Militarizing Sri Lanka
Popular Culture, Memory and Narrative in the Armed Conflict
- Neloufer De Mel - University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Cultural Studies
Through case studies of military advertising, disabled soldiers, children in the conflict zones, the LTTE female suicide bomber, censorship, the archive and feminist work, Militarizing Sri Lanka also foregrounds the crucial role of popular culture, memory and narrative in how attitudes to militarism, the war, and peace are mediated.
This book is a valuable resource for social and political scientists and activists, and all those wanting an insight into militarization in the Sri Lankan context from the late 1980s to 2006.
"Neloufer de Mel's Militarizing Sri Lanka radically advances our understanding of the cultural consequences of violence. This tour de force should be read by all who want to understand the subtle effects of political violence on all aspects of culture, not only in Sri Lanka but elsewhere too."
It takes an extraordinary individual to challenge the dominant militarized nationalist core of the state. Sri Lanka has produced some of these extraordinary and courageous intellectuals. Neloufer is one of them. This book is atestimony to and an intervention in this tragedy.
De Mel’s work is a dense yet remarkably lucid exposition of a particular, painful context. The analysis of rhetoric and political discourses are broad-based enough to be useful for other scholars working on the similar areas and specific enough to highlight the contexts of these identities and subjectivities.…It’s a fine book… De Mel’s Militarizing Sri Lanka will remain a groundbreaking work on Sri Lankan public memory and cultural politics for some years to come.
This book is a valuable resource for social, political scientists and activists, and all those interested in an insight into militarization in the Sri Lankan context from the late 1980s to 2006.
This book is a very authentic document regarding the process of militarizing by the two warring groups (the LTTE, and the Sri Lankan government) in order to crush one another by force and achieve something which can be otherwise achieved by mutual understanding, dialogue and a policy of give and take’.
Militarizing Sri Lanka will remain a groundbreaking work on Sri Lankan public memory and cultural politics for some years to come.
Explores the layered and nuanced ways in which armed solutions to conflict become entrenched in and transform society, the individual and the state apparatus. A range of case studies on advertising, popular culture and censorship – even of memory and history – articulately convey the author’s interesting argument.
A study of the militarization that has buttressed the war between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE for over two decades, this book highlights militarization as a process through which the ideology of militarism is shaped and shared in a manner that makes militant solutions to conflict a part of institutional structures and ways of thought.
