Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora Research Articles

The diasporic meatscapes of the Tamil community in Toronto: how immigrants reconfigure food environments and infrastructures to secure a taste of home

ABSTRACT Although scholars have studied how people navigate their foodscapes, little research has addressed together the way immigrants experience and shape their food environments. This article explores how the members of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora eat and purchase meat in Toronto, and how they reconfigure the food infrastructures in the city. Unpacking the intertwined politics and practices of food consumption and distribution, it contributes to a dynamic and relational approach to migrant food environments. Drawing on observations and open-ended interviews with members of the Tamil community and with Tamil food entrepreneurs, I argue that, in Toronto, Tamils give specific materialities and meanings to their food environments and food practices, turning what I call “culinary affordances” into suitable meat and meatscapes for the community. Diasporic foodscapes connect different locations – real or fantasized, close or distant, endured or lamented – notably through immigrants’ quest for home specific foods.

The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora and its Transnational Networks Post 9/11: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian Policy

The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora and its Transnational Networks Post 9/11: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian Policy

“Homeless” Deities and Refugee Devotees: Hindu Temples, Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora, and Politics in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role played by Hindu temples in Sri Lankan Tamils’ lives in the diaspora in the United Kingdom. It investigates why those temples became not only places for religious worship but also hubs for the expression of Tamil nationalistic political views, while temples in Sri Lanka managed to keep those politics at bay. Departing from studies on religious belonging in the diaspora, I argue for the specificity of the Sri Lankan experience as mingled with the suffering of war and Tamil nationalistic politics, thus suggesting that historical and political processes are key to understand ways of belonging. I use the lens of the capacity of the sovereign deities to unravel the various ways employed by deities to cater to their devotees’ needs. I explore how Hindu deities and refugee devotees in London, while accommodating nationalistic politics, try to establish their own power and claim a form of belonging in the new country. I argue that in the process, both the new sovereign deities and Tamil migrants/refugees not only need each other but also need the deities from home across time and space. [politics, religion, sovereign deity, belonging, diaspora]

“Talk in Tamil!” – Does Sri Lankan Tamil onward migration from Europe influence Tamil language maintenance in the UK?

Abstract This article uses the “communicative repertoire” conceptual framework to investigate the evolving linguistic practices in the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) diaspora, looking specifically at how changing mobility patterns have had an influence on heritage language use. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken with 42 participants of diverse migration trajectories in London, the study finds that onward migration has important implications for Tamil language maintenance and use in the UK, and for the introduction of European languages into the community. It argues that Tamil practices can only be fully understood if we consider them within the context of participants' communicative repertoires. Further, the definition of Tamil needs to be expanded to include different varieties, registers and styles that have been shaped by onward migration. As the trend of multiple migrations is becoming increasingly common in globalization processes, studying the recent change in SLT migratory patterns is also crucial to gaining insight into the diversities and transnational links that exist within and across diaspora communities respectively.

Tamil diaspora activism in the post-liberal international order: navigating politics and norms

ABSTRACT Diasporas play a key role in universal norm transfer processes, mainly through transnational political activism. For decades, Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora activists have been drawing attention to injustices in the home country by and applying liberal, cosmopolitan normative frameworks. The use of these frameworks helps these actors to advance their transnational political goals and to cultivate transnational political networks that aid in advancing their struggles to influence positive change in Sri Lanka. In the current post-liberal phase of international politics, the main architects of the liberal, cosmopolitan international norms, who previously supported their implementation, have started to abandon them. This turnaround has tragically coincided with an increasingly hostile reception to these norms in Sri Lanka, home of the Tamil diaspora. This article examines how the recent retraction of and reaction to international norms in international and national politics is reshaping Tamil diasporic transnational political activism and transnational-national political relationships.

Sri Lankan Out-Migration: Five Key Waves Since Independence

Lankan migration provides a mini-laboratory for migration scholars because of its rich diversity. The Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, the Sri Lankan maid, the Sri Lankan refugee, and the Sri Lankan boat migration to Australia are some examples of the diversity and complexity of the phenomenon. At present, Lanka has a total of three million emigrants of which one million have permanently settled outside Lanka. This permanently settled community constitutes a one to twenty diaspora to population ratio, a significantly unique ratio for any sending country. Nonetheless, a holistic understanding of Lankan migration is lacking, even though selective aspects of the phenomenon have received some academic attention. This article intends to fill this gap by providing a broader overview of Lankan migration since its Independence. Through a thorough review of related academic articles and fifty-one semi-structured interviews with Lankan emigrants, this article summarizes the key elements of Lankan migration in five main waves from Independence until today. By revealing the diversity of the Lankan immigrant community and its complexity, the article suggests the importance of understanding any immigrant community holistically not only for a better scholarly understanding but also effective policy making.

