Sri Lankan Tamil Research Articles

Sri Lankan Tamil refugee experiences: A qualitative analysis

A significant number of Sri Lankan Tamils fled the violence unleashed during the civil war (1983–2009) between Tamils and the Sri Lankan government. The largest concentrations of Sri Lankan Tamils outside of Sri Lanka exist in Canada and India. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of pre-migration and post-migration experiences on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Canada and India. A total of 35 refugees participated in the qualitative study. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. About 28 participants were from Gummidipoondi refugee camps near Chennai, India, and seven were from Toronto, Canada. There were 22 males and 13 females. The content analysis revealed war-related complex distress among participants. Major themes identified were civil war, genocide and escape, settlement/Kudiyettam, the role of the United Nations and Refugee Board policies. The results of the study emphasize the distress caused by the civil war and the subsequent journey many refugees took to reach thei...

Diaspora identification and long-distance nationalism among Tamil migrants of diverse state origins in the UK

Accounts of Tamil long-distance nationalism have focused on Sri Lankan Tamil migrants. But the UK is also home to Tamils of non-Sri Lankan state origins. While these migrants may be nominally incorporated into a ‘Tamil diaspora’, they are seldom present in scholarly accounts. Framed by Werbner's (2002) conception of diasporas as ‘aesthetic’ and ‘moral’ communities, this article explores whether engagement with a Tamil diaspora and long-distance nationalism is expressed by Tamil migrants of diverse state origins. While migrants identify with an aesthetic community, ‘membership’ of the moral community is contested between those who hold direct experience of suffering as central to belonging, and those who imagine the boundaries of belonging more fluidly – based upon primordial understandings of essential ethnicity and a narrative of Tamil ‘victimhood’ that incorporates experiences of being Tamil in Sri Lanka, India and in other sites, despite obvious differences in these experiences.

The virtues of improvisation: Ethnography without an ethics protocol

Research relationships in the social sciences are becoming increasingly codified through formal procedures set by ethics committees. This article addresses the virtues of improvisation based on two fieldwork experiences in countries where ethics protocols are not institutionalized and are left to the judgement of researchers. The first involves the Turkish minority in Greece, with research conducted in Greece, Turkey and Germany, and the second involves Sri Lankan Tamil migration studied in France and Ontario. Based on a comparison of their respective approaches to two identity-based movements, the authors show how they were able to undertake an ethnographic revisit of these topics and highlight their political dimensions.

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.

Claiming the State: Postwar Reconciliation in Sri Lanka

Civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009 with the military defeat of the separatist LTTE. International and local pressure around war crime allegations and the lack of political reform subsequently forced the state to initiate the 2010 Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. This essay first takes the LLRC and the minority response to it to argue that this reconciliation process in Sri Lanka is very little about ethnic reconciliation between communities and instead is a "state performance" in the midst of ongoing violence. Secondly, the essay takes into account everyday relationships between displaced Sri Lankan Tamils returning "home." The essay argues that long-term reconciliation between former neighbors rests upon the possibility of larger political transformation rather than face-to-face coexistence alone.

Queue-jumpers, terrorists, breeders: representations of Tamil migrants in Canadian popular media

The 2010 arrival of the MV Sun Sea on the BC coast sparked a wave of heated anti-migrant sentiment in Canadian popular media which cast the 492 Sri Lankan Tamils on board as ‘illegitimate’ refugee claimants. While Canada has historically seen itself as the safe haven and protector of human rights for those with ‘legitimate’ claims, the Sun Sea response reflects a shift in attitudes about refugees and immigration in popular discourse and Canadian public policy. This paper examines the construction of Tamil migrants in online news comments, blog posts and message boards and considers how such media images reinforce and legitimise public and political opinion.

Reconstructing heritage language: resolving dilemmas in language maintenance for Sri Lankan Tamil migrants

In recent years, Sri Lankan Tamils have fled their homeland as refugees as a result of the ethnic conflict in the country. Despite their heightened linguistic consciousness, community elders claim that Tamil youth are turning their backs on their heritage language. My data from Lancaster (California, US), East London (UK) and Toronto (Canada) shows a more complex attitude towards language maintenance by Tamil youth. Though a majority of the youth declared that English was their dominant language of proficiency, they insisted that it did not affect their positive orientation to ethnic identity and community affiliation. They adopted diverse language practices to enjoy in-group identity: namely, code switching into Tamil; emblematic uses of Tamil; switches into Tamilized versions of English; receptive competence in Tamil which enabled them to respond in English; and ritualized practices of communication where they could participate in communicative events with the aid of multimodal resources. These practices suggest that migrant Tamils are treating languages as fluid resources for identity and community construction. The hybrid and multilingual construction of heritage language and identity enables Tamils to shuttle between different languages and communities in migrant settings to resolve the dilemmas of mobility and identity.

