Virtual Ethnicity? The Visual Construction of ‘Sinhalaness’ on Social Media in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Developed ostensibly to enhance social interaction, social media has become a powerful tool of pedagogy, cognition and politics. Visual content is particularly powerful since it is processed quicker than text, generating immediate emotional responses and a higher degree of memorability. This study looks at the way ‘Sinhalaness’ has been visually portrayed on social media by Sinhalese users by analysing a body of visual artefacts publicly posted on Facebook between 2011 and 2018. A content analysis of these suggests that in the immediate period after the civil war (1983–2009), online Sinhalaness has become largely defined by an increased religious, specifically Buddhist, consciousness, supplemented by war memories. This contrasts with the largely linguistic basis of Sinhala identity articulated in the pre-2009 period.

Keywords:

• Augmented reality
• content analysis
• digital dualism
• ethnic identity
• Facebook
• Sinhalese
• social media
• Sri Lanka
• virtual ethnicity
• visual data

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge my PhD advisors, Professor Hideaki Shinoda and Professor Yasushi Hazama, for their support during my PhD tenure at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers of South Asia for their incisive comments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In Sri Lanka, the term ‘Muslim’ is a distinct ethno-religious category and is separate to ethnicities such as ‘Sinhalese’, ‘Tamil’, ‘Burgher’ and others. The common characteristic of the ‘Muslim’ community is that they follow Islam, but the community may speak various languages such as Sinhala, Tamil, Malay and English.

2. Shihar Aneez, ‘Sri Lanka Arrests 19 after Buddhist–Muslim Violence; Four Injured’, Reuters (18 Nov. 2017) [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-violence/sri-lanka-arrests-19-after-buddhist-muslim-violence-four-injured-idUSKBN1DI08L, accessed 11 Nov. 2020].

3. ‘Anti-Muslim Riots in Sri Lanka Signal a New Social Fissure’, The Economist (10 Mar. 2018) [http://media.economist.com/news/asia/21738422-sinhalese-nationalists-may-be-looking-enemy-anti-muslim-riots-sri-lanka-signal-new, accessed 10 Nov. 2020].

4. Zaheena Rasheed and Amantha Perera, ‘Did Sri Lanka’s Facebook Ban Help Quell Anti-Muslim Violence?’, Al Jazeera (14 Mar. 2018) [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/sri-lanka-facebook-ban-quell-anti-muslim-violence-180314010521978.html, accessed 10 Nov. 2020].

5. Ameer Ali, ‘Four Waves of Muslim-Phobia in Sri Lanka: c. 1880–2009’, in Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 35, no. 4 (2015), pp. 486–502 [495].

6. Kalinga Tudor Silva, ‘Gossip, Rumor, and Propaganda in Anti-Muslim Campaigns of the Bodu Bala Sena’, in John Clifford Holt (ed.), Buddhist Extremists and Muslim Minorities: Religious Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 119–39.

7. James John Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, in South Asia Research, Vol. 34, no. 3 (2014), pp. 241–60.

8. Benjamin Schonthal, ‘Configuration of Buddhist Nationalism in Modern Sri Lanka’, in John Clifford Holt (ed.), Buddhist Extremists and Muslim Minorities: Religious Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 97–118 [111].

9. ‘Our History’, Facebook (2020) [https://about.fb.com/company-info/, accessed 12 Nov. 2020].

10. ‘Digital in Sri Lanka’, Data Reportal (18 Feb. 2020) [https://datareportal.com/search?q=sri%20lanka, accessed 12 Dec. 2020].

11. ‘Fixed Broadband in Sri Lanka Cheapest in Asia, Second Globally: International Survey’, DailyFT.com (7 Nov. 2018) [http://www.ft.lk/front-page/Fixed-broadband-in-Sri-Lanka-cheapest-in-Asia–second-globally–International-survey/44-666310, accessed 25 Mar. 2019].

12. ‘Sri Lanka Blocks Social Media Again after Attacks on Muslims’, Al Jazeera (13 May 2019) [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/13/sri-lanka-blocks-social-media-again-after-attacks-on-muslims, accessed 12 Nov. 2020].

13. Nathan Jurgenson, ‘When Atoms Meet Bits: Social Media, the Mobile Web and Augmented Revolution’, in Future Internet, Vol. 4 (Jan. 2012), pp. 83–91 [84].

14. Carolina Holgersson Ivarsson, ‘Lion’s Blood: Social Media, Everyday Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Mobilisation among Sinhala-Buddhist Youth’, in Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 27, no. 2 (2019), pp. 145–59 [https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2018.1528210, accessed 23 Aug. 2020].

15. Jurgenson, ‘When Atoms Meet Bits’, p. 85.

16. Kanchan Chandra, ‘Introduction’, in Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 1–50 [19].

17. Ibid., p. 9; Kanchan Chandra, ‘What Is Ethnic Identity? A Minimalist Definition’, in Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 51–96 [59].

