Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque

Kalinga Tudor Silva, Benedikt Korf, Bart Klem, Shahul Hasbullah, Jonathan Goodhand, Jonathan Spencer

Description

Is religion best seen as only a cause of war, or is it a source of comfort for those caught up in conflict? In Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque six senior figures in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Development Studies set out to answer this question.



Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka's most religiously diverse and politically troubled region during the country's civil war (1983-2009), it provides a series of new and provocative arguments about the promise of a religiously based civil society, and the strengths and weaknesses of religious organisations and religious leaders in conflict mediation.



The authors argue that for people trapped in long and violent conflicts, religion ultimately plays a contradictory role, and that its institutions are themselves profoundly affected by war - producing a complex picture in which Catholic priests engage with Buddhist monks and new Muslim leaders, and where Hindu temples and Pentecostal churches offer the promise of healing.
List of Illustrations

Series Preface

Acknowledgements

Glossary and Acronyms

1. Introduction

2. The East as a Complex Religious Field

3. Land and Water, War and not War

4. Making Sacred Space

5. Conflict in the Plural

6. Boundary Politics, Religion and Peace-Building

7. Afterword: War’s End

8. Reflections

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Religión
• Political science of religion
• Anthropology
• Religion
• Social
• Sri Lanka
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783712151
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque
 
 
 
Anthropology, Culture and Society
Series Editors:
Professor Vered Amit, Concordia University
and
Professor Christina Garsten, Stockholm University
Recent titles:
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Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque
A Collaborative Ethnography of War and Peace
Jonathan Spencer, Jonathan Goodhand, Shahul Hasbullah, Bart Klem, Benedikt Korf and Kalinga Tudor Silva
 
 
 
First published 2015 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Jonathan Spencer, Jonathan Goodhand, Shahul Hasbullah, Bart Klem, Benedikt Korf and Kalinga Tudor Silva 2015
The right of Jonathan Spencer, Jonathan Goodhand, Shahul Hasbullah, Bart Klem, Benedikt Korf and Kalinga Tudor Silva to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN      
978 0 7453 3122 5      
Hardback
ISBN
978 0 7453 3121 8
Paperback
ISBN
978 1 7837 1214 4
PDF eBook
ISBN
978 1 7837 1216 8
Kindle eBook
ISBN
978 1 7837 1215 1
EPUB eBook
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Text design by Melanie Patrick
Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
 
 
 
Contents
List of Illustrations
Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Glossary and Acronyms
1.
Introduction
2.
The East as a Complex Religious Field
3.
Land and Water, War and Not War
4.
Making Sacred Space
5.
Conflict in the Plural
6.
Boundary Politics, Religion and Peace-Building
7.
Afterword: War’s End
8.
Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 
 
 
List of Illustrations
Figures
1.1
Priests boarding a transport ship, Kankesanthurai, 1992
2.1
Kovil , Kokkadichcholai, 2010
3.1
Paddy fields near Akkaraipattu, 2008
4.1
Norachcholai housing scheme, 2008
5.1
Kattankudy Mosque Federation, 2008
6.1
Calvary church, Veeramanagar, 2010
Maps
Composed by Shahul Hasbullah, Bart Klem and Marc Vis, using field observation and open sources (Google Earth, Open Street Map)
1.1
Eastern Province (Ampara and Batticaloa districts), Sri Lanka
4.1
Dighavapi
5.1
Kattankudy
5.2
Akkaraipattu
Tables
3.1
Batticaloa and Ampara population by ethnicity, 1946–2007
 
 
 
Series Preface
Anthropology is a discipline based upon in-depth ethnographic works that deal with wider theoretical issues in the context of particular, local conditions – to paraphrase an important volume from the series: large issues explored in small places . This series has a particular mission: to publish work that moves away from an old-style descriptive ethnography that is strongly area-studies oriented, and offer genuine theoretical arguments that are of interest to a much wider readership, but which are nevertheless located and grounded in solid ethnographic research. If anthropology is to argue itself a place in the contemporary intellectual world, then it must surely be through such research.
We start from the question: ‘What can this ethnographic material tell us about the bigger theoretical issues that concern the social sciences?’ rather than ‘What can these theoretical ideas tell us about the ethnographic context?’ Put this way round, such work becomes about large issues, set in a (relatively) small place, rather than detailed description of a small place for its own sake. As Clifford Geertz once said, ‘Anthropologists don’t study villages; they study in villages.’
By place, we mean not only geographical locale, but also other types of ‘place’ – within political, economic, religious or other social systems. We therefore publish work based on ethnography within political and religious movements, occupational or class groups, among youth, development agencies, and nationalist movements; but also work that is more thematically based – on kinship, landscape, the state, violence, corruption, the self. The series publishes four kinds of volume: ethnographic monographs; comparative texts; edited collections; and shorter, polemical essays.
We publish work from all traditions of anthropology, and all parts of the world, which combines theoretical debate with empirical evidence to demonstrate anthropology’s unique position in contemporary scholarship and the contemporary world.
Professor Vered Amit
Professor Christina Garsten
 
 
 
Acknowledgements
The research for this book was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (award RES-155-25-0096), as part of its Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA) programme. Subsequent work on analysing the field material and writing has been greatly facilitated by an International Partnership award funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the British Academy (award IP090196) as well as by two grants of the Swiss National Science Foundation (awards PDFMP1 123181 and 100017_140728). Preliminary work was supported by a series of small collaborative awards from the British Council in Colombo. We are especially grateful to Jude Howell, Director of the NGPA programme, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of our work throughout. Our own universities – Edinburgh, Peradeniya, Zurich and the School of Oriental and African Studies – have provided us with the time and facilities we needed, not just for the fieldwork but for the countless meetings that are one of the pleasures of collaboration of this sort.
In Sri Lanka, we accrued many debts. At Peradeniya University: Mr W.M.K.B. Wickramasinghe, Mr Kamalaratna Thusara, Revd Pahamune Sri Sumangala, P. Malini, Mufizal Aboobucker, John Nigel, S. Satheesmohan, A.G. Fathima Shifani, N. Pushparajah. At Eastern University: Kanesh Suresh, who played a key role in supporting and helping conduct the field research; the late S. Ravindranath, Jeyapraba Suresh, Sivakolunthu Ponniah, M.B. Fowzul, A.L.M. Mujahid, Sinnah Maunaguru, Sitralega Maunaguru, Dominic Saminathan. At Southeastern University: the late Faleel Haq, S. Gunapalan, A.N. Ahmed. In Ampara: Revd Kirindiwela Somaratna, Poddiwela Chandraratna, Revd Girambe Mangala, Mr Sunil Kannangara, Mr A.A. Bawa; in Akkaraipattu: Devadasan, Eardley Bathasar, I. Riswan and A.M. Jaufar; in Kattankudy A.R. Jesmil; in Batticaloa, Ananda Galappatti and Sarola Emmanuel, Amara and Sorna, were especially hospitable, as were the staff at the Riviera guesthouse. Academic colleagues with their own long engagement in eastern Sri Lanka were