Magic Maids at Université Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne

https://polity.lk/nadeera-rajapakse-magic-maids-sweeping-up-a-storm-at-the-sorbonne

Magic Maids: Sweeping Up a Storm at the Sorbonne

Nadeera Rajapakse

 

Aug 14, 2025 | Labour

 
 
 

After performing in several theatres across Paris, Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera bewitched the spectators, students, and startled passers-by at the Pantheon Centre of the University Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne in March 2025. They swept through the halls of the 18th century building, housing the second oldest university in Europe, to embody women migrant domestic workers.


Venuri Perera and Eisa Jocson at the University Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne
Photo credit: Jean-Remy Mallek

Their representation was hailed by an eager audience of economists, historians, philosophers, political scientists, anthropologists, geographers, working on and interested in various related subjects. A roundtable session among scholars and artists, bound by common themes of female labour, exploitation, and agency, was followed by a general discussion between the two dancers and guests.

Among the many compelling insights shared, one particularly resonant idea was that the deepest intellectual understanding often arises through embodied experience. In the novel Expectation, the author describes how this can happen: “suddenly the knowledge arrives, hitting her body before her mind. It spikes her blood, makes her heart race, her palms damp” (Hope 2019: 251). Accordingly, in Magic Maids, resistance is articulated through movement, the dancers physically and symbolically reclaim the figure of the domestic worker. In the following commentary, I will discuss the idea of resistance, its significance in this context, and the narrative power of the performance in reclaiming the idealised image of women.


Roundtable discussion with Emmanuel Charrier (moderator), Jules Ramage (visual artist), Muriel Gilardone (economic historian specialising in gender and economics), Mickaëlle Provost (philosopher), Elodie Bertrand (economic historian, editor of
Routledge Handbook of Commodification).
Photo credit: Jean-Remy Mallek

Firstly, resistance comes in the shape of exposing the disturbing aspects of migration for domestic work. For one, the fundamental contradiction structuring Sri Lanka’s migration economy: the systematic social devaluation of women’s domestic labour against its staggering economic contributions. The state’s reliance on 8.4 billion USD in annual remittances, of which 54% are from domestic workers (CBSL 2023), exists in violent tension with cultural imaginaries that render these workers as ‘demure’, ‘docile’, and ‘disposable’, while being remittance-sending ‘heroines’.

The aesthetic framing of domestic workers as ‘smiling, docile’ figures emerges from deep cultural constructs. The ideal female figure in religious, nationalist, and cultural tropes lacks agency, existing in submission to men or gods (Sreenivasan 1975, de Mel 2001, de Silva 2004). Added to that is a narrow version of “purity” as well as “pedagogies of respectability” (de Alwis 2022). This has translated into general media representations where most Sri Lankan newspaper articles frame migrant workers mostly as either “victims” or “heroines” (Rata Viruwo in Sinhala), denying complex subjectivity. This is just like the female ideal in certain religious representations: they are either pure, chaste, and submissive, or they are all-powerful, destructive goddesses. The Vessantara Jātaka’s ideal of female self-sacrifice finds an echo in the state rhetoric celebrating “heroines” sending remittances, making resilience and silent endurance the most acclaimed qualities in “good” maids (de Silva 2004).

In keeping with economic market logic, the supply of migrant labour is endless, coming from many South Asian nations competing with one another, whereas demand from employers (mostly in the Middle East) powerfully dictates all terms of employment. Hence, women migrant workers are disposable, easily replaceable. The dancers, Jocson and Perera, recount discovering “24 nails driven into her body, like a living voodoo doll”, referring to a real experience of a migrant worker. Again, the contradiction is made obvious: the horrific exploitation of bodies that literally constitute the nation’s economic lifeline. Sri Lanka’s 1.2 million migrant domestic workers generate about 30% of total remittances, 6.7% of GDP (World Bank 2023). And yet, the institutional recognition of the value of their labour remains an uphill struggle: only in 2020 was the promise made to upgrade domestic work to the skilled labour category (Mudugamuwa 2020), while standard employment contracts under the Foreign Employment Act, and ILO Convention 189 ratification still do not take full account of domestic work.

Venuri Perera and Eisa Jocson shedding docility, resisting purity.
Photo credit: Jean-Remy Mallek

These institutional failures mirror the “social reproduction paradox”, i.e., the simultaneous economic reliance on and symbolic annihilation of care work under financialised capitalism (Elson 2012). In the course of their performance, Jocson and Perera narrate: “even if you hit her, she may say ‘hit me baby, one more time’”, laying bare the paradox where ‘docile’ workers must be simultaneously productive enough to remit and disposable enough to replace.

Another revelation from the duo is about racialised market hierarchies. The performance’s mocking comparison between “a Filipina” and “a cheaper Sri Lankan” exposes what Bridget Anderson (2000) terms “hierarchies of servitude” in global care chains. Recruitment agencies actively cultivate this in terms of salary differentials: a Filipina worker is paid double the wage received monthly by a Sri Lankan domestic worker in many Middle Eastern countries (Esim and Smith 2004); skills framing: Most Sri Lankan agencies advertise workers as “more submissive and easier to mould” vs. Filipinas as commanding “more respect” (Jureidni and Moukarbel 2004: 6). Above all, “Sri Lankan” or “Sri Lanki” is synonymous with domestic worker, so much so that if the domestic worker is from the Philippines, the question would be “Is your Sri Lankan a Filipina?” (Jureidni and Moukarbel 2004: 5). Jocson and Perera rephrase the question for the French audience (and French employers), asking where their “Sri Lankan” is from: Algeria? Romania? The Republic of Guinea? 

Discussing embodied resistance: dancers and participants at University Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Photo credit: Leonie Seince, Maya Abou Imad, Iris Chaput, Lucie Liu

The devaluation of migrant workers is seen in other disturbing institutional shortcomings and exclusions. While Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has intensified reliance on migrant earnings—remittances cover 128% of the trade deficit according to the Central Bank (CBSL 2023)—the 2023 national Budget allocated only a paltry amount to migrant welfare; only a handful of returnee workers access reintegration programs (IOM 2023) and the majority of migrant households do not use bank accounts, especially for remittances. Most have no pension contributions despite working close to a decade abroad (ILO 2021).

