Performing Sovereign Aspirations: Tamil Insurgency and Postwar Transition in Sri Lanka

— —

Bart Klem (University of Gothenburg)

Performing Sovereign Aspirations

Tamil Insurgency and Postwar Transition in Sri Lanka

Bart Klem (University of Gothenburg)

$284.95 $228.22

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Cambridge University Press
21 November 2024

Series: South Asia in the Social Sciences

In a society that experiences secessionist conflict, many things are not what they seem. This book adopts a performative perspective to understand the peculiar institutional landscape the ensued around the Tamil separatist conflict in Sri Lanka, both during and after the civil war. It draws on two decades of fieldwork across towns and villages in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, ethnography within Sri Lanka's civil service, and privileged access to Norwegian-facilitated peace process. This yields a compelling analytical narrative that shows how political institutions are enacted and witnessed, rather than cataloguing them in the strictures of the law. This provides a fertile vantage point to address the to-be-or-not-to-be dilemmas that we face when seeking to interpret the legitimacy, legality, and validity of the institutions that separatist movements create in aspiration of sovereign status. And as such, this book provides food for thought for broader conceptual debates concerning armed conflict and insurgency. This title is available Open Access.

By: Bart Klem (University of Gothenburg)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 159mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9781009442466
ISBN 10: 1009442465
Series: South Asia in the Social Sciences
Pages: 250
Publication Date: 21 November 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Frequently Used Sri Lankan Terms; A Typographical Note on Separatism; Introduction; 1. Sovereignty, Performativity and Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka; 2. Performing an Insurgent Sovereign Experiment; 3. Reconstituting 'Pure Tamil Space' after Sovereign Erasure; 4. The Bureaucratic Evolution of Devolution; 5. Tamil Nationalist Anti-politics in the Wake of Defeat; 6. Conclusion; Epilogue; References; Index.

Bart Klem is an Associate Professor in Peace and Development studies at Gothenburg University (Sweden). He writes about everyday life and politics amidst armed conflict. He has conducted fieldwork across Sri Lanka's northeast since 2000. He co-authored Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque (Pluto 2015) and co-edited journal issues on insurgent politics (Modern Asian Studies 2018) and on legal identity under insurgencies (Citizenship Studies 2024).