Bodies, Shrines, and Roads: violence, (im)mobility and displacement in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In Sri Lanka, gender and national identities intersect to shape people's mobility and security in the context of conflict. This article aims to illustrate the gendered processes of identity construction in the context of competing militarised nationalisms. We contend that a feminist approach is crucial, and that gender analysis alone is insufficient. Gender cannot be considered analytically independent from nationalism or ethno‐national identities because competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalist discourses produce particular gender identities and relations. Fraught and cross‐cutting relations of gender, nation, class and location shape people's movement, safety and potential for displacement. In the conflict‐ridden areas of Sri Lanka's North and East during 1999–2000, we set out to examine relations of gender and nation within the context of conflict. Our specific aim in this article is to analyse the ways in which certain identities are performed, on one hand, and subverted through premeditated performances of national identity on the other hand. We examine these processes at three sites—shrines, roads and people's bodies. Each is a strategic site of security/insecurity, depending on one's gender and ethno‐national identity, as well as geographical location.

Notes

Correspondence: Jennifer Hyndman, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby BC V5A 1S6, Canada. Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; E‐mail: [email protected]

The Wanni is not noted on our map as it is not a place name, but a large region of northern Sri Lanka. During the period of our research, it stretched northward from just north of Vavuniya to the Jaffna Penninsula and from west coast to east coast. The southern ‘border area’, or boundary, shifted often as the front line of conflict moved with it, with the LTTE controlling most of the Wanni during the period of our research.

As in Bosnia‐Hercegovina, ‘Muslim’ in Sri Lanka refers as much to an ethno‐cultural group as one's faith; see Ismail (1995).

We encountered the language of ‘beneficiaries’ often, and found it contrary to the principles of feminist politics. It implies a clear hierarchy between donor and recipient and suggests a relationship of dependency between humanitarian/development organisations and a specified ‘vulnerable’ group.

In November 2003 a power struggle ensued between the Sri Lankan President and Prime Minister, who belong to opposing political parties; Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga launched a constitutional coup and declared a state of emergency while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was visiting Washington DC. The President argued that the Wickremasinghe government had been too soft on the LTTE. This led to the suspension of Norwegian‐led peace talks in the country. Talks between the President and Prime Minister are ongoing, as we write this.

We canvassed both development‐based organisations and humanitarian agencies, but found that the former did relief and rehabilitation work with displaced groups and the latter engaged in income generation and social development programmes. Hence, we use the development and humanitarian monikers interchangeably.

See Wilson (1988) for a thoughtful extrapolation on regional Tamil male identities with reference to the constitution of the Federal Party in Sri Lanka, and see Ismail (1995) for a discussion of regional variations in identity construction and politicization among primarily elite Muslim men.

There is a distinct geography of membership in the Mothers' Fronts that formed across Sri Lanka. Membership of the southern Sri Lankan Mothers' Front was primarily Sinhala and came from the working classes and the peasantry, whereas the members of the Fronts in the North and East were primarily Tamil and more diverse in terms of class. For a problematisation of the processes of such ethnic exclusivity see de Alwis, 1997.

The term ‘Welfare Centre’ itself is a misnomer which will become clear from our discussion; the displaced who lead miserable existences within these centres are quite clear that it is not their ‘welfare’ that is the central concern of the Sri Lankan state.

We would like to acknowledge the insights and analysis that Dag Sigurdson, Officer in Charge for UNHCR in Madhu, shared with us during both our 1999 and 2000 visits.

Ironically, many of these menacing steel grates are covered in advertising. They are so commonplace, and so widely seen by the public, that it must pay to publicise. These checkpoints have also sparked a new art form entitled ‘barrelism’ by installation artist Chandragupta Thenuwara, who uses similarly camouflaged barrels to critique the militarisation of Sri Lankan society.

The interviewee told us that on one occasion, while in possession of his national identity card, he was jailed overnight on no charge. Through personal connections, he was able to secure his release the next day. He was genuinely surprised that, despite being Tamil, his social standing and class markings did not exempt him from this experience.

In Kenya's Northeast Province where Somali refugees live in three main camps, there is a desire to pass as Kenyan from time to time. Travel and access to local employment is facilitated by having a Kenyan identity card, and with such demand, there is an entire economy in counterfeit documents (Hyndman, 2000).

Both these interviewees were trilingual, and while this is not necessarily a class marker per se, it does denote a certain amount of privilege and education. Both these interviewees did express considerable anxiety about not being able to write in Sinhala. This proved to be the one skill they did not have that could betray them when they tried to pass.

One of the most moving examples is a Tamil man who has lived through many anti‐Tamil riots and refuses any longer to ‘perform his Tamilness as Sinhalaness’ through the mobilisation of what Jeganathan calls the ‘master’ tactic of anticipation' (Jeganathan 1998, pp. 99–100). He refuses to pronounce the Sinhala word baldiya (bucket) in the Sinhala way, rather than what is perceived to be the distinctively Tamil way of pronunciation, valdiya (p. 99) and is thus killed by a Sinhala mob as presented in Ernest MacIntyre's poignant drama, Rasanayagam's Last Riot (1993).