizens of the benefits of a unified nation. This thesis looks at the role government provided social services have to play in contributing to perceptions of social solidarity and national belonging in the country, asking the extent to which social citizenship is a relevant concept in a multi-ethnic, developing country context. It uses a multiple method approach, using both quantitative and qualitative data to examine the question through the perceptions of young adults in the country. The findings suggest that access to welfare does contribute to perceptions of citizenship amongst young Sri Lankans, but that this is dependent on the type of provision. Universal welfare is associated with perceptions of social solidarity and inclusion amongst young adults while, i~ a context of ethnic divisions, poverty-targeted social policies appear to enhance perceptions of difference and exclusion. This suggests that social policies aimed at addressing marginalisation may work to accentuate grievance, a process here coined the 'paradox of social cohesion'. The findings therefore point to a sense of citizenship that is essentially fluid and unstable, with young people expressing differing perceptions of both the state and their fellow citizens in relation to different types of social services, and varying in relation to their civil, political and social rights. While it is evident that the extent to which welfare is experienced as socially just is key to its association with perceptions of citizenship, the thesis argues that in a developing country context, where the majority of the population are poor and the challenge of equitable targeting greater, a' discourse of equality may have a greater chance of being associated with social justice. In Sri Lanka, this is partly because targeted policies represent a disjuncture in their country's tradition of 'welfare state citizenship'. Here it may be seen how social policies initiated by external donor agencies, and based on new or alternative understandings of citizenship, may bypass the process of social negotiation required for the organic development of citizenship as a stable institution. Social citizenship should therefore be · conceived as an evolving and iterative interaction between social policy and political discourse in the negotiation of social justice in a specific context.

Sri Lanka har varit skådeplatsen för ett av nutidens blodigaste och längsta uppror. LTTE bedrev ett uppror med en separatistisk målsättning att skapa en egen Tamilsk stat på norra Sri Lanka. LTTE hade segern inom räckhåll 2006, men den Singalesiska regeringen lyckades vända LTTE framgång. En regeringsoffensiv 2008-2009 resulterade i ett totalt militärt nederlag för LTTE. David Galulas teorier kring COIN har influerat författarna till FM 3-24. FM 3-24 tillsammans med författarna Nagl och Kilcullen kan ses utgöra den nutida dominerande teoribildningen kring COIN vilket benämns som people-centric COIN. People-centric har som målsättning att bryta konnektiviteten mellan insurgenten och lokalbefolkningen. Kritiker mot FM 3-24 anser att doktrinen är för tandlös och vill istället fokusera på att nedkämpa insurgenten. Denna teoribildning benämns enemy-centric COIN.

The fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was done in Sri Lanka from 1984 to 1986 when the critique of the of the anthropologist as 'Knower of the Other' was surfacing in the literature (Fabian, 1983, Clifford and Marcus, 1986, Marcus and Fisher 1986). When I returned from the field most works of this genre were generally unknown in Adelaide. However, I began by writing with the insights of Bakhtin who himself had inspired central dimensions of the burgeoning critique of anthropological practice. Like Bakhtin's work, the debates about ethnographic authority continue to invite us to reflect upon the methods employed in the production of any text which claims to define the world of others. It therefore seems appropriate for me to preface this dissertation by highlighting relevant features of the processes which have culminated in this work, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices. The nature of my fieldwork was distinctive. I did not work in a spatially constrained community. Rather my work was anchored by the work of specialist ritual practitioners, both deity priests and performers. Because the practitioners themselves not only live in dispersed locations but are also highly mobile in relation to the work that they do, my work entailed extensive travel in and between urban centres and rural areas across several provincial divisions. In the course of eighteen months of this kind of fieldwork, I attended in excess of fifty rituals of different types and scale. Over time, I developed personalized networks with more than fifty ritual practitioners privileging me to a broad span of rituals. I worked regularly, and often intimately, with a core of five priests and ten performers to give depth to my understandings. Many of these practitioners appropriated me to themselves at rituals where they publicly announced the purpose of my presence to ritual audiences as being to document Sinhala culture. I was claimed by them as 'our madam' ('ape noona') and as a university lecturer, which they knew very well I was not. This public acknowledgement legitimated my documentation of performances which were, after all, paid for by others. It also had the effect that the sponsors largely treated me as a member of the performing troupe. My growing familiarity with ritual practitioners had the further ramification that some of them insisted that I discuss the meanings of the rituals I documented with those people whom they considered specialists in their field. Soon, therefore, in addition to attending rituals, I spent a great deal of my time entertaining, and being entertained by, ritual specialists with whom I discussed deeper levels of their knowledge and work. In this way, and through my own unique constellation of relationships, I accumulated ritual knowledge, albeit at the theoretical, not practical, level. Some people shared esoteric and valued information with me that they would not