CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Lecamwasam, Hasini Maheshika |
|---|---|
| Title | National Integration in Sri Lanka: Capital Accumulation, Spatial Politics, Intermarriages, and Religion in Nation-Building Among the Kandyan Sinhalese |
| Summary | The evolution of the ‘Kandyans’ of Sri Lanka, now considered a subsect of the country’s Sinhalese majority, presents an intriguing puzzle that is exemplified by their demand for federal autonomy as recently as 1927 and their current political stance of being strongly aligned with the unitary power arrangement of the state, less than a century after the initial federal demand. What makes this shift of attitude even more interesting is the lack of a visible political or economic incentive for the Kandyans to have become subsumed under the Sinhalese identity, given that colonial favour mostly lay with non-Kandyan Sinhalese (known as low-country Sinhalese) who became immensely rich and powerful under colonial rule, and that consequently, Kandyan elites were more or less excluded from political power in post-colonial Sri Lanka as well. Kandy’s absorption into the mainstream political culture in Sri Lanka is interesting not only because of the strong sentiments of distinction felt and expressed by Kandyans initially, but also because of the entirely opposite trajectory taken by Tamil nationalism, which was also a nationalist movement in Sri Lanka that emerged in the wake of the colonial period. In order to explore this puzzle, the present study develops along lines of capital accumulation, spatial rearrangement and representation of political power, intermarriages, and religion as a binding factor, which are shown to be constituent – and intertwined – parts of the process of Kandy’s political identity being diluted over time. It employs a research methodology of the post-positivist tradition, relying on archival material, other secondary sources such as books and papers, as well as some field observations. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/lecamwasam_hasini.pdf |
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