On the other hand, restrictive regulation is palmed more on migrants than on markets. In the SLBFE curriculum, mandatory household training encourages submission (Handapangoda 2023, Jureidni and Moukarbel 2004). There are bans on pregnancy, marriage (Ireland 2018), and unionisation (Amnesty International 2025), while non-payment of wages, non-compliance with labour laws, and non-respect of basic worker rights go unpunished.

By framing domestic work as ‘natural’ feminine traits rather than skilled labour, global labour markets exclude them from formal economic accounting. Then the idealised yet paradoxical requirements are piled on: maids need to perform docility and as a result, suppress emotions for job security. They need to channel productivity to super-human levels: An average workday in Gulf Cooperation Council countries is 17 hours (ILO 2021), which they endure stoically, leading to chronic health conditions.

Lynch documents how Sri Lankan migrant workers face “moral censure for transgressing spatial boundaries” (2007: 92), stigmatised as “fallen” women for monetising domesticity while remaining culturally obligated to perform it, unpaid, at home. These contradictions add up, with the state praising women’s economic contributions while denying them labour rights, which Jayawardena describes as “patriarchal ventriloquism” (2016: 24).

Venuri Perera, wielding the brooms wildly
(Still from video footage)
Credit: Leonie Sence, Iris Chaput, Maya Abou Imad, Lucie Liu and Theo Milon

But then, the Magic Maids strike. Jocson and Perera viscerally demonstrate that the same bodies disciplined into docility can erupt into wild, powerful dancing, symbolising the latent agency within apparent submission. This agency becomes discernible, palpable, when we shed the gendered, capitalist lenses above. Despite moral, physical, and institutional risks, which are well-documented, Sri Lankan women continue migrating at unprecedented rates.

This constitutes not merely economic pragmatism, but a strike against the gendered, spatial order. Migrant women transmit subversive “gender remittances” (Levitt and Lamba-Nieves 2011) that slowly corrode patriarchal ideology in sending communities. These narratives weaponise the very mobility that moralists decry. Their efforts have led to movements, like the ILO C189 campaign, which have forced recognition of domestic work as skilled labour providing potent examples of “capability metrics” (Piper 2017). In Sri Lanka, returnee workers now demand pension contributions, not as supplicants, but as creditors of a national economy that they sustain.

By migrating to take up work that challenges traditional ideals of domestic femininity, and through subtle defiance of religious or moral ideals that confine them to obedience and purity, women migrant domestic workers show resistance.

The performance epitomises the central contradiction: these women are economically indispensable, yet socially expendable. Their labour props up GDP while their contribution is undervalued, a paradox sustained by gendered architectures. Yet as the performance’s climactic shift from slow, robotic sweeping to wails, vigour, and piercing eye contact reminds us, even the most disciplined bodies harbour the capacity to disrupt the scripts written upon them. The true measure of feminist praxis lies not in lamenting oppression, but in tracing, as this commentary has attempted, the fault lines where agency erupts through the cracks of constraint. 

Venuri Perera, defying norms of docility
(Still from video footage)
Credit: Leonie Sence, Iris Chaput, Maya Abou Imad, Lucie Liu and Theo Milon


Nadeera Rajapakse
is an assistant professor at the University of Paris 1, Pantheon-Sorbonne in the History of Economic Thought and in English for Economics. She is a member of the PHARE (Philosophy, History and the Analysis of Economic Representation) research department and her current areas of research include development and identity, women migrant domestic workers, and migration and identity.

 

References
Amnesty International. (2025). Locked In. Left out. The Hidden Lives of Kenyan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia. London: Amnesty International. Available at https://www.amnesty.nl/content/uploads/2025/05/Amnesty-Kenya-Saudi-workers.pdf?x69908

Amnesty International. (2014). “My Sleep is My Break”: Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Qatar. Available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/004/2014/en/

Anderson, Bridget. (2000). Doing the Dirty Work? The global politics of domestic labour. London: Zed Books.

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). (2023). Annual Economic Review. Available at https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/en/publications/economic-and-financial-reports/annual-economic-review/annual-economic-review-2023

De Alwis, Malathi. (2022). “The Production and Embodiment of Respectability: Gendered Demeanours in Colonial Ceylon”. In Kanchana Ruwanpura, Caryll Tozer, Chulani Kodikara, Sonali Deraniyagala, Vraie Cally Balthazar (Eds.). Her Smile Lingers. Malathi de Alwis Selected Essays. Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.

De Mel, Neloufer. (2001). Women & the Nation’s Narrative: Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

De Silva, Neluka. (2004). The Gendered Nation: Contemporary Writings from South Asia, London: Sage.

Department of Technical Education and Training. (2023). National Competency Standards (NCS) Catalogue. Colombo: DTET. Available at http://www.dtet.gov.lk/nvq_standards

Elson, Diane. (2012). “Social Reproduction in the Global Crisis: Rapid Recovery or Long-Lasting Depletion?” In Peter Utting, Shahra Razavi, and Rebecca Varghese Buchholz (Eds.). The Global Crisis and Transformative Social Change (63-80). Palgrave Macmillan

Esim, Simel, and Monica Smith (Eds). (2004). Gender and Migration in Arab States. The case of domestic workers. Beirut: International Labour Organization. Available at https://www.ilo.org/publications/gender-and-migration-arab-states-case-domestic-workers

Handapangoda, Wasana. (2023). “Migrant domestic workers in the Arabian Gulf”. Ingenere (2 February): https://www.ingenere.it/en/articles/migrant-domestic-workers-arabian-gulf

Hope, Anna. (2020). Expectation. Black Swan.

