Wartime Citizenship Education, Discourses of Global Norms and the Contingency of Rights in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This short article aims to add to ongoing debates on the nature of citizenship education in wartime and its aftermath, against the backdrop of the worldwide ascendancy of a donor-driven, rights-based "global" model, considered in various circles as a panacea for local and global peace. Drawing on the case of Sri Lanka, the article casts light upon the discursive tensions, visible in externally-funded wartime citizenship textbooks, that may accompany the local adoption and adaptation of "global" norms in societies torn by protracted civil war and its legacies. The findings explore a case of the political harnessing of a global type of citizenship education, intertwined with and undermined by a more traditional approach, with liberal concepts of peacebuilding discursively championed, yet effectively rejected. The study thus raises questions around the implications for national reconciliation in a broader context of imposed "negative peace".