斯里兰卡的古老土著居民 维达人

<正>斯里兰卡地处南亚,是印度洋中的一个岛国。斯里兰卡大部分属热带雨林气候,终年炎热,雨水丰沛,森林茂密。在森林中,生活着一个特殊的部族——维达人。2015年3月,我和朋友在斯里兰卡向导的带领下,拜访了离康提3小时左右车程的维达人部落。维达人是斯里兰卡的少数民族,也是斯里兰卡最古老的土著居民,又称吠陀人。相传维达人的祖先早在斯里兰卡岛与南亚次大陆分离之前,就已生活在从印度中部直到斯里兰卡的土地上了。公元前5世纪左右,来自次大陆北部的雅利安人进入斯     

斯里兰卡 听印度洋眼泪中的石头故事

正斯里兰卡,听名字就是一个非常美丽的地方,它是印度南面的一个岛国,地图上就在印度的下面,岛的形状像一滴眼泪,所以它被称为"印度洋的眼泪"。那是一个海洋的国度,蓝天白云映衬的金沙碧海装扮着那里,如同一颗眼泪荡漾在印度洋上。而当你以为水的温柔便是它的全部时,它却用石头的坚硬诉说起古老的故事,那故事里,有传奇,有信仰,更有着人们的生活。带着那份向往一步步走进斯里兰     

The Poverty Discourse and the Poor in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is cited as an exemplary case of direct poverty alleviation because of a long history of social welfare and high values in quality of life indices. Notwithstanding, anti-poverty measures in Sri Lanka founded on the international discourse of poverty and development do not serve the interests of poor people. This discourse begins by locating poor people in a distinct poverty sector and proceeds to examine its characteristics. Several attributes of that discourse make it intellectually incapable of seeing how poverty is socially constructed in a diffused nexus of production relations that extends far beyond the so-called 'poverty sector'. An alternative 'substantive approach to poverty' is presented. The arguments are illustrated using the theme of food production in Sri Lanka.     

探访斯里兰卡“大象孤儿院”

<正>去"孤儿院"看大象斯里兰卡野生动物局于1975年建造了一所大象孤儿院,主要收养那些在丛林中失去母亲的幼象,这座大象孤儿院是世界上第一所大象孤儿院,位于距科伦坡约3小时路程的品纳维拉(Pinnawela)小镇。孤儿院成立30多年来,共收养了近百头大象。斯里兰卡大象是全球大象家族中较为独特的分支:它们不如非洲大象块头大,耳朵尤其小,成年后,象的耳朵、脸和鼻子周围的皮肤甚至还会显出一块与众不同的粉红色斑。目前世界上存在两所大象孤儿     

The Changing Accessibility of Educational Opportunities in Southern Sri Lanka

To handle the double challenge of economic competitiveness and poverty alleviation, there are increasing calls for dual education strategies designed to handle both these issues simultaneously. Based on field research in rural Sri Lanka, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of how educational opportunities of different groups in different areas are shifting in the context of a changing world of work and new skill requirements in the global economy. An ongoing stratification of educational opportunities is identified, based on the growth of private tuition and English‐medium education, as well as a rationalization of the education system. The article shows that future attempts to reform the education system in Sri Lanka must be better rooted in the preferences and aspirations of poor groups in rural areas, and that educational opportunities must be seen as relative, relational and contextual.     

Authoritarianism in the Age of Market Liberalism in Sri Lanka

The agenda for “good governance” postulates that it constitutes both a precondition for and an outcome of economic development. In direct opposition, neo-Marxist analyses assert a causal link between economic liberalization and bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes. This article argues that the relationship between governance and economic development cannot be resolved in such abstract and ahistorical terms but must be approached through concrete analyses of political strategies around and within the post-colonial state. A closer examination of authoritarianism and economic liberalization in Sri Lanka supports this argument.     

Peasant Women and Economic Transformation in The Gambia

Contemporary agricultural development strategies in The Gambia are centred on irrigated rice and vegetables—crops traditionally cultivated by women. Irrigated agriculture, however, is opening up new avenues to capital accumulation at the national, regional and household levels. This article examines the contradictions for women of donor-funded schemes that combine gender equity with productivity objectives. The gender conflicts rife in Gambian irrigation projects point to the significance of female labour for contemporary patterns of agrarian transformation as well as the linkage between women's access to land for independent farming and forms of project participation.     

