
Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times
Ethnographic Fictions and Sri Lanka's War
Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham(Author)
Northwestern University Press
Will be published approx. on 30. October 2019
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-8101-4075-2 (ISBN)
Description
Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times: Ethnographic Fictions and Sri Lanka's War argues that the bloody war fought between the Sri Lankan state and the separatist Tamil Tigers from 1983 to 2009 should be understood as structured and animated by the forces of global capitalism. Using Aihwa Ong's theorization of neoliberalism as a mobile technology and assemblage, this book explores how contemporary globalization, as an economic system and a governing rationality for the management of populations, has exacerbated forces of nationalism and racism.
One of the book's key interventions is to demonstrate that the form of ethnographic fiction is vital for understanding neoliberal assemblages. Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham argues that the fictions that belong to this form have both internalized certain colonial Orientalist impulses but also critically engaged with categories of objective gazing, empiricism, and temporal distancing. She demonstrates that such fictions take seriously the task of bearing witness and documenting the complex productions of ethnic identities and the devastations wrought by warfare.
To this end, Assembling Ethnicities explores colonial-era travel writing by Robert Knox (1681) and Leonard Woolf (1913), contemporary works by Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Shobasakthi, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, and cultural festivals, vernacular performances of Euripides's The Trojan Women, and women workers' theater. The book interprets contemporary fictions to unpack neoliberalism's entanglements with nationalism and racism, engaging current issues such as human rights, organicism, Tamil militancy, immigrant lives, feminism and nationalism, and postwar developmentalism.
One of the book's key interventions is to demonstrate that the form of ethnographic fiction is vital for understanding neoliberal assemblages. Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham argues that the fictions that belong to this form have both internalized certain colonial Orientalist impulses but also critically engaged with categories of objective gazing, empiricism, and temporal distancing. She demonstrates that such fictions take seriously the task of bearing witness and documenting the complex productions of ethnic identities and the devastations wrought by warfare.
To this end, Assembling Ethnicities explores colonial-era travel writing by Robert Knox (1681) and Leonard Woolf (1913), contemporary works by Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Shobasakthi, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, and cultural festivals, vernacular performances of Euripides's The Trojan Women, and women workers' theater. The book interprets contemporary fictions to unpack neoliberalism's entanglements with nationalism and racism, engaging current issues such as human rights, organicism, Tamil militancy, immigrant lives, feminism and nationalism, and postwar developmentalism.
Reviews / Votes
"Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times makes urgent and central the ways in which Sri Lanka's bellicose, colonial past intersects with a vexed neoliberal present."-Cathy Schlund-Vials, author of War, Genocide, and Justice: Cambodian American Memory WorkMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Evanston
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
26 black & white images
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
633 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8101-4075-2 (9780810140752)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham
Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times
Ethnographic Fictions and Sri Lanka's War
E-Book
10/2019
1st Edition
Northwestern University Press
€102.99
Available for download
Person
NIMANTHI PERERA-RAJASINGHAM is an assistant professor of English at Colgate University.
Content
Introduction
I Capitalism and Race
II Ethnographic Fictions:
Trading and Untrading the Nation in the Writings of Robert Knox and Leonard Woolf
Chapter 1
The Factory Is like the Paddy Field:
Gam Udawa Performances, Neoliberalism, and Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism
Chapter 2
In the Shadows of Neoliberalism:
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Many Lives of Shobasakthi in Gorilla and Dheepan
Chapter 3
How Bodies Matter:
Working-Class Women's Theater in a Time of War
Chapter 4
Bearing Witness, Human Rights, and the Politics of Solidarity
in Anil's Ghost and The Trojan Women
Conclusion
Cartographies of Loss:
Postwar Neoliberalism, International Tourism, and the Vital Art of
Romesh Gunesekera and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan
I Capitalism and Race
II Ethnographic Fictions:
Trading and Untrading the Nation in the Writings of Robert Knox and Leonard Woolf
Chapter 1
The Factory Is like the Paddy Field:
Gam Udawa Performances, Neoliberalism, and Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism
Chapter 2
In the Shadows of Neoliberalism:
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Many Lives of Shobasakthi in Gorilla and Dheepan
Chapter 3
How Bodies Matter:
Working-Class Women's Theater in a Time of War
Chapter 4
Bearing Witness, Human Rights, and the Politics of Solidarity
in Anil's Ghost and The Trojan Women
Conclusion
Cartographies of Loss:
Postwar Neoliberalism, International Tourism, and the Vital Art of
Romesh Gunesekera and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan