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The Struggle between the Lion and the Tiger

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The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness

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Abstract

Sri Lanka is at war — with itself. Since 1983, a permanent civil war of exceptional cruelty has been raging, especially in the north and the east of the island. This civil war is sometimes characterized as an ethnic conflict between a Sinhala majority and a Tamil minority. To some extent it is — but such a characterization may overemphasize the ethnic homogeneity of either population, and underestimate internal differences and conflicts that contribute to the construction of ethnic identities. On the other hand, it un-deremphasizes the non-ethnic aspects of so-called ‘ethnic’ struggles.

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Authors
  1. Peter Kloos
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), University of Leiden, Netherlands

    Cora Govers (Research Coordinator) (Research Coordinator)

  2. Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Hans Vermeulen (Co-director of Research) (Co-director of Research)

Copyright information

© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Kloos, P. (1997). The Struggle between the Lion and the Tiger. In: Govers, C., Vermeulen, H. (eds) The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-64673-9_7

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