The Identity of Capitalists and the Legitimacy of Capitalism: Sri Lanka since Independence

In many Asian countries, the early decades of independence after World War II were marked by tension between ‘indigenous’ political elites and business elites that were in large part alien, or from minority ethnic groups. This tension was one reason for the preference that most governments showed for statist and nationalist economic policies. It has abated in most cases; political and business elites now tend to pursue more co-operative strategies. Much of the explanation for this lies in changes in the international political economy that made market-oriented economic policies more attractive to political elites. There are in addition internal political reasons for this rapprochement. These vary from case to case, and have been explored in most detail by scholars in relation to the Southeast Asian countries where Overseas Chinese have dominated larger scale business. This article extends this literature by examining the causes of the gradual rapprochement between ‘majority’ politics and ‘minority’ business in Sri Lanka.     

The dry tank: development and disuse of water management infrastructure in the Anuradhapura hinterland,Sri Lanka

We identify and offer new explanations of change in water management infrastructure in the semi-arid urban hinterland of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka between ca. 400 BC and AD 1800. Field stratigraphies and micromorphological analyses demonstrate that a complex water storage infrastructure was superimposed over time on intermittently occupied and cultivated naturally wetter areas, with some attempts in drier locations. Our chronological framework, based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) measurement, indicates that this infrastructure commenced sometime between 400 and 200 BC, continued after Anuradhapura reached its maximum extent, and largely went into disuse between AD 1100 and 1200. While the water management infrastructure was eventually abandoned, it was succeeded by small-scale subsistence cultivation as the primary activity on the landscape. Our findings have broader resonance with current debates on the timing of introduced ‘cultural packages’ together with their social and environmental impacts, production and symbolism in construction activities, persistent stresses and high magnitude disturbances in ‘collapse’, and the notion of post ‘collapse’ landscapes associated with the management of uncertain but essential resources in semi-arid environments.     

斯里兰卡曼泰(Mantai)遗址出土陶瓷产地的初步分析

曼泰遗址位于斯里兰卡的西北角,是海上丝绸之路上的一个重要港口。1887年,W．J．S．Boake 首次对曼泰遗址进行了发掘,以后又曾多次发掘。特别是1980年S．U．Deraniyagala博士及John Car- swell组织的系统发掘,出土遗物十分丰富,其中陶瓷碎片为大宗,此外尚有硬币、铁制品、骨制品等。     

Crop Diversification and Export Growth: Dynamics of Change in the Sri Lankan Peasant Sector

Self-sufficiency in foodgrains has seen countries of South and East Asia diversifying their agricultural base and trying to move peasant producers from rice to higher-value crops. This article examines policies applied in Sri Lanka in the wake of structural adjustment. Contract farming and corporate sector involvement are analysed as a mechanism of change, and crop characteristics, the macro policy environment, infrastructural facilities and other state supports are identified as important contributing factors. The government commitment to developing horticultural exports as a major industry is seen as a central issue, given constraints that have emerged in the implementation of this policy and pressures to curtail expenditure and reduce the budget deficit. A better focused and more coordinated package of supports is considered to be necessary. The welfare impact of recent growth is also analysed and is found to give some cause for concern.     

Courses of Conflict: Transmission of Knowledge and War's History in Eastern Sri Lanka

After three decades of armed confrontations, the Sri Lankan civil war ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). To sustain the war for so long, mechanisms of knowledge reproduction were used legitimizing violence and assuring the conflict's transmission across the generations involved in it. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork in the island's Eastern Province, this article addresses the processes through which Sri Lanka's war-history has been taught and learnt, empirically linking the multiple sites of knowledge transfer. It suggests a trajectory moving from the institutional (policy and textbooks) to the defiant (specific schools and armed movements) spaces of transmission, while comparing the attitudes, memories of violence and transmission strategies of educators, students and former combatants. The data are embedded within the broader discussions on social change and the cultural reproduction of war, a process illustrated with the help of a new concept: semantic alliances.     

Caught between extremes: the culture and economics of traditional mask art in contemporary Sri Lanka

In contemporary Sri Lanka, the commodification of local mask production resulting from cultural tourism has caught the traditional mask artisan in a tight spot between “tradition” and “modernity”. The impacts of tourism are diversely received and interpreted within the local mask artisan community, with tourism simultaneously resulting in what can be called a “cultural discovery” and “cultural decline”. Within this cultural debate, this paper is an attempt to understand how the traditional mask artisan arrives at a balance between “tradition” and “modernity”, and culture and commerce. Qualitative research conducted in southern Sri Lanka shows that tradition and modernity are shifting conceptions. Negotiating a balance between tradition and modernity is, therefore, largely a matter of meaning and interpretation. When cultural commodification occurs, tradition and modernity are continuously redefined and reinvented by both the traditional mask artisan and cultural consumer to fit their own needs and agendas. Cultural commodification contributes to the survival and revival of Sri Lanka's mask tradition, a strategy that is simultaneously welcomed and contested within the local mask artisan community.