Located in the war-torn eastern province of Sri Lanka, this book provides a rich ethnography of how Tamil-speaking communities in Batticaloa live through and make sense of a violence that shapes everyday life itself. The core of the book comes from the author’s two-year close interaction with a group of (mainly women) human rights activists in the area. The book describes how the activists work in clandestine, informal ways to support families whose loved ones have been threatened, disappeared or killed and how they build networks of trust within the context of everyday violence. As Sri Lanka faces up to the enormity of the task of ‘post-war reconciliation’, this book aims to create a wider conversation about grief, resistance and healing in the context of violence and its long afterlife.
Table of Content
1. The beginning of the end
2. Mapping spaces and lives: Batticaloa and the east
3. Living and learning in Batticaloa
4. Between violence and the everyday: questions of the ordinary
5. Meena’s story
6. ‘Kutti annar maram’ (my older brother’s tree)
7. In light of new beginnings
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Rebecca Walker is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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