Gendered Nationalism And The Sri Lankan War: Reading Select Representations

Abstract

The Sri Lankan Civil War, spanning more than a quarter of a century, witnessed brutal violence and gross violations of basic human rights in the name of establishing a quintessential ethnic identity. The raisons d'être were various, as were perspectives. This paper tries to look at the event from the lens of 'gendered nationalism', in which the role of gender (particularly the feminine) is studied via analyses of its different performances and representations in shaping the concept of nationhood. How female bodies and stereotypes of feminity coincided with the concept of nationalism is studied, reading events and representations.