Abstract
This chapter explores the socio-spatial backdrop of this multisited ethnographic study, presenting Sri Lanka’s littoral northeast as a fluid borderland characterised by manifold historic flows and mobilities. Drawing on biographical narratives, the District of Trincomalee, in particular, is portrayed as a space that is intensely distinct in terms of the Sri Lanka’s intersecting lines of sociocultural and political differentiation crosscutting ethno-linguistic and faith-based belonging and geographic and livelihood-based affiliations, together with occupational caste structures. The chapter also presents a canvas of experiential narratives on what it meant to live through wartime and after the tsunami, further elucidating the fact that the encounters of diverse fisher collectives themselves remain intensely differentiated. These experiences and their broader socio-political lives were patterned not via locality and ethno-religious identity making but also through intergenerational and biographical relationships to the coastline and the sea.
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Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2018). Sri Lanka’s Littoral Northeast. In: Fishing, Mobility and Settlerhood. MARE Publication Series, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78837-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78837-1_2
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