Category: Review

Review of “Garments without Guilt? Global Labour Justice and Ethical Codes in Sri Lankan Apparels” Kanchana Ruwanpura Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022 Garments without Guilt? Global Labour Justice and Ethical Codes in Sri Lankan Apparels by Kanchana Ruwanpura uses an analytical framing informed by labour and feminist perspectives to explore how workers are central to… Continue reading Locating Labour in Sri Lanka’s Ethical Sourcing – Shyamain Wickramasinghe

Sarath Wijesinghe Charithapadanaya saha 71 Tharuna Pibidhime Yatapathkala Ithihasaya (The Biography of Sarath Wijesinghe and the Suppressed History of Youth Awakening in 1971) By Susila Hemamali Wijesinghe Author Publication, Colombo, p. 380, 2022 The title of this book review is borrowed from Svetlana Alexievich’s masterpiece, The Unwomanly Face of War (2017), where through interviews with… Continue reading The Unwomanly Face of the 1971 Revolt – Samal Vimukthi Hemachandra

Making the Right Choice: Narratives of Marriage in Sri Lanka by Asha L. Abeyasekera (Rutgers University Press, 2021) Asha Abeyasekera’s Making the Right Choice: Narratives of Marriage in Sri Lanka (Rutgers University Press, 2021) documents change in marriage practices among the Sinhala-Buddhist urban middle class located in Colombo, Sri Lanka and sets out to “make… Continue reading Marriage, Morality, and Modernity — Tharindi Udalagama

Sumathy Sivamohan’s latest feature film “The Single Tumbler”, woven around stories of a single family, is a heart-wrenching tale of life, war, loss, trauma, and the search for answers. The film centres on the loss or disappearance of Jude, a brother and son, during the war in Sri Lanka, foregrounding the eviction of Muslims from… Continue reading Wading through a stream of memories for answers: The Single Tumbler by Sumathy Sivamohan – Afrah Niwas

This play has been long in the making. A string of unfortunate circumstances induced by the pandemic resulted in the postponement of Rajitha Dissanayake’s new play, at least twice. So, we got to watch this play titled ‘A Day in July 2019’, in January 2022. And yet, the play is not out of step with… Continue reading A History of Unfortunate Circumstances – Hasini A. Haputhanthri
‘A Day in July 2019’ by Rajitha Dissanayake, 2022, Lionel Wendt, Colombo

Redding’s book lays out the manner in which regardless of the horrendous anti- Muslim violence permitted and often perpetrated by the Indian secular State court system, the secular State courts in turn need the ‘Islamic non-State’ in both material and ideological ways. The Islamic non-State that Redding refers to is the Dar- Ul Quaza network… Continue reading A Secular Need: Islamic Law and State Governance in Contemporary India. Geoffrey Redding. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. 240 pp – Reviewed by Farzana Haniffa

The director of the film Paangshu, Visakesa Chandrasekaram describes how his encounter with human rights violations in Sri Lanka made a deep impact on him, and remembers the image of a mother looking at the remains of her dead son: “She really changed my perception of the kind of professional life I wanted to have”… Continue reading Like Water to Soil: ‘Paangshu’ Between Politics and Rights – Prabha Manuratne

As anthropology continues to grapple with the colonial, racialised, and exploitative undercurrents of the ethnographic endeavour, decolonial and feminist approaches have emerged with a renewed force, charting paths for alternative enactments of knowledge production and new understandings of its aims and effects. In this context, Mythri Jegathesan’s Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in… Continue reading Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka. Mythri Jegathesan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 288 pp – Reviewed by Nadia Augustyniak