International Organization for Migration (IOM). (2023). “Chapter 5 – Migrant-facing Information Initiatives”. In IRIS Handbook for Governments on Ethical Recruitment and Migrant Worker Protection. IOM, Geneva. Available at https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/pub2023-034-l-iris-handbook-for-govt-ch5.pdf

International Labour Organization (ILO). (2021). Making Decent Work a Reality for Domestic Workers: Progress and Prospects Ten Years after the Adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), Geneva: International Labour Organization. Available at https://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/making-decent-work-reality-domestic-workers-progress-and-prospects-ten

Ireland, Patrick. (2018). “The limits of sending-state power”. International Political Science Review 39 (3): 322-337.

Jayawardena, Kumari. (2016). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. New York: Verso Books.

Jayawardena, Kumari and Rachel Kurian. (2015). Class, Patriarchy and Ethnicity on Sri Lankan Plantations: Two Centuries of Power and Protest. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

Jureidni, Ray, and Nayla Moukarbel. (2004). “Female Sri Lankan domestic workers in Lebanon: A case of ‘contract slavery’?” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30 (4): 581-607.

Levitt, Peggy, and Deepak Lamba-Nieves. (2011). “Social Remittances Revisited.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37 (1):1-22.

Lynch, Caitrin. (2007). Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Piper, Nicola. (2017). “Migration and the SDGs.” Global Social Policy, 17 (2): 231-238.

Sreenivasan, M.A. (1975). “Panchakanya – An Age-old Benediction”. In Devaki Jain (Ed.). Indian Women (51-58). New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India.

Mudugamuwa, Maheesha. (2020). “Skills development for domestic workers. From Housemaid to Housekeeping assistant”. The Morning (23 September): https://www.themorning.lk/articles/98732

World Bank. (2023). “Personal remittances, received (% of GDP) – Sri Lanka”. World Bank Open Data – Sri Lanka. Available at https://data.worldbank.org/country/sri-lanka

Sri Lanka – 6 months on

https://www.lse.ac.uk/south-asia-centre/events/archive/Spring-Term-2025

London School of Economics Event – Sri Lanka 6 months on

As the ‘AKD’ government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake marks 6 months, how is Sri Lanka now? This panel will discuss the country’s current economic and political situation as it recovers from a period of severe crisis and, looking ahead, what needs to be done in different sectors domestically, regionally and globally for Sri Lanka to emerge as a confident and stable power.

SPEAKERS: Harsha Amarasekera PC is a leading commerical lawyer, and Chairman, Colombo Port City Economic Commission, alongside several other leading positions in the private sector; Farzana Haniffa (@FaraFarout) is Professor of Sociology, University of Colombo, and Member, Human Rights Commission, Sri Lanka; Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (@PSaravanamuttu), an LSE alumnus, is Founder and Executive Director, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo.

DISCUSSANT: Dr Alan Keenan (@akeenan23) is Senior Consultant for Sri Lanka, International Crisis Group, London, where he coordinates and contributes to research, advocacy and publications on Sri Lanka.    

CO-CHAIRS: Naufel Vilcassim is Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE) and Professor of Marketing at LSE; Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).

Photo story – Malayaga Makkal Walk “Tracing our roots to win our rights”

https://express.adobe.com/page/FjB2hx6PCTXoc/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vikalpa.org%2Farticle%2F42592%3Ffbclid%3DIwY2xjawI5MMdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHS2rgo8nwcT-1k41OaFp-RT7-gvqVBnDH_aOR6RDbI4zX4GQyw13-_ppIA_aem_xabt_AfK-Xva3-H4PH5rWg&embed_type=overlay&context=lightbox-expand

2023 – “Walk” from Mannar to Matale to commemorate the 200-year arrival of the Plantation community to Sri Lanka along that road. On the way, there were gatherings at Thalaimannar, Thalaimannar to Pesalai, Pesalai to Mannar Town, Mannar Town to Murunkan, Murunkan to Madhu, Madhu, Madhu Junction to Cheddikulum, Cheddikulum to Medawachchiya, Medawachchiya, Medawachchiya to Mihintale, Mihintale to Tirappane, Tirappane to Kekirawa, Kekirawa to Dambulla, Dambulla, Dambulla to Nalanda, Nalanda to Matale.

Credits:

Sampath Samarakoon/ vikalpa.org

The Sri-Lankan exception: a unique re-democratization process in South Asia and its geopolitical implications in the Indo-Pacific

Summary of a lecture given at Sciences Po (South Asia programme) by Eric P. Meyer (30.01.2025)

The overwhelming success of the National Peoples Power (NPP) in the Sri Lankan legislative elections of November 14th, 2024 (more than two thirds of seats, 61.5% of the vote) confirmed the popularity of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, elected on September 21st with 42.3% of the vote (55.9% after counting the preferential votes that serve as a second round), and of the team he put in place headed by Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya. This success contrasts with the 3 to 4% of the vote obtained by Dissanayake in 2019 and by his party in 2020. Beyond a simple rejection of discredited outgoing parliamentarians, how can such a meteoric rise be explained? And how was the democratic process not derailed in Sri Lanka, in spite of the succession of shocks which affected the country since independence – insurgencies of 1971 and 1987-1989, separatist war from the early 1980s to 2009, economic and political crisis of the early 2020s?

The great popular movement of 2022, the Aragalaya, initiated by activists who ‘occupied’ a public space in the heart of Colombo, brought into the streets hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans hit hard by the economic crisis resulting from the disastrous management of public finances and agricultural policy, and the backlash from Covid. This movement, which bears some similarities with the ‘Arab springs’, denounced the corruption and the incompetence of the political class, and in particular of the Rajapakse clan which had dominated since 2006. It forced the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse, elected in 2019. Following the legal procedure, the Parliament appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe, an experienced but unpopular politician, as interim President, who put a stop to the movement.

His mission was to obtain the agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), State creditors (mainly China, Japan and India) and international finance, to pull the country out of bankruptcy. The austerity measures imposed by the IMF in exchange for $2.9 billion in aid contributed to the decline of the living standards and gave the NPP arguments to assert its goals. Its activists, who had participated in the Aragalaya but were not its instigators, managed over the next two years to convince very diverse sectors of the population of their ability to radically transform the country’s political culture, through democratic means.