The Importance of the novel Uyirvaasam by Taamaraichelvi in the History of Australia’s Tamil Novels

Diaspora Literature is important for the growth of Elam’s Tamil literature. Tamil Diaspora writers are known for their various well-created works. Uyirvaasam novel by Taamaraichelvi is also such a novel that gained importance in history of Australia’s Tamil novels. The novel is about the Sri Lankan refugees who went to Australia by boat due to the volatile political situations within their country. This novel is known as the first one to record the plight of Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora. The novel delivers realistic depictions of the hardships experienced by those Sri Lankans who made the journey to Australia: deaths that occurred, illnesses and diseases that ravaged the children and women as well as the sad incidents of these refugees being sent back to Sri Lanka after inquiries by Australian government are to name a few. These are presented in the novel through analytical, descriptive and historical approaches. It can be concluded that this novel focuses on subjects that are practically never mentioned in other Tamil novels that have been published in Australia thus far. ஈழத்துத் தமிழ் இலக்கிய வளர்ச்சியில் புகலிடத் தமிழ் இலக்கியங்கள் முக்கியமானவை. பல்வேறு சிறந்த படைப்புகளை புகலிடத் தமிழ் எழுத்தாளர்கள் படைத்துள்ளனர். அவ்விதத்தில் அவுஸ்திரேலிய தமிழ் நாவல் வரலாற்றில் தாமரைச்செல்வியின் உயிர்வாசம் என்ற நாவல் மிகவும் முக்கியமாகதாகும். இந்நாவல் இலங்கையிலிருந்து அவுஸ்திரேலியாவுக்குச் சென்ற படகு மனிதர்கள் பற்றியதாக அமைந்துள்ளது. இவர்கள் இலங்கையின் அரசியல் சூழல் காரணமாகப் படகுமூலம் சென்றவர்களாவர். இப்பொருள் சார்ந்து வெளிவந்த முதல் நாவலாக இதுவே அமைகின்றது. இலங்கையர்களின் அவலம் நாவலில் பதிவுசெய்யப்பட்டுள்ளது. இலங்கையிலிருந்து படகுமூலம் பயணம் செய்வது தொடக்கம் அவுஸ்திரேலியாவை அடைந்து பல்வேறு துன்பங்களை அடைவது வரை யதார்த்தமாக எழுதப்பட்டுள்ளது. படகில் செல்லும்போது மரணமடைவது, சிறுவர்கள் மற்றும் பெண்கள் பாதிக்கப்படுவது, விசாரணையின் பின்னர் இலங்கைக்கு அனுப்பிவைக்கப்படுவது பற்றியும் பேசப்படுகின்றது. இவ்வாய்வு பகுப்பாய்வு, விபரணம் மற்றும் வரலாற்று முறையியல் ஆகிய அணுகுமுறைகளினூடாக முன்வைக்கப்படுகின்றது. அவுஸ்திரேலியாவிலிருந்து வெளிவந்த எந்த தமிழ் நாவலும் பேசாத விடயத்தை இந்நாவல் யதார்த்தமான முறையில் பதிவு செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளதென்பது ஆய்வின் முடிவாக முன்வைக்கப்படுகின்றது.

படகுமூலம் புலம்பெயர்வோரின் பயண அனுபவமும் வாழ்வும்

Sri Lankan Tamil’s diaspora’s experience are different. which has appeared from time to time in Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora literature. Uyirvaasam novel of Taamaraichelvi is important in Australia’s Tamil novel history. It is about boat peoples went from Sri Lanka to Australia. They went by the political Situation in Sri Lanka by boat. This is the first novel to be published on this subject. The plight of Sri Lankans Tamil Diaspora is recorded in the novel. It has been written realistically, from Sri Lanka to reaching Australia and experiencing various hardships. It is talk about death while sailing boat, children and women been affected and sent off to Sri Lanka after inquiry. These are presented through analytical, descriptive and historical approaches

Changing orientations to heritage language: The practice-based ideology of Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora families

Abstract The notion of heritage language (HL) has recently been challenged by emerging orientations to language. That languages are always in contact, they are constructed by ideologies, and they don’t have an ontological status challenge traditional notions of HL as primordial, pure, and territorialized. In this article, I draw from data from a qualitative inquiry adopting observations, surveys, and interviews on how families of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora community in UK, USA, and Canada define heritage language and competence. I focus specifically on interview data to unveil the language ideologies of community members relating to heritage language and identity. For them, competence means having the ability to align Tamil verbal resources strategically with multimodal semiotic resources and spatial repertoires to accomplish social and cultural communicative activities. For this objective, being proficient in fragmentary verbal resources, receptive and/or conversational skills, low diglossic Tamil, and informal register are deemed satisfactory. Therefore the corpus that is considered as HL is also changing in diaspora contexts to accommodate appropriations from other languages, and metonymic uses, which develop shared indexicality for the community. I label these assumptions as constituting a practice-based ideology of HL. Such an orientation will help us understand HL as a socially constructed and changing construct, while affirming its importance for migrant communities.

