Abstract
This paper examines the condition of exile as experienced by displaced suburban Tamil residents forced to abandon their natal or primary homes during heightened civil war in Sri Lanka. Using the theme of ‘Dwelling in Ruins’, it looks at three material strategies for navigating dispossession, borrowing methods from geography and anthropology. Scenarios studied include the burning of homes during the 1983 pogrom, and the dereliction of properties due to protracted military occupation. Both scenarios are provocations for mobilities and displacements that test the resilience of minority subjects. The terms of these displacements are additionally anchored in a multi-nodal and urbane culture in which circulation reinforces emplacement. The socio-spatial ethnographies of private properties built and owned by women become the means for uncovering their stories. The aesthetic of the idealised dwelling is challenged by the affective materiality of ruins.
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