The changing<i>Amman:</i>notes on the injury of war in Eastern Sri Lanka

Lawrence, Patricia

doi:10.1080/00856409708723312

Cited by 23 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Family and social support, networks, relationships and the sense of community appear to be a vital protective factor for the individual and their families and important in their recovery. Cultural rituals and practices, like the North American Sweat Lodge ceremony [19], thuku kavadi in Northern Lanka [20] and Eastern Lankan oracle tradition [21], can heal and provide meaning to suffering after trauma. It is also becoming clear that social and cultural values, beliefs and perceptions will shape how traumatic events impact on the individual, family and community and the way they respond [22,23] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rebuilding community resilience in a post-war context: developing insight and recommendations - a qualitative study in Northern Sri Lanka

Somasundaram

Sivayokan

2013

Int J Ment Health Syst

123

105

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BackgroundIndividuals, families and communities in Northern Sri Lanka have undergone three decades of war trauma, multiple displacements, and loss of family, kin, friends, homes, employment and other valued resources. The objective of the study was understanding common psychosocial problems faced by families and communities, and the associated risk and protective factors, so that practical and effective community based interventions can be recommended to rebuild strengths, adaptation, coping strategies and resilience.MethodsThis qualitative, ecological study is a psychosocial ethnography in post-war Northern Sri Lanka obtained through participant observation; case studies; key- informant interviews; and focus groups discussions with mental health and psychosocial community workers as well as literature survey of media and organizational reports. Qualitative analysis of the data used ethnography, case studies, phenomenology, grounded theory, hermeneutics and symbolic interactionism techniques. Quantitative data on suicide was collected for Jaffna and Killinochchi districts.ResultsComplex mental health and psychosocial problems at the individual, family and community levels in a post-war context were found to impair recovery. These included unresolved grief; individual and collective trauma; insecurity, self-harm and suicides; poverty and unemployment; teenage and unwanted pregnancies; alcoholism; child abuse and neglect; gender based violence and vulnerability including domestic violence, widows and female headed-household, family conflict and separation; physical injuries and handicap; problems specific for children and elderly; abuse and/or neglect of elderly and disabled; anti-social and socially irresponsible behaviour; distrust, hopelessness, and powerlessness. Protective factors included families; female leadership and engagement; cultural and traditional beliefs, practices and rituals; and creative potential in narratives, drama and other arts. Risk factors that were impeding community rehabilitation and recovery included continuing military governance, depletion of social capital particularly lack of trust, hope and socio-economic opportunity structures for development that would engender a sense of collective efficacy.ConclusionsIn view of the widespread trauma at the individual, family and collective levels, community based programmes to increase local awareness, knowledge and skills to deal with common mental health and psychosocial issues; and training of community level workers and others in basic mental health and psychosocial problem solving are recommended to rebuild family and community agency and resilience. The use of cultural practices and school based programmes would rekindle community processes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rebuilding community resilience in a post-war context: developing insight and recommendations - a qualitative study in Northern Sri Lanka

Somasundaram

Sivayokan

2013

Int J Ment Health Syst

123

105

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“…Batticaloa, or in Tamil Mattakkalappu (meaning 'muddy lagoon'), a district situated halfway down the east coast of Sri Lanka, has been one of the most disrupted and devastated areas of the island since the conflict started in the early 1980s (Lawrence 1999(Lawrence , 2000McGilvray 2008;Walker 2013b). Framed on either side by the sea and the lagoon, the district forms part of the Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka that the militant group, the LTTE, drawn from the island's minority Tamil-speaking population, sought to secure and establish as a separate state, which they called 'Tamil Eelam'.…”

Section: Batticaloa and The Valkai Groupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absent bodies and present memories: marking out the everyday and the future in Eastern Sri Lanka

Walker¹

2014

Identities

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Drawing from ethnographic work carried out between 2005 and 2007, this article considers the ways in which a women's network has developed strategies to find meaning around the absences of loved ones, killed or 'disappeared' during the decades of conflict in Sri Lanka. For most of these women, the fate of their husbands, brothers, sons and fathers is not known and the lack of answers means that they are unable to fully grieve and find closure. In order to survive, they must find ways to deal with the absent bodies and present memories of those who may never be located and accounted for. These strategies include tree-planting ceremonies carried out as a way of not only remembering and mourning loved ones but also asking questions about how one makes sense of loss and what it means to carry the burden of unanswered absences through everyday life and into the future.

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“…To understand this part of the dynamic, we need to reflect on what could be called the world-making properties of temples in both locations. Patricia Lawrence, writing at the height of the civil war, has provided gripping descriptions of the ways in which female religious specialists were able to rework space to create enclaves in which the unspoken losses of the war could be safely articulated (Lawrence 1997, 2000). Whitaker, in his article on temples in Toronto, talks of Sri Lankan temples during the war as ‘at once, centres of local, moral landscapes, and .…”

Section: Conclusion: Shadow Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hindu temples had flourished, as had the new Pentecostal churches, through the years of war, albeit as spaces people retreated into for solace and healing, rather than as institutions from which leaders could emerge. But the kovils were not simply sites of healing (as documented in Patricia Lawrence's extraordinary ethnography from the 1990s (Lawrence 1997)); they were also places where a rather different kind of politics, the jostling for honour, continued to play out in the shadow of war (Whitaker 1997a). Most importantly the kovils , which are by some measure the biggest and most spectacular corporate institutions in local Tamil life in Eastern Sri Lanka, somehow managed to position themselves ‘outside’ the war, and for most of the time, equally ‘outside’ the hegemonic project of the LTTE, which sought to control all other aspects of Tamil life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You Can Do Anything With a Temple’: Religion, philanthropy, and politics in South London and Sri Lanka

Maunaguru¹,

Spencer²

2018

Mod. Asian Stud.

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Our title quotation is taken from an interview with the chief trustee of a leading Hindu temple in south London, and captures the curious mixture of philanthropy, politics, and individual ambition that has emerged around Sri Lankan Tamil temples in the diaspora. During the long years of civil war, temples became centres of mobilization for the growing Tamil diaspora, and were often accused of channelling funds to the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and its various front organizations. Since the end of the war, in 2009, the same temples now support orphanages and other good works in Sri Lanka, and their efforts are starting to be emulated by temples in Sri Lanka itself. At the heart of our article is a dispute between the UK Charity Commission and the chief trustee of a London temple, who is accused of misuse of temple funds and ‘failure to dissociate’ the temple from a terrorist organization. A close reading of the case and its unexpected denouement reveals the difficulties of bounding the zone of philanthropy.

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The changingAmman:notes on the injury of war in Eastern Sri Lanka

Cited by 23 publications

References 4 publications

Rebuilding community resilience in a post-war context: developing insight and recommendations - a qualitative study in Northern Sri Lanka

Rebuilding community resilience in a post-war context: developing insight and recommendations - a qualitative study in Northern Sri Lanka

Absent bodies and present memories: marking out the everyday and the future in Eastern Sri Lanka

‘You Can Do Anything With a Temple’: Religion, philanthropy, and politics in South London and Sri Lanka

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