Caste within the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora: Ūr Associations and Territorial Belonging

This article considers data on London Tamils from Jaffna peninsula, northern Sri Lanka, to examine caste interactions in relation to their efforts to reconnect with people in the diaspora and ‘at home’. The Tamils are part of a substantial number of ūr (home/native place) associations in London and areas outside London. I consider their efforts through changing and unchanging attitudes to caste to recreate a sense of community away from home. They do so by forming associations comprising members of a specific caste group, hailing from a particular village, region, or island in Sri Lanka. I examine the diaspora communities’ understanding of the institution of caste as a wider landscape of belonging. This further considers how caste divisions in the ūr become re-territorialized among the Tamil diaspora. The historical context of these activities relate to the wide dispersal and separation of Tamils from their Sri Lankan homeland during the upheaval of the armed conflict. The article also demonstrates how caste-based relationships and kinship ties shape the lives of members of the Tamil diaspora in London, and how caste-based and fragmented identities operate in such transnational Tamil diaspora localities.

The Case of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora and Homeland: A Shared Ethnic Identity?

AbstractThe conceptualization of an ethnic identity is complicated when one considers how this identity is understood by the diasporic community and by the homeland community. This article argues that the second‐generation Sri Lankan Tamil diasporic community in Toronto conceptualize their Tamil ethnic identity in a manner that supports their right to engage in homeland politics. However, not all Tamils in Sri Lanka share this understanding. Drawing on over one hundred interviews conducted among second‐generation Tamils in Toronto and their age‐cohort in Sri Lanka, this article argues that the very premise upon which the diasporic population base their right to engage in homeland politics and their right to claim membership of a shared ethnic identity may not be justified by those in the homeland. These diverging perspectives of ethnic identity challenge the role of the diasporic community in homeland affairs.

The Sinhalese Diaspora: New Directions in Sri Lankan Diasporic Writing

ABSTRACTThis article investigates a particular sub-section of South Asian literature in English, namely, contemporary diasporic social realism fiction by Sri Lankan authors. It not only explores the little-discussed Sri Lankan Sinhalese diaspora which is usually overshadowed by the more numerous and better known Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, but it also focuses on middle-/upper middle-class migrants, whose migration, assimilation and resettlement encompass a very particular set of issues, especially with relation to their class and background. Middle-/upper middle-class Sinhalese migrants from Sri Lanka are more commonly economic migrants (as opposed to political migrants, refugees or asylum seekers). Sinhalese migrants carry a considerable amount of social capital, but generally seem unable to translate this into the correct and recognised currency of the host country, leading to certain frustrations and subsequent necessary (and occasionally painful) identity negotiations. Using Sri Lankan writing in English (SLWE), this article investigates the struggles of middle-/upper-class, Sinhalese economic migrants who attempt to negotiate their integration in their new host societies at a lower socio-economic level than that from whence they came.

Locating art practice in the British Tamil Diaspora

This article locates the position of art practice within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in the UK. It focuses on three artists who use their art making to investigate experiences of migration and multiple belonging, and shows how absence of institutional support have constituted a marginalisation of their work. The artists’ preference for visual art is at odds with the Tamil nationalist construction of an identity rooted in ancient poetry and drama, and Sinhala-focused support for artists in Sri Lanka has formed an invisibility of Tamils that extends to the British art scene. This situation is illuminated through a perspective that connects nationalist ideology with aesthetics of everyday life, and the analysis is expanded by gender and queer critiques of nationalism, which provide overlapping perceptions across South Asia and the diaspora. The article is based on 18 months’ ethnographic fieldwork in London, Belfast and Jaffna; it demonstrates how the artists negotiate between lack of institutional support and individual aims to reconfigure the present location of their practices.

Framing disputes and organizational legitimation: UK-based Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups' use of the ‘genocide’ frame since 2009

The ending of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 led to significant changes in the political strategies pursued by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups in the UK. One contentious feature of these groups' campaigns has been their use of the ‘genocide’ frame to describe the actions of the Sri Lankan state, which has been predominantly viewed either as a signal of these groups' strategic naivety or as a coded expression of a wider nationalist agenda. In this article I argue that its growing use in the post-war period is more complex and is best understood in relation to these organizations' strategies of legitimation. Deploying the genocide frame has served two key functions: to demonstrate groups' responsiveness to popular demands, and to challenge dominant international approaches to post-war Sri Lanka. Together these functions served to bolster groups' legitimacy in an environment characterized by political change and high levels of inter-organizational competition.