disseminate to others with whom they were in competition. This field exercise provided a singular vantage point from which I have interpreted Sinhalese Buddhist ritual practices. While the final selection of rituals interpreted in the dissertation is mine, and represents only aspects of the larger body of knowledge carried collectively by Sri Lanka's ritual practitioners, the interpretations are based not simply on my observations, but on this body of knowledge which was shared with me even as it was constantly discussed, disputed, disseminated and transformed by ritual practitioners. My understandings of the meanings of ritual were consolidated in both quasi-formal and informal social settings, at my home and theirs, with people renowned as ritual experts by their peers. I collected ritual knowledge like ritual practitioners, in bits and pieces from different people. And, like practitioners who publicly acknowledge only one gurunnanse, I acknowledge mine formally, in the public arena of my own world, in the Introduction. There is another dimension of my field experience that I want to mention before discussing how it was metamorphosed by writing. My three children, Grant, Vanessa and Mark accompanied me to Sri Lanka at the ages of 9, 11 and 12 respectively. Their beautiful, inquisitive and effervescent youth attracted many people to us as a family which meant that they became wonderful sources of new friends and colloquial information. Both of the boys were fascinated with the unique rhythms of Sri Lanka's ritual music and dance and before long, they were keen to learn these for themselves. Grant was deeply disappointed that he could not because, like Vanessa, he was committed to his schooling and, even at 12, he was taller than many of the ritual practitioners. Mark was younger and, in any case, of a much smaller build so he became a pupil of Elaris Weerasingha, a ritual practitioner with international fame, who became my husband. Mark left school to work with Elaris and his sons, often at rituals other than those I attended. With Elaris as his gurunnanse, Mark made his ritual debut just as novice Sinhala performers do. The Sri Lankan press discovered this unique cross-cultural relationship in late December 1986 just as we were preparing to return to Australia. Memorable photographs appeared in both English language and Sinhala papers accompanied by full-page stories praising Elaris for his teaching and acclaiming Mark for proficiency in dance and fluency in Sinhala language and verse. We were delighted. Mark and Elaris continued to perform together in Adelaide at the Festival of Arts, on television and at multicultural art shows before Elaris returned to Sri Lanka to live for family reasons early in 1988. I remember Elaris for both the joy of our union and the pain of our parting. I want to thank him here for sharing his culture with us and especially for the way he supported me to believe in my understandings of the rituals he knew so well. I transcribed my field experience with the help of Bakhtinian insights. The rituals I studied are analysed for their performative value under the heading Cosmic Horizons with faithful reference to what their producers, including Elaris, consider to be one of their most important dimensions if they are to be efficacious; where and when they should occur. I call these facets of ritual their time-space co-ordinates and I employ Bakhtin's conception of the chronotype, in conjunction with practitioner's naming practices, to give them the analytical emphasis they deserve. Using elaborations of ritual meanings articulated to me by ritual specialists and colloquial understandings of words rather than their linguistic etymologies, I variously explore the chronotopic dimensions of the names of supernatural. beings, myths, ritual boundaries and segments to render explicit those unifying symbolic dimensions of a ritual corpus which would otherwise remain implicit to all except ritual practitioners. In particular, the Bakhtinian conceptions I use to analyse ritual serve to reveal and crystallize an integral relationship between the time-space co-ordinates inherent in ritual performance and the oscillations of the sun, moon and earth. Part 1 is my synthesis but it is based on the time-space co-ordinates of ritual; it is deliberately constructionist but it elaborates what I learned from ritual practitioners in the ways I have described. Part 2 is deconstructionist, it is an attempt to represent rituals as events with complex and indirect discursive reference to the elegant symbolic dimensions of the ritual performances themselves. As its title, Social Voices, suggests, Part 2 of the thesis privileges discourse about ritual - by ritual practitioners, ritual sponsors, Buddhist monks, the media and scholars - above the structural symmetry or chronotopic logic of the ritual corpus. It is in this domain, just to offer one example, that religion (agama) is distinguished from culture (sanskruthaiya) and exploited to make value judgements about people's participation in orthodox or unorthodox ritual practices, a judgement which is a possibility of the comic horizons constituted in ritual but which is not, as I argue, determined by them. This dissertation is ultimately an attempt to represent, in written form, fragments of an-Other world through a prosaic Bakhtinian focus on the way particular people named and talked about that world to me. Although I chose not to identify individuals in the text for personal reasons, my methodology is purposeful, giving value to Sinhalese performative ritual as the product of specialist knowledge. And, in keeping with the new imperatives for writing ethnography, this preface describing my field experience is intended to make explicit the way the dissertation explores its foundation in relationships between Self and Other, Observer and Observed, without abrogating the responsibility of authorship. Not pretending to be the voice of the Other, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices is my voice, echoing the voice of Sri Lanka as it spoke to me.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 1990.

