Fishing, Mobility and Settlerhood
Coastal Socialities in Postwar Sri Lanka
Authors: Siriwardane-de Zoysa, Rapti
Free Preview- One of the first postwar anthropological studies of northeast Sri Lanka, that focuses explicitly on the politics of everyday life in counterinsurgent environments
- Presents empirical advances in the study of co-operation and conflict processes among "deeply divided societies"
- Appeals to a broad range of sub-disciplines through its integrative approach to studying co-operation, and by engaging with conceptual gaps inherent within collective action research and moral economy approaches
- Paves the way for a new thematic research agenda broadly termed as the micro-politics of everyday co-operation
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- About this book
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This multi-sited island ethnography illustrates how the embattled politics of (im)mobility, belonging, and patronage among coastal fishing communities in Sri Lanka´s militarised northeast have intersected in the wake of civil war. It explores an undertheorized puzzle by asking how the conceptual dualisms between co-operation and contestation simplify the complex lifeworlds of small-scale fishing communities that are often imagined by scholars through allegories of rivalry and resource competition.
Drawing on ordinary interpretations and lived practices implicated in the vernacular term sambandam (bearing multiple meanings of intimacy and entanglement), the book traces how intergroup co-operation is both affectively routinised and tactically instrumentalised across coastlines, and at sea. Given its distinct focus on translocal and ethno-religiously plural collectives, the study maps recent historic formations of diverse practices and their contentions, from networked ‘piracy’ and dynamite fishing, to collective rescue missions and coalitional lobbying.
Moreover this work serves as an open invitation to academics, policymakers and activists for re-imagining multiple modes of ethical being and doing, and of everyday sociality among so-called ‘deeply divided’ societies.
A rich ethnography that pays meticulous attention to a complex social fabric made up of locals, settlers and migrants, with multiple linguistic and religious affiliations, sometimes contending fishing practices, and migration and livelihoods patterns as they have been affected by tsunami, war and the aftermaths of both. It draws from and speaks to a range of disciplines – from political science and sociology, to critical geography and cultural studies, and contributes to diverse fields of inquiry, including conflict and its relationship to a “cold” peace; coastal/maritime livelihoods; identity, cooperation, and collective action.
- Aparna Sundar, Assistant Professor of Politics, Ryerson University
By unveiling the vast heterogeneity of fisher migrants and settlers, the book demonstrates in an excellent way how research should not merely focus on the articulations of identity, but more so the inherent properties and qualities of the diverse interdependencies they come to sustain.
- Conrad Schetter, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Bonn - About the authors
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Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa is an environmental anthropologist with the Development and Knowledge Sociology working group at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Germany. Much of her ongoing research adopts a post-area studies perspective, given her interest in contemporary coastal transformations, alongside marine lifeworlds across multiple island and archipelagic contexts spanning Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea.
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 3-38
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Sri Lanka’s Littoral Northeast
Pages 39-56
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Fisher Lifeworlds, Relational Practices
Pages 57-92
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Change and Continuity After Wartime
Pages 95-127
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Transversal Ties Across the Local-Migrant-Settler Complex
Pages 129-166
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Fishing, Mobility and Settlerhood
- Book Subtitle
- Coastal Socialities in Postwar Sri Lanka
- Authors
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- Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa
- Series Title
- MARE Publication Series
- Series Volume
- 20
- Copyright
- 2018
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Copyright Holder
- Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-319-78837-1
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-78837-1
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-78836-4
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-07658-0
- Series ISSN
- 2212-6260
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XXXIX, 227
- Number of Illustrations
- 27 b/w illustrations, 14 illustrations in colour
- Topics
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