Men and Masculine Identities in Life Narratives of Sri Lanka’s War

Abstract

Located at the intersections of men, masculinity, violence and narrative in the context of conflict-ridden South Asia, this study critically reads the configurations of men and masculinity in a selection of life narratives that revolve around Sri Lanka’s Eelam war (1983–2009). Based on the premise that hegemonic masculine identities shaped and interpellated by statist narratives in times of war are likely to have long-term detrimental impacts on societies, this paper considers life narratives that bring to life specific individual truths as alternative archives that could be sites of interruption, subversion and alternative imagination. This paper offers a critical feminist reading of the configurations of masculinities in Rohini Mohan’s The Seasons of Trouble (2014) and Ajith Boyagoda and Sunila Galappatti’s A Long Watch (2016), and explores the complex interactions among masculinity and violence that subvert dominant framings of men and masculinity and thereby help resist post-war patriarchal political revivals.