Globally chronic kidney disease is increasing. This study examined the factors contributing to health-related quality of life of people with chronic kidney disease in Sri Lanka. As the disease progressed, alterations in biological function, symptoms, general health perceptions, individual and environmental characteristics influenced the deterioration in health-related quality of life, making everyday life more complex and challenging. The present study provided new insights into understanding the impact and burden of this disease on quality of life. It also provided new knowledge for clinical practice and for healthcare policies to improve the well-being of people with chronic kidney disease.

International law has evolved to recognise the state as its primary subject and as a member of the family of nations. The United Nations Organisation has formulated many legal regimes in order to impose duties and responsibilities on states and to regulate state affairs in order to achieve the goals of the Charter, including the protection and promotion of the rights of peoples and minorities. The jurisprudence of international law recognises that duty, responsibility and accountability of states are integral elements of sovereignty. This research aims to appraise the impact of concepts of sovereignty, self-determination and human rights on state and examines whether the regimes created in order to recognise these concepts have achieved the anticipated goals. Further, it explores whether there is a need for the institutions of the UN and regional groupings to play a more positive role in achieving the ultimate aims of these regimes. Based on the above inquiry, it is intended to identify whether sovereign state has become a legal entity under the regimes of international law and, thereby, is treated as 'juridical state', whose rights and duties are regulated by international law. If state is a primary subject and juridical entity of international law why are' the international regimes of rights experiencing legal and non-legal resistance from states? Contemporary international law has formulated and developed mechanisms for settlement of inter - states disputes. However, there is a lack of international mechanisms for resolving internal conflicts which cannot be resolved nationally due to the fact that the institutions of the state will not undermine the sovereignty of the state. In this thesis, an attempt is made to demonstrate the difficulties in enforcing the legal entitlements of peoples, nations and minorities which are granted by international legal regimes. As a result of the absence of an appropriate forum to resolve the disputes between states and non - state actors over their respective entitlements enshrined in international regimes, there are many internal conflicts which cause threats to international peace and security. Relying on the above mentioned three concepts and their jurisprudence, this research aims to identify the legal dimensions of the sovereignty claim of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. Prior to colonial rule there were Sinhala and Tamil native kingdoms. The Sinhalese and Tamils had lived within their historically demarcated territories. These kingdoms were conquered by different colonial rulers over a period of time. The entire island was brought under highly centralised administration by the British and it underwent a series of socio- political and legal Since the de - colonisation in 1948, the Sinhala and Tamil- speaking people have struggled to their legal rights and the internal conflict has drawn the attention of the UN and the international community. two of the thesis, attempts are made to identify the legal dimensions of the internal conflict, the sovereignty m of the Tamil- speaking people and the application of law to reach the judicial settlement required to the internal conflict. In short, this thesis focuses on the legal status of sovereignty, self-determination and human rights in international law and how these concepts could be accommodated to resolve the internal conflict of Sri Lanka.

There has been a growing understanding in recent years of the links between conflict emergence and horizontal inequalities and increased focus on the role which development policies can play in both ameliorating and exacerbating the root causes of violent conflict. This study tests the empirical relationship between horizontal inequalities and conflict causation using the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict as a case study. The analysis shows robust support for the empirical relationship between horizontal inequality (which encompasses political, economic, social and cultural dimensions) and the emergence of violent conflict in Sri Lanka. In this context of inequality, Tamil leaders, who faced political exclusion, and their followers, who themselves experienced inequitable access to employment, education opportunities, assets, were inspired to mobilise and engage in armed violence. Thus, the ethnic conflict stemmed from the disillusionment, frustration and increasing radicalisation of Tamils in their attitude towards the Sri Lankan state, rejecting what they perceived as exclusionary policies. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) emerged as a key protagonist in the conflict, with an expressed view to establish a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. While most post war development policies are strongly aligned to government objectives, there are very little steps taken towards the design and adoption of policies to ameliorate horizontal inequalities. Instead, the government has identified security issues and economic growth as the cornerstone in the post war development process, and they are given greater emphasis in policies compared to underlying causes of violent conflict: inequalities in access to political power, economic resources and/or cultural status. Most Sri Lankan state actors are either not mandated to address equality issues or prefer conflict sensitive approaches to post war development. In general, there is a weak approach to conflict sensitivity in early post war development and reconstruction strategies (from 2009 to 2013). Likewise, there is relatively little attention paid to other conflict sensitive causes and dynamics such as the nature of the political system ii and problems of human rights. The failure to address fundamental issues relating to minority Tamil grievances has the potential to re-ignite the conflict.