Dissanayake, who came from a modest rural background and had trained in politics since the 1990s in the People’s Liberation Front (JVP in sinhala language), a ‘guevarist’ movement that had organized two bloodily suppressed insurrections in 1971 and 1989, was able to both move the JVP in a democratic direction and rally the Sinhalese popular masses through his charisma and eloquence. Launching the NPP in 2019, he expanded his circle around the JVP core to include progressive intellectuals such as Harini Amarasuriya, social activists often belonging to minorities, young entrepreneurs looking forward to innovative change. On the other side, NPP’s competitors, led by Sajith Premadasa, the son of a former President, although critics of Wickremesinghe’s policy, lost popular support by their compromises with discredited politicians.

The other decisive element of the NPP’s success was the desire to turn the page on the civil war that ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil separatists for which the Rajapakse brothers took credit, building their power on the instrumentalization of tensions between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Tamil-speaking Hindu, Muslim and Christian minorities, relying on a police system that violated human rights, on pampered armed forces, and on organizations of political monks ; the Islamist attacks on Christian churches in Easter 2019 had served their propaganda well and allowed them to perpetuate a regime of exception. The Aragalaya, which was a multi-ethnic movement, had initiated change, in the context of the decline of Tamil separatist feelings in the north. The legislative elections confirmed this: the NPP displayed secularism and civil rule as its principles, and managed to win both the votes of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority in the south, those of the community of Tamil plantation workers in the hills, and to have a relative majority of representatives elected in the north, facing divided Tamil autonomist candidates. It was the first time since independence that a party based in the south was able to rally the votes of the Tamil minorities.

The sequence of events since 2022 demonstrated the resilience of the democratic system, after decades of “tribulations of an old democracy” – title of the article I published a quarter of a century ago in the volume edited by Christophe Jaffrelot Les démocraties d’ailleurs (Karthala, 2000). With 67% participation, an electoral campaign without major incidents, meetings attracting crowds with modest means, the absence of discredited political bigwigs who preferred not to run or were defeated, balanced political speeches given by activists who abandoned their weapons for ballot papers, monks less conspicuous than usual, an army staying in its barracks, few fake news, and the smooth functioning of a complex proportional list ballot with preferential ranking of candidates: in the global electoral landscape of our time, can we speak of a Sri Lankan exception?

Rather than re-democratization, the goal fixed upon by the NPP is the re-invention of a ‘clean’ political culture appealing to what Orwell called ‘common decency’, through practical measures aiming at reducing poverty, banning communal politics, dynamizing the administration, and ensuring the impartiality of justice. On the other hand, economic and political liabilities represent a very heavy burden for the new government and its room for maneuver remains limited. Its parliamentary majority gives it a free hand, and the improvement in the country’s financial state eases its constraints a little. But it must try to renegotiate the agreements with the IMF to alleviate the poverty of the masses, fight against corruption and mafia practices, monitor the change in political culture, strengthen coexistence between communities internally and remove the mistrust of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.


Above all, in a geopolitical perspective, remains the challenge, for a small country in a strategic position, to keep an equal distance between India and China, and use international rivalries to raise the stakes and obtain direct investment, without further alienating the country’s sovereignty – considered as its most precious asset. The Rajapaksa regime, while pretending to defend Sri Lanka’s independence and unity, had mortgaged the island to Chinese economic-strategic interests. Wickremesinghe had attempted to reduce the imbalance and rely on the support of Western powers. Dissanayake is likely to follow a realist line: his first official visit was to India, the second to China. But in the case of five major projects the new government is confronted with difficult choices. The ‘Colombo port-city’ mega project, presented as a brainchild of Mahinda Rajapakse, but actually a link in the Chinese-engineered Belt-and-Road Initiative, is being developed as an extraterritorial enclave devoted to globalized business and leisure, on the Dubai model. Facing Galle Face, the hotspot of Aragalaya, the project has been severely criticized by the NPP, as a post-modern avatar of the colonial enterprise. So was the Hambantota port, located on the southern coast of the island, similarly built and financed by Chinese firms, which was leased in 2017 for 99 years to China Merchant Ports, because the government could not repay its debt; the connected project of a big oil refinery has been awarded to Sinopec in January 2025. On the north-eastern coast, the natural harbor of Trincomalee, where oil tanks had been built during WW2, is of strategic interest for India: it was central to the secret agreement imposed on Sri Lanka by India in 1987, which was vehemently denounced by the JVP; in 2022 a joint venture has been set up with Indian Oil Corporation to restore the oil storage facilities and build another refinery. Next year, the Wickremesinghe administration had approved a project by Gautam Adani, the Indian businessman close to Narendra Modi, to develop a string of wind turbines along the north-western coast, in Mannar and Pooneryn: the harsh financial conditions resembling those imposed by the same firm to Bangladesh, and the bribery charges levelled against Adani in India and USA, are calling into question the project. Back in Colombo, the extension of the port container terminal, another project partly funded by Adani with U.S.-borrowed capital, is similarly being reviewed. To quote the analysis published in The Diplomat (27 January 2025) by R. Kuruwita: “The Adani controversy transcends Sri Lanka’s energy policy. It is a litmus test for the country’s commitment to sovereignty and transparency in an era of great-power rivalry (…) For the NPP government, this is more than an economic dilemma: it is a chance to prove that campaign promises of integrity are more than rhetoric (…) As Sri Lanka navigates post-default recovery, its choices will resonate far beyond its shores. By prioritizing national interest over expediency, Colombo can pursue a policy that safeguards both its economy and its sovereignty, perhaps setting a precedent for other nations grappling with similar pressures. The world is watching.”

