Introduction

Anthropologists take an ethnographic approach to understanding everyday experience, including practices of giving and receiving. There is an established anthropological tradition of interest in ‘the gift’ and how this relates to a wider understanding of the politics of exchange, both material and intangible. ‘Charity’ or ‘philanthropy’ can be viewed, in time-honoured Maussian tradition, as particular modalities of the gift, and in this chapter we aim to explore how anthropological understandings of the everyday politics of exchange can help us comprehend philanthropic activities, and, at the same time, how an analysis of philanthropy and charity can illuminate an anthropological understanding of exchange.

There is increasing interest in the role that philanthropy plays in the process of development, especially given the pressures on international donors and the changing architecture of international aid. The apparent rolling back of the state and rolling out of the market – engendered by global structural adjustments associated with the neoliberal consensus of the last 30 years – have projected charity and philanthropy as a viable alternative to state provisions in the Global South as well as in the North. While much research has been concerned with the activities of major philanthropic or charitable institutions, relatively little has been written about what might be called ‘indigenous’ charity: the activities and impact of charities and philanthropic individuals outside the western world (see, for example, Copeman, 2009; Latief, 2010; Bornstein, 2012; Atia, 2013).

This chapter has three broad objectives: first, to map the ‘philanthroscape’ of Colombo; second, to understand how this ‘philanthroscape’ has changed in the postcolonial period; and third, to consider the developmental nature of philanthropic/charitable activity with regard to how it can support both civil society and the state to set or achieve their development agenda.

We see Sri Lanka as a suitable venue for exploring contemporary forms of giving, and the relationships between givers and receivers, for a number of reasons. According to the World Giving Index, the population of Sri Lanka is the eighth most generous in the world with regards to charitable giving, and the most generous nation in the Global South (Charities Aid Foundation, 2010). The country experienced a huge influx of international philanthropy after the 2004 tsunami, whil more recently, and somewhat controversially, global charities have contributed to the rehabilitation process following the end of the civil war.