Development Studies
D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

The Wanniya-laeto, often referred to as Veddas, are the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. They live primarily in governmental designated areas in the forest with a few Vedda villages on the eastern coastal region. In-depth, semi-structured interviews as well as participant observation were the methods used to access the perceptions of mental health and mental illness among the Wanniya-laeto population. Research was conducted over a two month period and focuses primarily on the Ratugala Veddas with additional interviews conducted with three other Vedda communities, including one coastal village, to use for comparison and support. Five itinerant psychiatrist who work in clinics and hospitals that serve Vedda communities were also interviewed. Results show that the Veddas believe mental illness is the result of not being satisfied by with the basic gifts supplied by the spirits and refer to mental illness as a "city disease." There are no acknowledged cases of acute mental illness among the participant's communities. There are a small number of cases of depression in the Vedda's communities, but they do not associate depression with mental illness. The Veddas believe depression is due to external factors, such as government intervention in their lifestyle. Like many indigenous populations throughout the world, the encroachment of external forces has led to the loss of their land rights as well as a slow decline of their culture. The Veddas feel that the prevalence of depression in their society is increasing as they are becoming more detached from the land and traditional way of life. They believe that gaining their hunting and agricultural land rights would help restore their balance and prevent depression. Additionally, they believe that financial and social support from the government for their cultural preservation would also keep depression and other mental illness out of their communities.
Graduation date: 2004

The fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was done in Sri Lanka from 1984 to 1986 when the critique of the of the anthropologist as 'Knower of the Other' was surfacing in the literature (Fabian, 1983, Clifford and Marcus, 1986, Marcus and Fisher 1986). When I returned from the field most works of this genre were generally unknown in Adelaide. However, I began by writing with the insights of Bakhtin who himself had inspired central dimensions of the burgeoning critique of anthropological practice. Like Bakhtin's work, the debates about ethnographic authority continue to invite us to reflect upon the methods employed in the production of any text which claims to define the world of others. It therefore seems appropriate for me to preface this dissertation by highlighting relevant features of the processes which have culminated in this work, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices. The nature of my fieldwork was distinctive. I did not work in a spatially constrained community. Rather my work was anchored by the work of specialist ritual practitioners, both deity priests and performers. Because the practitioners themselves not only live in dispersed locations but are also highly mobile in relation to the work that they do, my work entailed extensive travel in and between urban centres and rural areas across several provincial divisions. In the course of eighteen months of this kind of fieldwork, I attended in excess of fifty rituals of different types and scale. Over time, I developed personalized networks with more than fifty ritual practitioners privileging me to a broad span of rituals. I worked regularly, and often intimately, with a core of five priests and ten performers to give depth to my understandings. Many of these practitioners appropriated me to themselves at rituals where they publicly announced the purpose of my presence to ritual audiences as being to document Sinhala culture. I was claimed by them as 'our madam' ('ape noona') and as a university lecturer, which they knew very well I was not. This public acknowledgement legitimated my documentation of performances which were, after all, paid for by others. It also had the effect that the sponsors largely treated me as a member of the performing troupe. My growing familiarity with ritual practitioners had the further ramification that some of them insisted that I discuss the meanings of the rituals I documented with those people whom they considered specialists in their field. Soon, therefore, in addition to attending rituals, I spent a great deal of my time entertaining, and being entertained by, ritual specialists with whom I discussed deeper levels of their knowledge and work. In this way, and through my own unique constellation of relationships, I accumulated ritual knowledge, albeit at the theoretical, not practical, level. Some people shared esoteric and valued information with me that they would not disseminate to others with whom they were in competition. This field exercise provided a singular vantage point from which I have interpreted Sinhalese Buddhist ritual practices. While the final selection of rituals interpreted in the dissertation is mine, and represents only aspects of the larger body of knowledge carried collectively by Sri Lanka's ritual practitioners, the interpretations are based not simply on my observations, but on this body of knowledge which was shared with me even as it was constantly discussed, disputed, disseminated and transformed by ritual practitioners. My understandings of the meanings of ritual were consolidated in both quasi-formal and informal social settings, at my home and theirs, with people renowned as ritual experts by their peers. I collected ritual knowledge like ritual practitioners, in bits and pieces from different people. And, like