Perspectives on history in Sri Lanka – Herstories, Everystory

https://theherstoryarchive.org


“This archival project is first of a series of Sri Lankans’ histories that focuses on mothers from the South and North. It highlights their strength in the face of adversity, and their hopes for their children’s and Sri Lanka’s future. Mothers are guardians of their family history. They are the pillars of strength upon which a family is built. As such, this project chooses to archive mothers’ stories, thereby recording the story of an entire family.

Copyright © 2013 Herstories project”

 

https://theherstoryarchive.org

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Everystory

“Empowering Voices and Inspiring Change

Everystory Lanka (formed in 2018) is a Sri Lankan-based feminist collective focused on storytelling and knowledge sharing. We use creative practices, mixed media, panel discussions, and more to create this space. We believe that stories and knowledge come in all shapes and forms, and it is within this complexity and potential for creativity that we engage.”

https://everystorysl.org/aboutus

Everystory – Day in the Life Trailer
 
 
Everystory, in collaboration with the Embassy of France to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, presents A Day in the Life series – an audio-visual campaign that captures the everyday resilience of women in Sri Lanka who have shaped or been shaped by the country’s political, cultural, and social contexts.
In its pilot edition, launched in the spirit of the 2024 French Olympics, the series follows three Sri Lankan sportswomen through their day. From training sessions to balancing domestic responsibilities, careers, or education, we delve into their reflections on life, the challenges and politics of their practice, and the moments that inspire them to keep moving forward.
Stay tuned to our socials and YouTube as we share their stories.
 
Everystory, ශ්රී ලංකාවේ සහ මාලදිවයිනේ ප්රංශ තානාපති කාර්යාලය සමඟ සහයෝගයෙන්, රටේ දේශපාලන, සංස්කෘතික, සහ සමාජ සන්දර්භයන් හැඩගැස්වූ හා ඒවායින් හැඩගැස්වුනු, ශ්රී ලංකාවේ කාන්තාවන්ගේ එදිනෙදා ඔරොත්තු දීමේ හැකියාව ග්රහණය කර ගන්නා ශ්රව්ය-දෘශ්ය වියාපාරයක් වන A Day in the life වීඩියෝ මාලාව ඉදිරිපත් කරයි.
2024 ප්රංශ ඔලිම්පික් උළෙලේ ආත්මය තුලින් දියත් කරන ලද මෙම වීඩියෝ මාලාවේ නියමු සංස්කරණය ශ්රී ලාංකික ක්රීඩිකාවන් තිදෙනෙකු ඔවුන්ගේ දවස පුරා අනුගමනය කරයි. පුහුණු සැසිවල සිට ගෘහ වගකීම්, වෘත්තීන් හෝ අධ්යාපනය සමතුලිත කිරීම් දක්වා, අපි මෙහදී සොයා බැලුවේ ඔවුන්ට තම ජිවිත පිළිබදව ඇති ආවර්ජන, ඔවුන්ගේ ක්රීඩා පුහුණුවේ තිබෙන අභියෝග සහ එහි දේශපාලනය, සහ ඉදිරියට යාමට ඔවුන්ව පොළඹවන අවස්ථා පිළිබඳවයි.
අපි ඔවුන්ගේ කථා අපගේ සමාජ ජාලා සහ යූ ටියුබ් වලින් බෙදා හරින විට රැඳී සිටින්න.
 
எவ்ரிஸ்டோரி இலங்கை, இலங்கை மற்றும் மாலைதீவுகளுக்கான பிரான்ஸ் தூதரகத்துடன் இணைந்து, எ டே இன் தி லைஃப் என்ற தொடரை வழங்குகிறது – இது ஒரு ஒலி-ஒளி ஊடான பிரச்சாரம் ஆகும், இது இலங்கையின் அரசியல், பண்பாட்டு மற்றும் சமூக சூழல்களால் வடிவமைக்கப்பட்ட அல்லது அவற்றை வடிவமைத்த மகளிரின் தினசரி வாழ்வை பதிவு செய்கிறது.
2024 ஆம் ஆண்டின் பிரெஞ்சு ஒலிம்பிக்ஸின் கருப்பொருளை பிரதிபலிக்கும் வகையில் தொடங்கப்பட்ட இதன் முதற் பதிப்பில், வீடியோ தொடர்கள் மூன்று பெண் இலங்கை விளையாட்டு வீரர்களின் அவர்களின் அன்றாட வாழ்க்கை வழியாக பின்தொடர்கிறது.பயிற்சிகள் முதல் வீட்டு அன்றாட பொறுப்புகள், தொழில் மற்றும் கல்வி ஆகியவற்றை சமமாக சமாளித்தல் , அவர்களின் வாழ்க்கை, அவர்களின் நடைமுறை
Producer – Thadini Liyanage
Cinematographer – Yoshitha Perera
Sound engineer – Bhanu Ekanayake
Editor – Sandaruwan Abesinghe
Music composed and produced by Hania Mariam Luthufi
Santoor – Marilia Pilti
Viola – Marton Kopcsik
Voice – Hania Mariam Luthufi

https://www.facebook.com/Everystory.SL/videos/4765506710341119

Reading list from everystory:

https://everystorysl.org/blog/september-2024-narrative-reading-list-on-girlhood

The 2024 elections in Sri Lanka: political and economic prospects

Panel discussion organised by ODI, NUS, ISAS

The 2024 elections in Sri Lanka: political and economic prospects

Link: https://odi.org/en/events/the-2024-elections-in-sri-lanka-political-and-economic-prospects/#Speakers

Description

In April 2022, the Sri Lankan government announced a pre-emptive sovereign default on its external debt payments following a balance of payments crisis. The disruption of essential imports and prolonged power cuts led to mass stress protests, forcing the resignation of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July 2022. Subsequently, the new president-elect, Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured a US$3 billion Extended Fund Facility with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September 2022.

Under Wickremesinghe, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)-led government is implementing a stabilisation programme to meet the IMF’s conditionalities. Macroeconomic indicators have improved since 2022, with inflation having eased faster than forecasted and gross official foreign reserves having increased to US$5.6 billion by June 2024. However, the economic hardships faced by most people in Sri Lanka are still extremely high. Data from the World Bank reveals a stark increase in poverty rates, doubling from 13.1 percent in 2021 to 25 percent in 2022. This has added an additional 2.5 million people into poverty in 2022.

