Introduction: ethnicity at work -- A diaspora next door -- Being a Tamil the up-country way -- Becoming Sri Lankan -- Agency, apathy and alienation -- The coming of the goddess -- Stages of ethnicity -- Home and homeland -- Conclusion: up-country Tamil identity politics
Summary
Focusing on notions of diaspora, identity and agency, this book examines ethnicity in war-torn Sri Lanka. It highlights the historical development and negotiation of a new identification of Up-country Tamil amidst Sri Lanka's violent ethnic politics. Over the past thirty years, Up-country (Indian) Tamils generally have tried to secure their vision of living within a multi-ethnic Sri Lanka, not within Tamil Eelam, the separatist dream that ended with the civil war in 2009. Exploring Sri Lanka within the deep history of colonial-era South Asian plantation diasporas, the book arg
