Sri Lanka inside-out: cyberspace and the mediated geographies of political engagement

Abstract

This research note begins by pointing to the forms of geographical and political enclosure that have resulted from the current Sri Lankan government's effective regulation of parts of the national media, as well as its mediation of knowledge produced about Sri Lanka more generally. It argues that a rather draconian and unbreachable geography of inside and outside is instantiated by the political regime's insularizing regulation of the country's media(tion). The research note then points to new virtual spaces in the Sri Lankan context that are reconfiguring this sticky geography of inside and outside. In particular, it argues that Sri Lanka's burgeoning blogosphere and online citizen journalism provide new, participatory spaces for dissent, debate and the free flow of information that have much potential to assist in the production of a more robust and critical civil society. The emergence of these spaces points to the importance of geography and spatiality in manufacturing an effective critical politics in contemporary Sri Lanka.

Keywords:

• Sri Lanka
• media
• knowledge production
• censorship
• geography

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Marta Bolognani, and Kanchana Ruwanpura and Cathrine Brun for their comments on a draft of this research note.

Notes

1. For a syndication of current Sri Lankan blogs, see www.kottu.org/blogroll.

2. The Sri Lankan ICT Agency's aim is to increase computer literacy figures from 29% nationally in 2009 to 60% by 2012 (Dewapura, Deshapriya, and Fernando 2009). However, such national targets do not take into account the significant intersections of class, caste, gender and ethnicity that continue to delimit access to Internet usage in different parts of rural Sri Lanka. It is also worth adding here that there already exists a well-developed network of political connectivity, information dispersal and mobilization via cellular phone technology in many of Sri Lanka's rural areas.