It is in this context that the 2024 presidential election is scheduled for 21 September 2024. This is the first election to be held since 2020 and the 2022 people’s protests. The three frontrunner candidates are:

– Ranil Wickremesinghe: Incumbent president, running as an independent candidate, backed by a majority of SLPP members of parliament.

– Sajith Premadasa: Candidate for the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.

– Anura Kumara Dissanayake: Candidate for the National People’s Power (NPP), of which the Communist-Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna is the main party.

All three political camps back the IMF programme to various degrees. There is also some consensus among these parties regarding power devolution as a key means to resolve the ethnic question. There are other smaller political parties and factions, and these will influence the political discourse in the lead-up to elections and after.

This online panel discussion will discuss the various scenarios and anticipated developments in the lead-up to and after the September election.

Speakers

  • Dr Iqbal S Sevea

    Associate Professor Iqbal Singh Sevea (Chairperson)

    Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

  • Ganeshan Wignaraja.png

    Dr Ganeshan Wignaraja

    Visiting Senior Fellow, ODI and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

  • Dirk Willem te Velde.jpg

    Professor Dirk Willem te Velde

    Principal Research Fellow and Director, International Economic Development Group, ODI

  • Professor Nira Wickremesinghe

    Professor Nira Wickremasinghe

    Professor of Modern South Asian Studies, Leiden University, Netherlands

  • Professor C Raja Mohan

    Professor C Raja Mohan

    Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

  • Dr Rajni Gamage

    Dr Rajni Gamage

    Research Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

@Rajni_Gamage

“Compte rendu de l’exposition « Visages de la baie du Bengale » de V. P. Vasuhan” par Alain Cardenas-Castro et Christophe Comentale

L’exposition des œuvres de V. P. Vasuhan a eu lieu du 1er au 27 septembre 2019 à la Galerie Impressions les mercredis de 18 à 21h et les samedis de 14 à 19h.

Le mois de septembre est propice aux retours des événements culturels et des expositions. La galerie Impressions inaugure cette rentrée avec un accrochage singulier intitulé « Visages de la baie du Bengale ». L’exposition propose le regard de deux peintres sur l’état du monde à travers leurs cultures respectives, l’un du Bengladesh et l’autre du Sri-Lanka, V. P. Vasuhan, qui fait l’objet de cette livraison.

via: Sciences & Art contemporain

Online Museum of Memory and Coexistence

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies is pleased to launch its online Museum of Memory and Coexistence.  The museum will seek to celebrate diversity, coexistence, resilience and solidarity, while archiving social exclusion, loss, and personal trauma. 

​​It​ is part of a larger ICES initiative to explore the use of arts, and physical and digital spaces, to facilitate social healing, archive narratives of the past, and build creative spaces for talking about a shared future and non-recurrence.

“Demons in Paradise : thèmes et controverses autour d’un travail de mémoire” par Eric Meyer

Le beau film de Jude Ratnam, actuellement en salle à Paris (à l’Espace Saint Michel), propose au spectateur, à travers une vision personnelle de la montée du militantisme séparatiste tamoul et des violences intestines qui ont opposé ses différentes composantes, une réflexion sur la mémoire d’une communauté confrontée à la tragique défaite des Tigres en 2009.

Les premières images du film, tirées d’actualités de la période coloniale, invitent à un retour en arrière historique. Sri Lanka, l’ancienne Ceylan, a été profondément transformée par un système colonial fondé :
– sur une conquête de l’espace matérialisée par un réseau de transports (le train, omniprésent dans le film) qui a connecté des régions jusque alors séparées, en particulier la ville tamoule de Jaffna, où se déroule une partie du film, avec le sud peuplé en majorité de Cingalais, la capitale coloniale Colombo, et l’ancienne capitale royale Kandy ;
– sur une prise de contrôle de l’économie par une agriculture de grandes plantations surimposée à l’agriculture paysanne cingalaise (une partie du film montre Kandy et les régions qui l’entourent, où se situent les grandes plantations de thé fondées sur le travail servile des coolies tamouls) ;
– et sur une domination culturelle et politique par l’imposition de l’anglais, langue du colonisateur, devenue en même temps un instrument de communication entre des groupes locuteurs de deux langues très distinctes, le cingalais parlé par 75% de la population, et le tamoul par 25%.

Ce qui conduit à la matière de la première partie du film, la discrimination dont ont été victimes après l’indépendance (1948) les minorités de langue tamoule (hindouistes, chrétiennes, musulmanes), majoritaires dans le nord-est de l’île, mais minoritaires dans le centre et le sud, confrontées à l’affirmation de l’identité majoritaire des Cingalais bouddhistes. Elle s’est traduite par l’abandon de la langue anglaise au profit du seul cingalais comme langue officielle en 1956, et par une succession de violences, en 1958, 1977 et 1983. Le film donne à entendre et à voir ces marqueurs identitaires que sont les langues, mais aussi les vêtements et les signes corporels. L’usage différentiel de ces trois langues, anglais, tamoul, et cingalais, selon le registre émotionnel ou discursif, et selon les interlocuteurs, y est d’une grande subtilité et authenticité. Les stratégies d’effacement (celui du pottu), ou de travestissement linguistique ou vestimentaire que devaient adopter pour leur survie les victimes de persécutions sont un thème récurrent du film.

La rupture du lien symbolique et pratique entre Cingalais et Tamouls qu’était la langue anglaise a correspondu à la rupture du lien matériel constitué par la ligne de chemin de fer reliant Colombo à Jaffna : ce train qui avait permis l’exode du narrateur enfant fuyant le pogrom de Colombo en 1983, et dont les images de wagons rouillés, envahis par la végétation, de gares dévastées, et de rails coupés, envahissent l’écran. Rupture dans l’espace, mais aussi dans le temps : le travail de mémoire de l’enfant devenu adulte et père à son tour passe par la reconstitution de ces fragments d’un passé où l’exode en train vers Jaffna occupe une place obsédante.