18. I use the terms ‘ethnic identity category’ and ‘ethnic identity’ interchangeably but with the same meaning. By ethnic identity category or simply ethnic identity, I mean the combinations of attributes. For instance, ‘African-American’, ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’, ‘Indian/Estate Tamil’ or ‘Eastern-Muslim’ are ethnic identities/identity categories, whereas Buddhism, Sinhala or Tamil languages are simply ethnic attributes.

19. Kanchan Chandra, ‘Attributes and Categories: A New Conceptual Vocabulary for Thinking about Ethnic Identity’, in Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 97–131 [109–10].

20. Chandra, ‘What Is Ethnic Identity?’, p. 59.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., pp. 51, 59; and Kanchan Chandra and Cilanne Boulet, ‘A Baseline Model of Change in an Activated Ethnic Demography’, in Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 229–76 [230–2].

23. Chandra, ‘Attributes and Categories’, p. 110, fn. 3.

24. Chandra and Boulet, ‘A Baseline Model of Change in an Activated Ethnic Demography’, pp. 230–2.

25. Ibid.

26. Kanchan Chandra, ‘How Ethnic Identities Change’, in Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 132–76 [163].

27. Sahana Udupa, ‘Archiving as History-Making: Religious Politics of Social Media in India’, in Communication, Culture & Critique, Vol. 9, no. 2 (2016), pp. 212–230; and Rohit Chopra, Technology and Nationalism in India (New York: Cambria Press, 2008).

28. Philipp Budka, ‘The Anthropology of Digital Visuality: Notes on Comparison, Context and Relationality’, paper presented at Vienna Anthropology Days 2018 (VANDA2018), Vienna, Austria, 20 Sept. 2018, Philbu’s Blog (16 Nov. 2018) [https://www.philbu.net/blog/paper-the-anthropology-of-digital-visuality/, accessed 20 May 2020].

29. Silva, ‘Gossip, Rumor, and Propaganda in Anti-Muslim Campaigns of the Bodu Bala Sena’, pp. 119–39; Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, pp. 241–60; and Schonthal, ‘Configuration of Buddhist Nationalism in Modern Sri Lanka’, pp. 97–118.

30. See, for example, Lene Hansen, ‘Theorizing the Image for Security Studies: Visual Securitization and the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis’, in European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 17, no. 1 (Jan. 2011), pp. 51–74; Naila Hamdy and Ehab H. Gomaa, ‘Framing the Egyptian Uprising in Arabic Language Newspapers and Social Media’, in Journal of Communication, Vol. 62, no. 2 (Mar. 2012), pp. 195–211; and Mykola Makhortykh and Maryna Sydorova, ‘Social Media and Visual Framing of the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine’, in Media, War & Conflict, Vol. 10, no. 3 (April 2017), pp. 359–81.

31. Carol B. Schwalbe and Shannon M. Dougherty, ‘Visual Coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War: Framing Conflict in Three US News Magazines’, in Media, War & Conflict, Vol. 8, no. 1 (Feb. 2015), pp. 141–62 [142]; and Katy Parry, ‘Images of Liberation? Visual Framing, Humanitarianism, and British Press Photography during the 2003 Iraq Invasion’, in Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 33, no. 8 (Nov. 2011), pp. 1185–1201 [1189].

32. Makhortykh and Sydorova, ‘Social Media and Visual Framing of the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine’, p. 364.

33. ‘Seeing the Truth’, interview with Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons, Facebook News (13 Sept. 2018) [https://about.fb.com/news/2018/09/inside-feed-tessa-lyons-photos-videos/, accessed 20 Oct. 2020].

34. Tim Highfield and Tama Leaver, ‘Instagrammatics and Digital Methods: Studying Visual Social Media, from Selfies and GIFs to Memes and Emoji’, in Communication Research and Practice, Vol. 2, no. 1 (April 2016), pp. 47–62.

35. Ibid.

36. ‘Internet Usage in Asia’, Internet World Stats (12 Nov. 2020) [https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm, accessed 25 Mar. 2020].

37. The present study avoids collecting data from any individual/celebrity pages in Sri Lanka. Only public Facebook pages containing ethnicised content have been considered.

38. Netnography is an emerging field of study about conducting ethnographic research on digital domains: see Robert V. Kozinets, Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010), p. 89.

39. Ibid.

40. K.A.S. Hasangani, ‘Social Media and Visual/Textual Framing of Ethnic Stereotypes: The Virtual Construction of Muslim Image in Post-War Sri Lanka’, in Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 97 (2019), pp. 19–43; Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, pp. 241–60; and Shilpa Samaratunge and Sanjana Hattotuwa, A Study of Hate Speech on Facebook in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Center for Policy Alternative, 2014).

41. In the field of netnography, naturally formed online communities or sites refer to virtual communities/sites/conversations not initiated by the researcher for the purpose of research and data collection, but those that were already available online before the researcher’s inquiry started.