Genetic variants in the cytochrome P450 2D6 gene in the Sri Lankan population

INTRODUCTION:Cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6) enzymes are involved in the metabolism of a large number of commonly prescribed drugs such as antidepressants and cardiovascular drugs. The CYP2D6 *3, *4 and *14 variants associated with the loss of enzyme function; CYP2D6 *10 and *17 variants with reduced enzyme function; and CYP2D6 *2 variant with no effect on enzyme function. Establishing the frequency of these variant alleles in Sri Lankan population would be useful for optimizing pharmacotherapy with CYP2D6-substrate drugs.OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of CYP2D6 *2, *3, *4, *10, *14 and *17 variants in the main ethnic groups in the Sri Lankan population.MATERIALS AND METHODS:A total of 90 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) samples (30 each from Sinhalese, Tamils and Moors) were selected from a DNA resource at the Human Genetic Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. This collection had been made for population genetic studies from a random population based volunteers. Genotyping was performed using published polymerase chain reaction/restriction fragment length polymorphism methods.RESULTS:The prevalence of the CYP2D6 variants in Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Moors respectively were CYP2D6 *2: 37%, 41.6% and 37.9%; CYP2D6 *3: 60.3%, 45% and 30%; CYP2D6 *4: 21.6%, 6.6% and 8.3%; CYP2D6 *10: 40%, 35% and 44%. CYP2D6 *14 and *17 variants were not identified.CONCLUSION:CYP2D6*3, *4 and *10 variants, which are associated with reduced or loss of CYP2D6 enzyme function were found in our population in significant frequencies. CYP2D6*4, which is reported to be a Caucasian variant was also found in all three ethnic groups.

Uncertainty and the Future: A Reading of V.V. Ganeshananthan's Love Marriage

This essay thinks of V.V. Ganeshananthan's recent novel Love Marriage (2008) as a novel of movement. Indeed, one finds movement everywhere in the novel—the escape; the flight; the diaspora; the unsettled; acts of interpretation; the embrace of the unknown. Importantly, it is this very environment of uncertainty that Ganeshananthan shows is vital not just to the Sri Lankan Tamil community but the wider Sri Lankan community as a whole. As the figure of Yalini makes clear, far from being a negative or disabling condition, such uncertainty is the key to beginning the process of reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

Imagining Eelam Tamils in Tamil cinema

Tamil cinema because of its origin is mostly preoccupied with Tamil culture, people and society. This is in contrast to the popular Hindi cinema or Bollywood that portrays a Hindi-speaking and an ethnically undifferentiated middle-class pan-Indian identity. Since the 1990s, driven by rising production costs, dwindling audiences and fickle markets, Bollywood began targeting the Indian diaspora as a potential market for its films. Bollywood immediately captured the imagination of overseas Indians, who are often depicted as successful migrants and having strong national allegiances to India. In this context, the ways in which diasporic Tamils are represented in Tamil cinema, especially the Sri Lankan or Eelam Tamils, who constitute the largest market and most proximate diasporic Tamil community outside Tamil Nadu, remain largely unexamined. This paper critically analyses depictions of Eelam Tamils in Tamil cinema in light of the three-decade-long separatist struggle, at most times led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, against the Sri Lankan government. We argue that shifts and changes in the India–Sri Lanka political relations in light of the ethnic conflict coupled with the nebulous articulation of ethnic affinity between Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils greatly impacted on the ways in which Eelam Tamils were depicted in Tamil cinema.

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.

Tetanus following ocular wooden foreign body in incompletely vaccinated patient: a case report

Tetanus is now encountered rarely in clinical practice. There were no reported cases of tetanus due to ocular injuries in Sri Lanka. We report of a case of tetanus following an ocular injury which can be at least partly attributed to the disruption of immunization programmes due to political unrest. A 13 year-old Sri Lankan Tamil schoolgirl who had a splinter prick injury to left orbit was treated for intraorbital abscess and orbital cellulites. She developed clinical tetanus while on intravenous antibiotics. Following intensive care and ventilatory support she achieved an uncomplicated recovery. Ocular injury is a rare cause of tetanus worldwide. Adequate debridement of orbital soft tissue injuries can be difficult and demanding. Even in countries with high immunization coverage, tetanus can still occur due to lapses in immunization with conflict and war.