Mais cette mémoire personnelle s’inscrit dans une mémoire collective qui rend compte de l’adhésion de la population tamoule au projet indépendantiste de l’Eelam Tamoul. Comme le montre le film, ce sont les violences dont ont été victimes les Tamouls de Colombo et de Kandy qui l’ont rendue irrésistible. Le film convoque la puissance de l’image en mettant en scène le témoignage de l’auteur de la photographie devenue célèbre d’un homme nu martyrisé à Colombo en juillet 1983 par une bande hilare : l’interrogation sur la banalité du mal qui s’amorce ici va se poursuivre dans la seconde partie du film dans un autre contexte.

La montée du militantisme des Tamouls du nord en réponse à la violence de 1983 est le fait d’une multitude de groupes, pour la plupart basés dans la péninsule de Jaffna, qui s’arment pour protéger leur communauté. Ils se différencient par leur origine sociale (de classe ou de caste) et par leur stratégie plus que par leur idéologie : très vite ils luttent entre eux pour la suprématie du mouvement de libération, tandis que les services secrets de l’Union Indienne appuient et cherchent à manipuler certains groupes, avant d’intervenir directement en 1987 avec l’envoi d’un corps expéditionnaire. Les ‘Tigres de Libération de l’Eelam Tamoul’, qui privilégiaient l’action violente immédiate et excluaient tout accord avec l’Inde, s’imposent par la force face aux autres groupes (TELO, PLOTE etc) qu’ils éliminent physiquement ou absorbent. Ils mènent d’abord une lutte victorieuse contre l’armée et la police du gouvernement de Colombo, et contre le corps expéditionnaire indien. Ils prennent en 1990 le contrôle de Jaffna et y font régner leur loi : ils cherchent à rendre irréversible la séparation des deux parties du pays, et à empêcher hommes et femmes en âge de combattre de quitter le nord : un épisode du film montre symboliquement comment ils contraignent les candidats à la fuite à scier les rails de la ligne.

L’exode des jeunes Tamouls hors de Sri Lanka, qui avait commencé en 1983 pour fuir la répression du gouvernement et des groupes extrémistes cingalais, se double alors de l’exode de ceux qui fuient la conscription forcée des Tigres : tout ceci nourrit une diaspora tamoule qui aujourd’hui constitue, en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, une communauté transnationale aussi nombreuse que celle qui est restée à Jaffna ; le film montre comment ces deux communautés communiquent – notamment par Skype – mais aussi comment s’amorce un travail de mémoire, après trente ans de violence.

C’est alors que s’impose dans la seconde partie la figure tutélaire de celui que le réalisateur appelle son oncle, dont le douloureux travail de mémoire donne au film des accents d’émotion intense, lorsqu’il retouve les Cingalais qui ont abrité sa famille durant les émeutes – un comportement qui n’a pas été exceptionnel -, lorsqu’il évoque l’accès de démence de sa mère, et lorsqu’il se remémore les camarades qui ont été assassinés pour l’avoir protégé. Manoranjan, aujourd’hui journaliste réfugié au Canada, a en effet milité dans un groupe annihilé par les Tigres. Il s’interroge sur l’échec final de la lutte indépendantiste, qu’il attribue à la stratégie des Tigres et à l’effet des luttes fratricides entre factions rivales. Le questionnement s’approfondit et rejoint la réflexion sur la banalité du mal amorcée au sujet du pogrom de 1983, lorsque d’anciens militants rappellent l’attitude des spectateurs tamouls lors du massacre par les Tigres des militants du TELO, et finalement lorsqu’ils retrouvent autour d’un feu des survivants des différents groupes, y compris d’anciens Tigres, qui rejettent la responsabilité de la défaite sur l’opportunisme de la population tamoule.

On comprend que le film ait fait l’objet de violentes critiques de la part de Tamouls de la diaspora restés attachés à une image idéalisée de la lutte indépendantiste. Il est vrai que la reconstitution de cette histoire s’arrête en quelque sorte au début des années 1990 avec l’élimination par les Tigres de la plupart des groupes rivaux. Le film n’évoque pratiquement pas les années 1995 à 2009, qui ont vu le repli des Tigres vers le réduit de la région de Wanni après cinq ans de domination absolue de Jaffna, la militarisation de la société tamoule et la tragédie finale qu’a été de janvier à mai 2009, l’extermination par l’armée sri-lankaise des combattants Tigres et de ceux qui les avaient suivis, puis l’enfermement durant deux ans dans des camps de rétention de près de 300.000 civils. Il ne montre pas les exactions de la police ni l’armée sri lankaise, et en sont absents les moines bouddhistes extrémistes qui s’affichent aujourd’hui contre les musulmans de l’île après s’être opposés à toute concession aux revendications tamoules. L’absence de ces images ne permet donc pas de comprendre les blessures inguérissables et le ressentiment durable des Tamouls, en particulier en diaspora.
Le film ne montre pas non plus les attentats suicides perpétrés par les Tigres à Colombo, notamment par des jeunes femmes, après 1995, et la souffrance des civils du Sud touchés par leurs méthodes de terreur : l’attitude belliciste de la majorité de la population cingalaise peut donc échapper à la compréhension du spectateur.

Au fond, le propos du cinéaste n’était pas de produire un documentaire détaché prétendant à l’objectivité, mais plutôt de proposer le témoignage intime d’un douloureux travail de mémoire, et une réflexion indispensable, mais difficile, sur les dérives de l’action militante. Comme il le suggère en expliquant avoir donné à son fils un nom tamoul qui évoque le troisième œil du dieu Shiva, il ambitionne de voir plus loin, au delà des apparences.

