| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Batticaloa district on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka has been one of the most disrupted and devastated areas of the island since civil war began in the early 1980s. Ethnically and culturally diverse, it has been under the control of different military actors; however, none had maintained full control, until May 2009 when the Sri Lankan Army successfully defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. While political, social, developmental, and humanitarian issues in the East receive much scholarly attention, local actors are often cast through the dichotomy of victim and agency that often ignore the details and textures of daily life, which tell us not only about violence but also aspects of the everyday that negotiate through and outside of violence. Taking the question of the ordinary as the driving concept, this paper explores what is meant by an 'ordinary life' for Tamil-speaking communities in Batticaloa where people suffer, survive, and resist within the endurance of the everyday. Highlighting the spaces in which relationships can be strengthened, this paper argues that a capacity for hope, for building trust, and safety, however fragile and tentative, is as much an integral part of a conflict situation as the more obvious capacity for fear and silence.
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