Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:02:37.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Collective Violence and Everyday Practice in Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Jonathan Spencer
Jonathan Spencer
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In July 1983 communal violence in the southern towns of Sri Lanka left between 300 and 3,000 people dead, nearly all of them members of the minority Tamil population. While such a disturbing manifestation of social pathology would seem to demand a response from concerned social scientists, there are special difficulties in confronting such events. Dominant trends in the historical study of popular disturbance, for example the concern to recover the rationality and dignity of participants in food riots (Thompson 1971), or the current interest in manifestations of ‘resistance’, may look altogether inappropriate in this context. Explanation can all too often look like apologetic, and this may explain why much of the existing writing on communal violence in South Asia deals with virtually everything except the violence itself. One recent study in Sri Lanka, Bruce Kapferer's Legends of People, Myths of State (Kapferer 1988), has recently tackled this question head on, arguing that there is a clear link between collective violence in Sri Lanka and what the author describes as a ‘logic of being in the world’, or ‘ontology’ to be found in everyday Sinhala life. While Kapferer has earned our gratitude for even raising the issue of the connection between collective violence and everyday life, his specific argument, as I shall show below, is based on a limited reading of the available evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 603 - 623
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, P. 1981 ‘Shared Fantasies and Elite Politics: The Sri Lankan“Insurrection” of 1971’ Mankind XII 2113–32Google Scholar
Amunugama, S. and Meyer, E. 1984 ‘Remarques sur la violence dans l'idéologie bouddhique et la pratique sociale à Sri Lanka (Ceylan)’ Etudes Rurales 95–6 47–62Google Scholar
Anon. 1988 ‘A note on the present situation: Sri Lanka, October 1988’ Typescript.Google Scholar
Carrithers, M. B. 1982 ‘Hell Fire and Urinal Stones: An Essay on Buddhist Purity and Authority’ in Krishna, G. (ed.) Contributions to South Asian Studies 2 Delhi: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Das, V., Das, R. K., Mohanty, M., Nandy, A. 1984 ‘A New Kind of Rioting’ Illustrated Weekly of India 23 12 1984 20–3Google Scholar
Davis, N. Z. 1975 ‘The Rites of Violence’ in Society and Culture in Early Modern France Stanford: Stanford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Silva, K. M. 1986 Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multiethnic Societies: Sri Lanka 1880–1985, Lanham: University Press of AmericaGoogle Scholar
De Silva, K. M. 1988 ‘Political Crisis and Ethnic Conflicts in Sri Lanka: A Rejoinder to Roberts’ Ethnic Studies Report VI 163–74Google Scholar
Gombrich, R. F. 1971 Precept and Practice Oxford: Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar
Gombrich, R. F. 1988 Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo London: Routledge and Kegan PaulCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goonetileke, H. A. I. 1984 ‘July 1983 and the National Question in Sri Lanka: A Bibliographical Guide’ Race and Class XXVI 1159–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellman-Rajanayagam, D. 1986 ‘The Tamil “Tigers” in Northern Sri Lanka: Origins, Factions, Programmes’ Internationales Asienforum XVII 1/2 63–85Google Scholar
Juergensmeyer, M. 1988 ‘The Logic of Religious Violence: The Case of the Punjab’ Contributions to Indian Sociology n.s. XXII 165–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kannangara, A. P. 1984 ‘The Riots of 1915 in Sri Lanka: A Study of the Roots of Communal Violence’ Past and Present 102 130–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapferer, B. 1983 A Celebration of Demons Bloomington: Indiana University PressGoogle Scholar
Kapferer, B. 1988 Legends of People, Myths of State Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution PressGoogle Scholar
Kearney, R. N. and Miller, B. 1985 ‘The Spiral of Suicide and Social Change in Sri Lanka’ Journal of Asian Studies XLIV 181–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malalgoda, K. 1972 ‘Sinhalese Buddhism: Orthodox and Syncretistic, Traditional and Modern’ Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies n.s. II 2156–69Google Scholar
Manor, J. 1983 ‘Sri Lanka: Explaining the Disaster’ The World Today XXXIX 11450–9Google Scholar
Manor, J. (ed.) 1984 Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Meyer, E. 1983 ‘The Plantation System and Village Structure in British Ceylon: Involution or Evolution?’ in Robb, P. (ed.) Rural South Asia Linkages, Change and Development London: CurzonGoogle Scholar
Meyer, E. 1984 ‘Seeking the Roots of the Tragedy’ in Manor, J. (ed.) Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Nairn, T. 1981 ‘The Modern Janus’ in The Break-up of Britain 2nd ednLondon: New Left BooksGoogle Scholar
Nissan, E. 1984 ‘Some Thoughts on Sinhalese Justifications for the Violence’ in Manor, J. (ed.) Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Nissan, E. and Stirrat, R. L. 1987 ‘State, Nation and the Representation of Evil’ Sussex Research Papers in Social Anthropology IGoogle Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1970 ‘Religious Symbolism and Political Change in Sri Lanka’ Modern Ceylon Studies I 143–63Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1974 ‘Some Comments on the Social Backgrounds of the April 1971 Insurgency in Sri Lanka (Ceylon)’ Journal of Asian Studies XXXIII 367–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1975 ‘Sorcery, Premeditated Murder and the Canalization of Aggression in Sri Lanka’ Ethnology XIV 11–23Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1981 Medusa's Hair Chicago: University of Chicago PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1984a The Cult of the Goddess Pattini Chicago: University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar
Obeyesekere, G. 1984b ‘The Origins and Institutionalisation of Political Violence’ in Manor, J. (ed.) Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Piyadasa, L. 1984 Sri Lanka: The Holocaust and Afler London: MarranGoogle Scholar
Roberts, M. 1988 ‘Sri Lanka: Ethnic Conflict and Political Crisis’ Ethnic Studies Report VI 140–62Google Scholar
Rogers, J. D. 1987a ‘Social Mobility, Popular Ideology, and Collective Violence in Modern Sri Lanka’ Journal of Asian Studies XLVI 3583–602CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, J. D. 1987b Crime, Justice and Society in Colonial Sri Lanka London: CurzonGoogle Scholar
‘Samarakone, P.’ 1984 ‘The Conduct of the Referendum’ in Manor, J. (ed.) Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Selvadurai, A. J. 1976 ‘Land, Personhood, and Sorcery in a Sinhalese Village’ Journal of African and Asian Studies XI 1–282–96Google Scholar
Spencer, J. R. 1984 ‘Popular Perceptions of the Violence: A Provincial View’ in Manor, J. (ed.) Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis London: Croom HelmGoogle Scholar
Spencer, J. R. n.d. A Sinhala Village in a Time of Trouble Delhi: Oxford University Press (forthcoming)Google Scholar
Tambiah, S. J. 1986 Sri Lanka Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy London: I.B. TaurisGoogle Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1971 ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’ Past and Present L 76–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warnapala, W. A. Wiswa and Dias Hewagama, L. 1984 Recent Politics in Sri Lanka Delhi: NavrangGoogle Scholar
Wood, A. L. 1961 ‘Crime and Aggression in Changing Ceylon. A Sociological Analysis of Homicide, Suicide, and Economic Crime’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society n.s. LI8Google Scholar
Wriggins, W. H. 1960 Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation Princeton: Princeton University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar