“The Portuguese Burghers of Sri Lanka” by Earl Barthelot (Ceylon Digest)

Sketch of baila dancers from frescoes at the Purvarama Vihara, Kataluwa (1886)

We would like to share a link to read an article written by “The Portuguese Burghers of Sri Lanka” by Earl Barthelot for Ceylon Digest.

Sri Lanka is well known for its diversity with over 22 numerically small communities and majority communities such as Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. Burgher community is one of the numerically small communities. Large proportions of the Burghers do live in the Batticaloa District and a small proportion live both in Trincomalee and Ampara District. At the same time there are Portuguese Burghers living in all parts of the country in small numbers.

 

“Eelamarasu Times: How a revolutionary movement gave rise to a Tamil press in Paris” by Delon Madavan and Anthony Goreau-Ponceaud (Dvar magazine)

In his inaugural release, Dvar magazine has published “Eelamarasu Times: How a revolutionary movement gave rise to a Tamil press in Paris“, a condensed translation of an academic article, authored by Dr Anthony Goreau-Ponceaud and Dr Delon Madavan published in Paris, Capitale Polyphonique
 
About the authors:
Since 2008, Anthony has been engaged in research on the Tamil diaspora, examining the trajectories and experiences of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, particularly in Tamil Nadu, South India.
Delon was born in France to parents originally from Jaffna, Sri Lanka. For the past twenty years, Delon’s research has focused on migration, identity and integration of Tamil populations in several cities around the world (Jaffna, Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Paris and Montreal).

“Little Jaffna: A first-of-its-kind Franco-Tamil thriller” by Amruta (Dvar)

A new magazine/newsletter Dvar – a progressive English -language cultural publication dedicated to amplifying the voice of South Asians across Europe has been launched this month.

Amoung the first articles of the Dvar you can a read a review of Lawrence Valin’s  ‘Little Jaffna’ film. The review was written by Amruta the Editor of Dvar

 

“Dynamics of Tamil Urban Ethnoterritories in Diaspora” Video Podcast of Delon Madavan’s presentation during Cornell University’s South Asian Program Seminar (2020) 

We would like to share the online video presentation on “Dynamics of Tamil Urban Ethnoterritories in Diaspora (Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Singapore)” given by Delon Madavan on Monday October 5th at 11.15AM (New York time)/ 5.15 PM (Paris time).
Sharika Thiranagama was the respondent for this presentation.
This online event was hosted by the South Asia Program of Cornell University

About the Seminar:

Studying the ties and practices that bind Tamils to the districts they inhabit or visit is essential to understand the ways Tamils use and transform space in diaspora. The territorialization of Tamil identity, that is, their spatial extension and the continuation of their socio-cultural practices, is not always immediately visible in multi-ethnic cities in which Tamils are a minority. Tamils transform those spaces where they are dominant according to their own cultural and social practices and establish venues conducive to social interactions. Furthermore, the polarization of space and the dynamics of identity networks explains the various attitudes of Tamils towards the social frequentation of certain areas. Finally, the presence and role of places of sociability, such as religious, cultural or commercial establishments, are essential to understand Tamils’ relationship with locality and thus the reasons for which these districts are recognized or not as “Tamil” by Tamils themselves. With specific examples drawn from fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Paris, this paper shows that the affirmation of Tamil identity and the constitution of Tamil ‘ethnoterritories’ in certain areas is not only the outcome of Tamil action but also the consequence of state-sponsored urban planning policies, such as eradication of slums, gentrification and heritagization of specific zones, and the frequentation of these zones by non-Tamil migrants.

About the Speaker:

Delon Madavan was the Tamil Studies Visiting Scholar at Cornell’s South Asia Program in Spring 2020. He completed his PhD in Geography at Paris-Sorbonne University (France) in 2013. He has taught at the Department of Geography at Sorbonne University and also gave lectures at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris. Madavan is Researcher Fellow at the Centre of Studies and Researches on India, South Asia and its Diaspora (University of Québec à Montréal, Canada) and Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of Studies and Researches on India and South Asia (CNRS-EHESS, France). In his research, he examines the articulation between migration, identity and space to analyze forms of integration of the Tamil populations in several cities (Jaffna, Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Paris & Montréal). Madavan is the author and co-author of several articles and books on Tamils in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and France.

About the Respondent: 

Sharika Thiranagama, is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. Her research explores the intersection of political mobilization and domestic life, focusing on highly fraught contexts of violence, inequality, and intense political mobilization. Her major work has been on the Sri Lankan civil war and research with two different minority ethnic groups, Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims, exploring the ways in which militancy, political violence and large-scale displacement became folded into intergenerational transmissions of memory and ethnic identification. Most recently, in new fieldwork on Dalit communities in Kerala, South India, she examines how communist led political mobilization reconfigured older caste identities, re-entrenching caste inequities into new kinds of private neighborhood life. She focuses on the household as the prime site of the inheritance of work, stigma and servitude as well as the possibility of reproduction, dignity and social mobility. She is the author of “In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

 

“Renuka Urapola, du Sri Lanka : “Tout était différent mais j’ai tout accepté. J’ai dit : je vais combattre”” Emission de radio “Parcours de Combattants” de France Inter

Nous partageons un lien de l’émission de radio “Parcours de combattants” de France Inter qui revient sur le parcours migratoire et l’intégration de Renuka Urapola. Delon Madavan y intervient pour revenir sur les dynamiques migratoires et l importance de la scolarisation pour les communautés sri lankaises.

Ses mots
“A l’arrivée, tout était difficile : la vie sociale, la vie économique, être séparée de la famille… Je n’avais personne ici.”
Sur M. Bogorad : “Les conseils qu’il m’a donnés, c’était immense. Pour réussir ma vie et réussir les études de mes enfants, il était là. Il avait les réponses pour toutes les questions.”
“Quand on vit dans un pays étranger, on est entre deux cultures. Ce n’est pas facile pour nous et pour les enfants. Ils sont nés en France, ils ont grandi en France, avec les Français, il y a des choses qui nous conviennent, d’autres non. Mes enfants nous ont toujours écoutés. Je suis une maman très heureuse.”

L’ouvrage ” Les minorités tamoules à Colombo, Kuala Lumpur et Singapour : identités, intégrations socio-spatiales et transnationalités” de Delon Madavan est disponible dans la collection Géographie & Cultures chez L’Harmattan

“Lives in exile? Perspectives on the resettlements of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu, India” by Anthony Goreau-Ponceaud

anthony’s Goreau-Ponceaud’s article’s “Lives in exile? Perspectives on the resettlements of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu, India” published in World Development Volume 180, August 2024 is readable for free there

Abstract

This article looks at subjectivities and regimes of homing from a position of liminality and questions the placements dynamics displayed by Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu, India. Based on long-term and longitudinal fieldwork conducted in Keezhputhupattu refugee camp near Pondicherry between 2010 and 2023, this study analyses the experience of the refugees, which combines a “know-how” that they have developed due to a life in exile since 1983, which is linked, among other things, to a sometimes well-developed diasporic network; and a restrictive agency that has been granted to them by the Indian and Tamil Nadu authorities, which places them in a regime that is intended to be exceptional. The results of the study are significant and show how families spanning three generations may reproduce their new normalcy and negotiate their lives.

Conférences populaires 2024-2025 : Immigration et Interculturalité : Apports, clichés et folklorisation

Échange entre Ya-Han Chuang, sociologue et Delon Madavan, géographe, sur les migrations chinoises et tamoules en France et sur les spécificités des racismes qui touchent ces populations, de l’invisibilisation de ces communautés et de leur instrumentalisation à des fins politiques.

Mardi 8 avril à 19 h
Espace presse de la médiathèque du centre-ville de Ivry-sur-Seine (94). Entrée libre.

Article sur les femmes migrantes travailleuses domestiques

Women Migrant Workers and Market Forces: Toward an Inter-disciplinary Representation of Female Labor Migration

In: Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference

Nadeera Rajapakse

Abstract
The economic literature on labor migration has incorporated insights from various disciplines with regard to content and method, although the representation of migrants has not fully moved away from the neoliberal, market-dominated framework. This paper addresses the issue of women migrant workers using the particular example of Sri Lankan migrant women workers to the Middle East. It aims to highlight the need for more diversity in economic research without which conceptual representation, as well as empirical reach, is limited. After a brief overview of the representation of migrants in economic literature, I develop the concept of vulnerability. I refer to qualitative and quantitative analyses on Sri Lankan migrant women workers to the Middle East from a variety of disciplines in order to differentiate the “vulnerable,” that is, the workers in need of protection, from the “vulnerabilities.” The latter concept refers to the debilitating effects on workers, produced by market forces, which are often perpetuated by underlying assumptions, as well as policies. A broader, inter-disciplinary perspective, which considers the agency of women, can go a long way toward removing some of the limitations and preconceptions ingrained in most economic representation. This in turn could help to improve the protection of the vulnerable and empower them to better face market forces.

“Talking Tamil, Talking Saivism: Language practices in a Tamil Hindu temple in Australia” by Nirukshi Perera

Nirukshi (Niru) Perera has completed her PhD at the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia).

The thesis  – Talking Tamil, Talking Saivism: Language practices in a Tamil Hindu temple in Australia – is available to read here.

Sum up

Hinduism is growing in its influence and significance both in Australia and internationally. The development of India as a superpower and the rise of Hindu nationalism in India are indicators of this growing influence.

In Australia all censuses since 2001 point to Hinduism as the fastest-growing non-Christian religion yet the phenomena of Hinduism in Australia is relatively under researched. Furthermore, non-white immigration and multiculturalism are once more under the spotlight in Australia with the government’s proposed changes to the English language requirements for citizenship, and with the recent release of the 2016 census results. The figure for the number of people who speak Tamil at home has grown by 45% since the 2011 census, and is now approximately 74,000 people. This means that for the part of the Australian population that speaks a language other than English at home, Tamil is the 13th top language.

Therefore, this research is a timely report on the experiences of Sri Lankan migrants and a focus on the role that language and religion play in their lives in Australia and in the formation of identities for the second- and third- generation. In fact, this is the first thesis to focus on the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Australia.

Niru conducted an ethnographic study in a Tamil Hindu temple to investigate what languages are used in the temple space and to show how the temple, as a religious institution, is helping migrants to maintain and transmit the Tamil language and Saiva religion to the next generation.

The study found that the temple has a positive influence on the development of young Tamils’ religious, ethnic and linguistic identities and it provides a safe space for children to use Tamil in a new way. This new way is termed “translanguaging” and it allows for children to use all their languages often resulting in speech that mixes Tamil and English. While English is generally their stronger language, their use of Tamil in translanguaging is evidence of the significant influence of their heritage religion and culture in their contemporary Australian lives.

“Respectable Gentlemen and Street-Savvy Men: HIV Vulnerability in Sri Lanka” by Sandya Hewamanne in Medical Anthropology

We are glad to provide a link for e prints for Sandya Hewamanne’s new article in Medical Anthropology on HIV vulnerability and migrant workers in Sri Lanka.
In this article, the author investigates how particular discourses surrounding class specific understandings of sexual behavior and female morality shape awareness and views of the disease and personal vulnerability. Although both groups belong to the working class, those employed by the transportation board consider themselves government servants and, therefore, “respectable gentlemen.” Construction workers identify easily with their class position, recognizing and sometimes trying to live up to the stereotypes of free sexuality. These different perceptions directly affect their concern and awareness of risk factors for sexually transmissible infections and safe-sex practices. While the “respectable gentlemen” consider themselves invulnerable, the “street-savvy men” learned about risks and took precautions to prevent STIs.

Author information

Sandya Hewamanne

Sandya Hewamanne is the author of Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone: Gender and Politics in Sri Lanka (2008) and Sri Lanka’s Global Factory Workers: (Un) Disciplined Desires and Sexual Struggles in a Post-colonial Society (2016). She teaches anthropology at the University of Essex, United Kingdom.

Report on “Exploitation in Qatar of workers from Sri Lanka and other Asian countries” by Amnesty International

Amnesty International has issued a new report entitled:  “The Dark Side of Migration:  Spotlight on Qatar’s construction sector ahead of the World Cup.”  The report reveals routine and widespread abuse of migrant labor in Qatar’s construction industry, in some cases amounting to forced labor.  Workers in Qatar’s construction industry come from Sri Lanka and other Asian countries.  For more information, please see http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/qatar-end-corporate-exploitation-migrant-construction-workers-2013-11-17

If anyone has information on any diaspora organizations working on behalf of Sri Lankan migrant workers in the Middle East, I’d appreciate hearing about them.
For more information on Amnesty’s concerns in Sri Lanka, please visit amnestyusa.org/srilanka.
Jim McDonald
Sri Lanka Country Specialist
Amnesty International USA