Making Tigers from Tamils: Long‐Distance Nationalism and Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Toronto and its relationship to the Tamil separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Taking the case of the Sri Lankan Tamils, oft‐cited as the example par excellence of long‐distance nationalism, I argue against naturalizing diasporic ethnonationalism to investigate instead how diasporas are fashioned into specific kinds of actors. I examine tensions that emerged as an earlier elite Tamil movement gave way to the contemporary migration of much larger class‐and caste‐fractured communities, while a cultural imaginary of migration as a form of mobility persisted. I suggest that concomitant status anxieties have propelled culturalist imaginations of a unified Tamil community in Toronto who, through the actions of LTTE‐affiliated organizations, have condensed the Tigers and their imagined homeland, Tamil Eelam, into representing Tamil community life. While most Tamils may not have explicitly espoused LTTE ideology, as a result of the LTTE becoming the backbone of community life, Tamils became complicit with and reaffirmed the LTTE project of defending “Tamilness” militarily in Sri Lanka and culturally in Toronto. I suggest that the self‐presentation of diasporic communities should be analyzed within specific histories, contemporary conflicts and fractures, and active mobilizing structures.

Before and After 1983: The Impact of Theorising Sri Lankan Tamil Migration History around the 1983 Colombo Riots

This paper discusses the material effects of the theorisation of the contemporary Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora around the 1983 Colombo riots. In the complicated aftermath of the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, it is necessary to rethink the way in which diasporic history has been constructed in order to factor in its multiple dimensions and underlying dynamics. By critically foregrounding the key literature on the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, which is definitive to understanding the history of Sri Lankan Tamil emigration around the 1983 riots, the modern diaspora can be framed anew by longer and more diverse historical perspectives.

Immigrant protests in Toronto: diaspora and Sri Lanka's civil war

As Sri Lanka's civil war escalated in the spring of 2009, protests led by the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Toronto appealed for an immediate ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Held simultaneously in Chennai, London, and Oslo, the protests called for an end to the hostilities in Sri Lanka as well as recognition of the legitimacy of Tamil Eelam, a separate nation state for Tamils in Sri Lanka. Based on interviews and media coverage in Toronto, this article investigates how these ‘immigrant protests’ constituted ‘transnational acts of citizenship’. I examine the Toronto protests through three acts in the protest that challenged the exclusions of national citizenship by moving from Toronto's streets, statist discourses of Canadian citizenship, and the violence of war in Sri Lanka. Although these transnational acts of citizenship were rendered inaudible in public culture, the article concludes by exploring the possibilities of citizenship and belonging in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora following the defeat of the LTTE.

Migrant ethnic identities, mobile language resources: Identification practices of Sri Lankan Tamil youth

AbstractIn the context of multilingualism and migration, the place of ethnic identities has come into question. Applied linguists have to contend with the possibility that ethnic identities have to be redefined in the light of changing orientations in the field. The critique of essentialism, the dismantling of the ”one language = one community” equation, and the fluidity of translanguaging have raised the question whether ethnic identities can be treated as real anymore. In the face of these changes, one group of activist scholars invokes values of ecological preservation and language rights to insist on traditional ethnic identities. Another treats ethnic identities as transient and playful under labels such as ludic ethnicities and metroethnicities. Interpreting the identification practices of Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora youth in UK, USA, and Canada, this article argues for a middle position of strategic constructivism. That is, though the Tamil youth are multilingual, and do not claim full proficiency in Tamil language, they use their mix of codes to construct Tamil ethnicity in situated uses of their repertoire. The article argues that ethnicity should be treated as a changing construct, with different codes employed to index identity in changing times and places.

Towards Peace with Justice in Sri Lanka

Since the end of the armed conflict and the defeat of terrorism in May 2009, the international movement to establish Tamil political autonomy in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern regions has intensified. The faction of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora which leads the separatist struggle has declared a virtual ‘Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam’. Tamil politicians on the island, the ‘international community’ and India are all calling for maximum political devolution along the lines of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution introduced following Indian intervention in 1987. This article juxtaposes the growing demands for secessionism and devolution with demographic and ground realities in Sri Lanka and the need for policies that are responsive to the needs and interests of all communities on the island. The article considers calls for a national referendum on devolution, the district as the unit of devolution and changes needed beyond devolution at the local, regional and international levels.

Styling One's Own in the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora: Implications for Language and Ethnicity

This study focuses on the ways youth in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Canada, Britain, and the United States construct their ethnic identity when proficiency in their heritage language is limited. Though these youth claim only rudimentary proficiency in Tamil and identify English as their dominant language, they are nonetheless able to claim ethnic identity through strategic language practices. Different from Rampton's theorization of crossing, such acts involve self-styling. While crossing is transgressive, self-styling is affirmative. While crossing is ludic, self-styling is invested. Furthermore, while crossing has been studied mostly in terms of the tokens produced, this study illustrates the way receptive proficiency and nonverbal participatory practices can help style one's own. The study illustrates certain new configurations of language and ethnicity in diaspora life.