“Our Kith and Kin”?: Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees and the Ethnonationalist Parties of Tamil Nadu

This article explains the impact of substate nationalism on the political dynamic surrounding ethnic kin migration through a case study of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Examples drawn from the migration studies literature identify ethnic kinship between refugees and host as an indicator of favorable reception and assistance. While this expectation is borne out to an extent in the Tamil Nadu case, it is tempered by a period of hostility following the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber, when the refugees were figured as a disruptive and dangerous presence by Tamil Nadu's political elites. A version of the “triadic nexus” model of kin state relations, reconfigured to accommodate the larger political unit within which the substate nationalism is incorporated, is proposed as a framework of analysis for these events. This can better account for Tamil Nadu's substate ethnonationalist elite's movement between expressions of coethnic solidarity with the refugees and the more hostile, security-focused response postassassination.

Classic polyarteritis nodosa associated with hepatitis C virus infection: a case report

IntroductionHepatitis C virus has been under-recognized as an etiologic factor for polyarteritis nodosa and the presence of hepatitis C antigenemia in patients with polyarteritis nodosa has been reported as insignificant. In the literature hepatitis C virus-associated polyarteritis nodosa is a rare and controversial entity.Case presentationA 34-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil man presented to our facility with a two-week history of slow-resolving pneumonia of the right mid and lower zones. On physical examination he had panniculitic type tender skin nodules with background livedo reticularis. A skin biopsy was suggestive of a small and medium vessel vasculitis compatible with polyarteritis nodosa. He was tested positive for hepatitis C antibodies. A serum cryoglobulin test was negative but perinuclear antineutrophilic cytoplasmic antibody test was positive. Serum complement levels were reduced. He was diagnosed as having classic polyarteritis nodosa associated with hepatitis C infection. He later developed left-sided radiculopathy involving both upper and lower limbs and an ischemic cardiac event. His hepatitis C infection was managed with polyethylene glycol-interferon 2α combined with oral ribavirin. Simultaneously, his classic polyarteritis nodosa was treated with prednisolone and cyclophosphamide. He made a good recovery.ConclusionsHepatitis C virus infection is capable of inducing a fulminant form of vasculitis in the form of polyarteritis nodosa. It may be easily confused early in its course with mixed cryoglobulinemia, which is commonly known to be associated with hepatitis C virus. Awareness of hepatitis C virus-related polyarteritis nodosa helps in diagnosing the condition early so combined immunosuppressive and antiviral treatment can be started as soon as possible.

Corresponding values and colonising discourses: situating ‘Hindu children’ and their values in relation to hegemonic Norwegian discourses about religious education☆

This article discusses the relationship between values expressed by ‘Hindu children’ in Norway and hegemonic ‘Norwegian values’. The discussion is based on interviews with children from the Indian Punjabi and the Sri Lankan Tamil traditions and on observations in religious education (RE) lessons. The children emphasise the culture of their parents’ country of origin. When asked what the most significant part of their identity was, being Indian and Tamil turned out to be very important to the children. They also value other religions and talk about the divine in ways that are different from traditional Norwegian conceptions and attitudes, expressing tolerance, respect and openness towards other traditions. This article discusses how ‘Hindu values’ relate to ‘Norwegian discourses’ about RE, exploring the ways the children’s values both correspond to and differ from the values we find in hegemonic Norwegian discourses. Will the children have to adapt to hegemonic discourses in RE, or is it possible to learn from and integrate their values?

