State in/security, ethnicity, and tourism: mapping tourist spaces and Sri Lankan identity politics

ABSTRACT

This article follows suggestions from participants in interview and mapping exercises in Sri Lanka from December 2017-January 2018 that travellers and tourists to the country should visit the former war zones in the North and East of the country. These were the primary territories inflicted by the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. I extend these discussions to underlying identity and ethnic politics that caused these now tourist locations to be war zones in the first place, as well as reflect how the exclusionary politics of nationalism reflects continued postcolonial anxiety and the acceptance (or not) of Islamic identities within the contemporary state. Examining an underlying nexus of security, development, and ethnic politics in the Sri Lankan context, I argue that economic relations within its tourism industry indicates the anxiety, insecurity, and limitations of the nation-state more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• ethnicity
• identity politics
• civil war
• mapping
• Sri Lanka
• tourism

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank all participants for their time and conversation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Virginia Tech’s Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) Dissertation Fellowship (2017).

Notes on contributors

Shelby E. Ward

Shelby E. Ward, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of the Centre for Civic Engagement at Tusculum University. She graduated with her doctorate in Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought from Virginia Tech in 2019, and was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Emerging Voices Fellow for the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin from 2021-22. Her research in postcolonial thought and politics intersects within political theory, critical international relations, and cultural analysis.