Women and The Nation’s Narrative : Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Sri Lanka

This book explores the development of nationalism in Sri Lanka during the past century, particularly with in the dominant Sinhala Buddhist and militant Tamil movements. Tracing the ways women from diverse backgrounds have engaged with nationalism, Neloufer de Mel argues that gender is crucial to an understanding of nationlism and vice versa. Traversing both the colonial and postcolonial periods in Sri Lanka’s history, the author assesses a range of writers, activists, political figures and movements. With her rigorous, historically located analyses, de Mel makes a persuasive case for the connection between figures like stage actress Annie Boteju and intellectual Anil de Silva; poetry written by Jean Arasanayagam or Tamil revolutionary women; and political movements like the LTTE, the JVP, the Mothers’ Front, and contemporary feminist organisations. Evaluating the colonial period in the light of the violence that animates Sri Lanka today, de Mel proposes what Bruce Robbins has termed a "lateral cosmopolitanism" that will allow coalitions to form and to practice an oppositional politics of peace. In the process, she examines the gendered forms through which the nation and the state both come together and pull apart.