Identity Politics and State-Building in Sri Lanka: by Sisira Pinnawala

In 2011 the Pathfinder Foundation (PF) and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) of Columbia University initiated a joint Project entitled “Historical Memory as a Tool for Conflict Resolution” with the objective of engaging scholarly and intellectual participation in the country’s post conflict peace building and reconciliation effort. The specific task identified by the Project was to get the scholars and intellectuals with different perspectives to work together in collaborative work to produce, through research, public debate and discussion, shared narratives of the conflict which would provide a strong and dependable basis for mutual understanding between the two main protagonists leading to sustainable peace and reconciliation. The formal work of the Project commenced with a workshop jointly organized by the PF and ISHR in Colombo in July 2011, facilitated by Dr. Elazar Barkan, Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Director of Columbia’s ISHR. The participants of the civil society representing academics and researchers from the Universities and other stakeholder groups, were invited to this workshop. A consensus that emerged from the workshop was that the lack of agreement on the nature of the postcolonial Sri Lanka state was one of the root causes of the conflict. Therefore it was decided to conduct a collaborative research project and produce a scholarly volume on the Sri Lanka state as focusing on Identities and State-Building with particular attention to the postcolonial state.  A Working Group (WG) consisting of university academics/ researchers and civil society intellectuals was formed to carry out the above activity. The Working Group (WG) on State-Building.  Read more>>>