{"title":"Narrating Civil Conflict in Post-war Sri Lanka: Counter Memory, Working-through and Implications for North-South Solidarity","authors":"V. Perera","doi":"10.13169/statecrime.11.2.0172","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines survivor/witness narratives of the Sri Lankan civil conflict (1983–2009) and their potential as counter-memories that contest and challenge authorized history dictated by the state. In situating the significance of these narratives the article draws on the prevailing conditions in post-conflict Sri Lanka, especially the surveillance and intimidation against public memory in the former war regions and the dominance of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism within state power. In orientation, the study is future-oriented and is preoccupied with how survivor narratives can be utilized to strengthen reconciliation and solidarity among different victim groups. It advocates for survivor/witness narratives to be incorporated as classroom material and for frameworks that appreciate comparative readings of conflict to be developed and adopted.","PeriodicalId":42457,"journal":{"name":"State Crime","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"State Crime","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.13169/statecrime.11.2.0172","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article examines survivor/witness narratives of the Sri Lankan civil conflict (1983–2009) and their potential as counter-memories that contest and challenge authorized history dictated by the state. In situating the significance of these narratives the article draws on the prevailing conditions in post-conflict Sri Lanka, especially the surveillance and intimidation against public memory in the former war regions and the dominance of Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism within state power. In orientation, the study is future-oriented and is preoccupied with how survivor narratives can be utilized to strengthen reconciliation and solidarity among different victim groups. It advocates for survivor/witness narratives to be incorporated as classroom material and for frameworks that appreciate comparative readings of conflict to be developed and adopted.