42. I de-identified the Facebook page from which the sample was collected for several reasons. First, identification of the Facebook page does not add any extra value to the collected data or to the overall research findings. Second, in a context like Sri Lanka where social media is highly politicised and weaponised, de-identification of the Facebook page reduces possible harm to the researcher. Third, according to my observations, many of the data (images) collected have been shared a hundred (or, in some cases, thousand) times by individual users and similar Facebook pages. Thus, the concept of ‘authorship’ on social media is blurred, and the identification of the first author of the images is somewhat unrealistic and less significant in the context of the present research.

43. These interaction statistics are given based on general observations. I did not systematically collect the interaction statistics of the entire sample.

44. Data was collected during the middle of 2018. By the time of data collection, the selected Facebook page had no posts published prior to 31 January 2011. All the collected data are available with the author. However, there is no guarantee that the same images/graphics can be found on Facebook in 2020 or later due to natural limitations such as the deactivation of Facebook pages and removal of certain content by page administrators.

45. K.M. de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1981), pp. 565–8.

46. R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, ‘The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography’, in The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 5, nos. 1 & 2 (1979), pp. 1–36 [11] [http://dlib.pdn.ac.lk/handle/123456789/2587, accessed 3 Oct. 2020].

47. Ibid., pp. 11–2.

48. Ibid., p. 12.

49. De Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, pp. 15, 565.

50. Gananath Obeyesekere, ‘The Vicissitudes of the Sinhala-Buddhist Identity through Time and Change’, in Michael Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka: Collective Identities Revisited, Vol. 1 (Colombo: Marga Institute, 1997), pp. 355–84 [358].

51. Gunawardana, ‘The People of the Lion’, p. 16.

52. Ibid., p. 19.

53. Ibid. pp. 22–3.

54. Ibid., p. 23.

55. De Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, pp. 25, 565–8; K.N.O. Dharmadasa, ‘The Sinhala-Buddhist Identity and the Nayakkar Dynasty in the Politics of the Kandyan Kingdom’, in Michael Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka: Collective Identities Revisited, Vol. 1 (Colombo: Marga Institute, 1997), pp. 99–128.

56. Gunawardana, ‘The People of the Lion’, p. 26.

57. John D. Rogers, ‘Post-Orientalism and the Interpretation of Premodern and Modern Political Identities: The Case of Sri Lanka’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, no. 1 (Feb. 1994), pp. 18–9.

58. Ibid., p. 19.

59. Qadri Ismail, ‘Unmooring Identity: The Antinomies of Elite Muslim Self-Representation in Modern Sri Lanka’, in Pradeep Jeganathan and Qadri Ismail (eds), Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity and History in Modern Sri Lanka (Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association, 2009), pp. 62–107 [73].

60. Ibid., p. 79.

61. Jonathan Spencer, ‘Introduction: The Power of the Past’, in Jonathan Spencer (ed.), Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 1–18 [5].

62. Elizabeth Nissan and R.L. Stirrat, ‘The Generation of Communal Identities’, in Jonathan Spencer (ed.), Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 19–44 [30].

63. Burghers are descendants of European colonisers.

64. Nissan and Stirrat, ‘The Generation of Communal Identities’, p. 33.

65. Ibid., p. 36.

66. Ibid., p. 35.

67. Chandra, ‘What Is Ethnic Identity?’, pp. 51–96.

68. Spencer, ‘Introduction’, p. 5.

69. Chandra, ‘Attributes and Categories’, pp. 109–10.

70. Camilla Orjuela, ‘Countering Buddhist Radicalization: Emerging Peace Movements in Myanmar and Sri Lanka’, in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 41, no. 1 (Sept. 2019), pp. 133–50 [137]; and Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, p. 252.

71. Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, pp. 244–5.

72. Ibid., pp. 244–5, 247, 253; and ‘Muslims Should Construct Damaged Buddha Statues: Marikkar’, Daily Mirror Online (27 Dec. 2018) [http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/-Muslims-should-reconstruct-damaged-Buddha-statues-Marikkar-160338.html, accessed 2 Nov. 2020].

73. Sandunika Hasangani, ‘Religious Identification on Facebook Visuals and (Online) Outgroup Intolerance: Experimenting the Sri Lankan Case’, in Journal of Asian and African Studies (3 May 2021) [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00219096211008466, accessed 19 June 2021].

74. Stewart, ‘Muslim–Buddhist Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, p. 257.

75. Chandra, ‘Attributes and Categories’, pp. 112–3.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid., p. 113.

78. Ibid., pp. 111–2.

79. Ibid., p. 113.

80. Neloufer de Mel, Militarizing Sri Lanka: Popular Culture, Memory and Narrative in the Armed Conflict (New Delhi: Sage, 2007), p. 58.

81. Ibid., p. 12; and Sasanka Perera, Violence and the Burden of Memory: Remembrance and Erasure in Sinhala Consciousness (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2016).

82. De Mel, Militarizing Sri Lanka.

83. Perera, Violence and the Burden of Memory.