Prevalence, trends and district differentials in teenage pregnancies

Introduction Teenage pregnancies with their negative obstetric and foetal outcomes are a maternal and child health concern of the country. Objectives To study the prevalence, trends and district differentials in teenage pregnancies in Sri Lanka Methods Three main sources of available national level data were used in this study. They were : vital event registration data from the Registrar General's (RG) Department, data collected routinely by the Family Health Bureau (FHB), Ministry of Health through the Reproductive Health Information Management System (RHMIS) and data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2006/07. Other than utilizing reported information of all three sources, primary data of DHS 2006/07 was accessed with permission and further analysis were performed. Results Routinely available data from the Registrar General's (RG) Department are based on the registrations of live births throughout the island, hence could be considered as a proxy for information on pregnancies. A consistent declining trend in pregnancies among women less than 19 years of age was observed from the year 2000 (8.1%) to 2006 (5.4%). Marked inter district variations were noted. The highest percentage of teenage pregnancy was among the Sri Lankan Tamils. The rural sector showed the highest percentages while the estate sector showed the lowest. High percentage of illegitimate births in the estate sector was noteworthy. Data from the routine RHMIS of the Family Health Bureau also showed a declining trend of teenage pregnant females registered by Public Health Midwives as a percentage of all registered pregnant mothers, during the period 2007 (7.7%) to 2010 (6.5%). The marked inter district variation was observed with the variations consistent to what was observed in the RG's data. Further analysis of DHS data showed that the percentage of teenage pregnancies among ever married women aged between 15 – 49 years to be 6.3% (95% CI 5.4-7.2). Teenage pregnancy rates declined significantly with increasing levels of education (p Conclusions and recommendations Analysis of national level information related to teenage pregnancies from three different sources of available data showed that there is a declining trend in the prevalence of teenage pregnancies. All three sources identified that there is a marked inter-district variation in the teenage pregnancy rates and the districts identified to have high rates of teenage pregnancy by the three different sources were mostly consistent. This indicates the need for district specific interventions. Journal of the College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka Volume 16, No. 02, December 2011 21-30 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jccpsl.v16i2.4577

Embodied Migration: Performance Practices of Diasporic Sri Lankan Tamil Communities in London

This paper examines issues of embodied performativity and transmission of dance practices amongst Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in the suburbs of London, focusing on how the experience of migration has shaped the making of cultural and ethnic identities. Using data gathered from recent ethnographic work in British Tamil temples and in the Tamil community, it addresses the complex discourse between the religious and political sense of selfhood articulated in these Sri Lankan Tamil groups, particularly in relation to dance and ritual performance, and seeks to answer questions regarding the place of dance and movement in defining such identity. In addition, I note the expansion in transmission and performance of the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam in British temple locations and the presence of trance dancing at Hindu festivals, and question how investigating migration as embodied practice might lead to greater understanding of such highly politicised contexts.

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.

Between the home and the world in violent conflict

Throughout Sri Lanka's civil war (1983–2009) official and international news media was dominated by ethnic politics while civilian voices remained silent. Similarly, at the end of the war, media manipulation of civilian traumas for a continuing political contest between the Sri Lankan Government and Tamil diasporic groups shut down other discursive frameworks. The more intimate stories of loss, bereavement, depression and grief were manipulated for a prolonged and bitter nationalist struggle. This article returns to a medium in which these stories were previously voiced, during the war years, in South Asian cinema. Due to government censorship of news media and limited access to the war zone, the local film industries proved to be the more cogent mediums for representing deep-rooted cultural anxieties to mainstream audiences. They conveyed everyday realities absent from news media in fictional interpretations of real events. Questions were raised regarding the affective memories and loyalties of the ethnic conflict and the role of women. The home, its destruction, displacement or re-inscription through violence became a central concern. This article focuses on three South Asian films that explored the subject of motherhood, homelessness and militarization of the ethno-cultural domestic sphere at the height of the ethnic conflict. Their shift from the urban public sites of military contest to private domestic spaces of civilian experience offered a cultural examination of political violence. By revisiting them as early conjectures of civilian trauma we ask how their interpretations of gender and place might be understood in the wake of the civil war.

The Geopolitics of Migrant Mobility: Tracing State Relations Through Refugee Claims, Boats, and Discourses

This paper highlights how states attempt to control migrant mobilities through refugee claims. We examine the representations and practices of refugees in the refugee claimant process over time and in very different cases with distinct geopolitical influences and inflections in Canada. Our paper is based on case studies of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants in Toronto and refugee claimants from Fujian province, China, that landed in British Columbia in 1999. We analyse the ways that geopolitics influence every phase of the refugee claimant process, from the representations of claimants, to the decisions made about refugee claims, and the tenor of mundane encounters with state authorities. Our findings indicate that the geopolitics of migrant mobilities are produced through everyday state practices as well as by migrant strategies to move and resettle.