Dans le corpus des films et des écrits récents ayant pour thème la guerre civile sri-lankaise et l’exode qui s’en est suivi, Demons in Paradise occupe une place à part. Comme Ini Avan d’Asoka Handagama (2012) il met en scène le retour à Jaffna d’acteurs du conflit, mais vu de l’intérieur et non de l’extérieur, sous forme de témoignage direct et non dans le cadre d’une fiction. Il ne s’agit pas non plus d’un film sur le traumatisme de l’exil comme le très médiatisé Dheepan de Jacques Audiard (2015), ou les plus authentiques et subtils films de Pradeepan Raveendran (Shadows of Silence, 2010, en attendant la sortie prévue en 2018 de Soundless Dance), ou encore les remarquables œuvres romanesques de Shobasakthi (l’acteur de Dheepan), dont un choix de nouvelles vient de paraître en traduction française (Friday et Friday, Paris, éditions Zulma, avril 2018). En revanche Demons in Paradise fait écho à l’ouvrage profond de l’anthropologue Sharika Thiranagama (fille d’une militante tamoule assassinée par les Tigres en 1989), paru à Philadelphie en 2011 sous le titre In my Mother’s House, ainsi qu’à l’article qu’elle a consacré au chemin de fer de Jaffna publié en 2012 dans la revue Modern Asian Studes sous le titre : « A Railway to the Moon »

New articles on religiosity among Tamil Hindu youths in Norway by Valen Kleive

Hildegunn Valen Kleive has recently published two articles (one in English and another in Norwegian) looking at religiosity among young Tamil Hindus in rural Norway.

The first (in English), ‘Belonging and Discomfort: Young Hindu Religiosity in Rural Norway’ is published in the Nordic Journal of Religion and Society and may be accessed here.

The second ‘Mestring og balanse. Trekk ved ung hindureligiøsitet’ is published in Prismet and may be accessed here. An English translation will follow at a later date.

“Review of ‘Indians in Singapore 1819-1945’ of Rajesh Rai” by Sagnik Dutta

“The diverse factors that shaped the emergence of the Indian diaspora in the colonial period have aroused the interest of historians and anthropologists alike. While a sizable body of literature emerged in the early 1990s on the economic aspects of migration, linking it to colonial exploitation, more recent studies have brought out its sociocultural aspects. Some recent studies have focussed on the notions of hybridity, dislocation and transnationalism to outline the complex forces that shape the lived social realities of migrant experience.

Rajesh Rai’s Indians in Singapore 1819-1945 makes a significant contribution to this aspect. The book draws on the official and unofficial records available in the state archives in Britain, Malaysia, India and Singapore; newspaper reports; and observer accounts in the 19th century. The author conjures up an encyclopaedic view of the port city’s evolution through several turbulent periods in history, including the First World War. The book successfully traces the dynamic interaction between political events and sociocultural processes that shaped the lives of the Indian diaspora in Singapore and the emergence of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious urban space through varied interactions between diverse communities. The book is divided into three parts.”

via: http://www.frontline.in/books/diaspora-dynamics/article6718913.ece

source: Frontline

“Representing the Unrepresentable: Contemporary “Sri Lankan” Art” by Sinthujan Varatharajah

“Serendipity Revealed” is an exhibition of modern art from Sri Lanka currently showing at Brunei Gallery in the heart of London. It is an exhibition that, in its own words, tries to tell Sri Lanka’s untold stories through the island’s “foremost and emerging contemporary artists.” Annoushka Hempel, the exhibit’s London-born curator — and who I assume is not Sri Lankan — presents the country’s diverse arts scenes as having thrived in the shadows of war despite little international recognition.

via: http://warscapes.com/reviews/representing-unrepresentable-contemporary-sri-lankan-art

Lien pour écouter la conférence “Cinéma sri-lankais : Autonomie et engagement de la nouvelle génération” organisée à la BULAC le 23 janvier 2014

La BULAC vient de mettre en ligne sur son site Internet un lien pour écouter la conférence “Cinéma sri-lankais : Autonomie et engagement de la nouvelle génération” organisée le 23 janvier 2014 à l’auditorium de la BULAC. La présentation de Vilasnee Tampoe-Hautin sur “le cinéma sri lankais et conflits socio-politiques” et les discussions entre les intervenants (Pradeepan Raveendran, Laurent Aléonard, Vilasnee Tampoe-Hautin, Éric Meyer et Delon Madavan) et le public peuvent-être écouter gratuitement.

via: http://www.bulac.fr/conferencesrencontres/rencontres-autour-du-livre/cinema-sri-lankais/

source: www.bulac.fr

 

Universities Address the Concerns of Post-War Northern Fishing Communities and the Palk Bay Indian Trawler Problem

The Universities of Jaffna and Ruhuna co-organised an international workshop on the challenges facing the long suffering fishing communities in Northern Sri Lanka. The workshop discussed the findings of a two year long research project on the Palk Bay fishing problem with the partnership of the University of Jaffna, University of Ruhuna, the Madras Institute of Development Studies and the University of Amsterdam. The workshop on this issue of national importance was inaugurated by Prof. Vasanthi Arasaratnam, Vice Chancellor, University of Jaffna and Prof. Susirith Mendis, Vice Chancellor, University of Ruhuna, and drew the participation of administrators, academics, researchers and representatives of the fishing community.

The primary focus of the workshop was to address the economic devastation facing the Northern Sri Lankan fishing community. This community, which was unable to go to the seas during the war, continues to suffer from the impact of Indian trawlers on Northern waters. Great financial losses due to the destruction of fishing nets and inability to go to sea when trawlers are present, as well as serious damage to ecological resources were all issues discussed at the workshop.

Fisher leaders of Northern Sri Lanka have voiced appreciation of this inter-university effort to address the Indian Trawler problem, with which they have been grappling since the end of the war. The workshop underlines the importance of multi-disciplinary research and multi-tiered dialogue for generating appropriate solutions. This initiative appeals to the Governments of Sri Lanka and India, academics, opinion makers and all relevant actors to address the issue with urgency.

For further information and interviews please contact Prof. A. S. Soosai, University of Jaffna, Phone: 0770842761.