Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines new garment factories in the former war zone of North and East Sri Lanka. This paper elucidates the role of the state–military–capital nexus in the Sri Lankan government's efforts to rebuild the nation following a longstanding ethnic war, a post‐war development strategy that has emphasized investment and job creation. Drawing on fieldwork with numerous managers and more in‐depth exploration in one such garment factory, the paper shows how garment industry managers deployed a Sinhala‐Buddhist management ethos to produce an unmarked class of modern workers and, in doing so, played an active role in re‐scripting narratives of the nation. Therefore, we argue that capital is imbricated in the government's militarized nation‐building efforts, and we call for more attention to how the industrial capital–military–state nexus may be shaping and re‐producing power relations in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

Highlights

  • The end of the thirty-year conflict in May 2009 ushered in a new era of development in Sri Lanka, in which the state framed the path to peace in terms of an economic development imperative

  • The role of capital and its alliances with the state and the military is conspicuous, and, as a result, companies have been able to proceed in setting up industrial production regimes without much debate or critical engagement

  • Using Hall (1980) and Sanyal (2007), I traced how this capital–state–military alliance strived to rearticulate excluded populations at moments of crisis, labor shortages and post-war nation-building in the case of Sri Lanka, using discourses on the shop floor that implicate multiple logics of ideological and material aspirations

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The end of the thirty-year conflict in May 2009 ushered in a new era of development in Sri Lanka, in which the state framed the path to peace in terms of an economic development imperative. This paper begins to tackle this lacuna by examining the emergence of an alliance between the military, the state, and capital in Sri Lanka to shift garment production to the post-war areas of the North and East.

Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.