practitioners who publicly acknowledge only one gurunnanse, I acknowledge mine formally, in the public arena of my own world, in the Introduction. There is another dimension of my field experience that I want to mention before discussing how it was metamorphosed by writing. My three children, Grant, Vanessa and Mark accompanied me to Sri Lanka at the ages of 9, 11 and 12 respectively. Their beautiful, inquisitive and effervescent youth attracted many people to us as a family which meant that they became wonderful sources of new friends and colloquial information. Both of the boys were fascinated with the unique rhythms of Sri Lanka's ritual music and dance and before long, they were keen to learn these for themselves. Grant was deeply disappointed that he could not because, like Vanessa, he was committed to his schooling and, even at 12, he was taller than many of the ritual practitioners. Mark was younger and, in any case, of a much smaller build so he became a pupil of Elaris Weerasingha, a ritual practitioner with international fame, who became my husband. Mark left school to work with Elaris and his sons, often at rituals other than those I attended. With Elaris as his gurunnanse, Mark made his ritual debut just as novice Sinhala performers do. The Sri Lankan press discovered this unique cross-cultural relationship in late December 1986 just as we were preparing to return to Australia. Memorable photographs appeared in both English language and Sinhala papers accompanied by full-page stories praising Elaris for his teaching and acclaiming Mark for proficiency in dance and fluency in Sinhala language and verse. We were delighted. Mark and Elaris continued to perform together in Adelaide at the Festival of Arts, on television and at multicultural art shows before Elaris returned to Sri Lanka to live for family reasons early in 1988. I remember Elaris for both the joy of our union and the pain of our parting. I want to thank him here for sharing his culture with us and especially for the way he supported me to believe in my understandings of the rituals he knew so well. I transcribed my field experience with the help of Bakhtinian insights. The rituals I studied are analysed for their performative value under the heading Cosmic Horizons with faithful reference to what their producers, including Elaris, consider to be one of their most important dimensions if they are to be efficacious; where and when they should occur. I call these facets of ritual their time-space co-ordinates and I employ Bakhtin's conception of the chronotype, in conjunction with practitioner's naming practices, to give them the analytical emphasis they deserve. Using elaborations of ritual meanings articulated to me by ritual specialists and colloquial understandings of words rather than their linguistic etymologies, I variously explore the chronotopic dimensions of the names of supernatural. beings, myths, ritual boundaries and segments to render explicit those unifying symbolic dimensions of a ritual corpus which would otherwise remain implicit to all except ritual practitioners. In particular, the Bakhtinian conceptions I use to analyse ritual serve to reveal and crystallize an integral relationship between the time-space co-ordinates inherent in ritual performance and the oscillations of the sun, moon and earth. Part 1 is my synthesis but it is based on the time-space co-ordinates of ritual; it is deliberately constructionist but it elaborates what I learned from ritual practitioners in the ways I have described. Part 2 is deconstructionist, it is an attempt to represent rituals as events with complex and indirect discursive reference to the elegant symbolic dimensions of the ritual performances themselves. As its title, Social Voices, suggests, Part 2 of the thesis privileges discourse about ritual - by ritual practitioners, ritual sponsors, Buddhist monks, the media and scholars - above the structural symmetry or chronotopic logic of the ritual corpus. It is in this domain, just to offer one example, that religion (agama) is distinguished from culture (sanskruthaiya) and exploited to make value judgements about people's participation in orthodox or unorthodox ritual practices, a judgement which is a possibility of the comic horizons constituted in ritual but which is not, as I argue, determined by them. This dissertation is ultimately an attempt to represent, in written form, fragments of an-Other world through a prosaic Bakhtinian focus on the way particular people named and talked about that world to me. Although I chose not to identify individuals in the text for personal reasons, my methodology is purposeful, giving value to Sinhalese performative ritual as the product of specialist knowledge. And, in keeping with the new imperatives for writing ethnography, this preface describing my field experience is intended to make explicit the way the dissertation explores its foundation in relationships between Self and Other, Observer and Observed, without abrogating the responsibility of authorship. Not pretending to be the voice of the Other, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices is my voice, echoing the voice of Sri Lanka as it spoke to me.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 1990.

This thesis analyses the Tamil minority problem in Sri Lanka in the light of self-determination and state sovereignty. State practice with respect to self-determination is discussed, in particular cases of Aaland Island, Katanga, Biafra and Bangladesh. Historical background, location and composition, as it relates to the Tamil minority problem in the country, are described, and the specific issue of self-determination in the Sri Lankan context of secession is dealt with. The research attempts to ascertain the legal conditions which would warrant secession.
Master of Laws (Hons.)