Symposia & Conferences
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Item Freeing anthropology from Eurocentric philosophical underpinnings(University of Kelaniya, 2008) Goonatilake, S.Item Colonial Construction: Panadura Vaadaya in the Anthropological Literature(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Goonatilake, S.The "Panadura debate" Panadura Vaadaya in the nineteenth century between the Christians and Buddhists was central to the anti-colonial struggle in the cultural sphere. It was the culmination of protests against the crude methods of suppression against the local culture employed by respectively the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British over nearly 400 years. This cultural liberationist movement has been deliberately distorted by a recent set of writers. These writers include Obeyesekere, Gombrich, Kapferer, Roberts, Tambiah, H.L. Seneviratne, C. R. de Silva and Kumari Jayawardene. Some of them have associated the debates with the contemporary Western discourse on fundamentalism -triggered by the Western fear of the Muslims. This paper summarizes the social background to the Panadura Vaadaya, its global context (within a time non Western classical literature and learning was coming into Western discourse) and global role (as part of the sensitizing process in the West to the existence of sophisticated discourses outside Christianity). The paper puts into contemporary global context and global role the interpretations of these latter writers. The writers engaging in distorting the anti colonial content help processes of recolonisation operating in the country.Item Sociology/Anthropology Literature: An Excursion into the Sociology of Sociology(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Goonatilake, S.The sociology of knowledge posits social networks and frameworks that filter the production, acceptance and dissemination of legitimized knowledge. Sri Lankan anthropology, over 50 years after independence is still largely written by foreigners or foreign based Sri Lankan academics for foreign audiences and have given rise to a body of knowledge largely tangential to the truth. These flights of fancy have been allowed to occur because there is a disjuncture between the academic discourse within Sri Lanka say in the universities, and that occurring outside the country in this anthropology literature. The obvious question is: what are the institutions within Sri Lanka, outside of the university and public sphere that maintain this production of spurious knowledge. The paper identifies a cluster of basically foreign funded institutions that interact with and help in the production of this spurious anthropology. The organizations identified include ICES (Colombo), Marga, SSA, CPA. The list of spurious publications and their authors either channel through, work with, or find discussion room in these institutions. During the period of attempted decolonisation of anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s a call was made for a new anthropology where power structures in knowledge were to be reversed. The paper posits that the same logic should be applied to this network of organisations and that they should be subjected to anthropological inquiry in the same manner that innocent villages in Sri Lanka are subject to.Item The reverse transfer in the early colonial period: Sinhala Jewellery in the Portuguese and European courts(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Goonatilake, S.The Iberian adventures beginning in the late 15th Century (the so-called Voyages of Discovery) resulted in the transfer of many botanical and other products across the globe, examples potato, tobacco and tomato to Europe and Asia. The Iberian adventures were also the result of prior accumulation in the 14th to 15th centuries of navigational knowledge and technologies from within the Mediterranean and from Asia, examples of the latter: the New Arithmetic introduced from South Asia by the Arabs, the lateen sail, the compass, the astrolabe and extensive geographical knowledge. Sri Lanka was the major Asian civilizational entity that fell victim to Portuguese attack. Its practice of Christian induced genocide (via the Pope’s Treaty of Tordisellas) resulted in a massive cultural assault on the country. The consequent cultural imposition has been widely documented. Yet, in a reverse direction, there was a transfer of manufactured cultural products from the Sinhalese into the Portuguese and hence to Europe. This was the Portuguese import of Sinhalese jewellery. A Portuguese queen at the time, Queen Catherine was an avid collector of Sinhalese jewellery who in turn gifted them to many European royal houses as much sought after gifts. Many of these are today found in museums scattered over Europe. Their documentation is found in Portuguese records at the time as well as in recent books on Portuguese jewellery. The illustrated paper describes these manufactured products transferred and now found in European museums such as in Lisbon, Amsterdam, Munich, Paris and London (several photographed by the author). It describes through Portuguese documentation at the time, the transfer process from Sri Lanka to Portugal and beyond. It speculates on the technology used in Sri Lanka at the time comparing Sinhala products and technology with the contemporary European jewellery and its associated technology. It speculates briefly on its impact on the Renaissance in that these collections found their way into Renaissance “curiosity boxes” and helped kindle the European imagination.Item Ideological Warfare: Role of Foreign Funded NGOs and the Death of Civil Society in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Goonatilake, S.The explosion of foreign funded NGOs is a result of the New Policy Agenda in the Western world undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In countries such as India, Malaysia, Singapore with their strong defence and sovereignty oriented posture foreign funded NGOs have been largely limited to welfare work or to support of broad social causes. In none of these countries are foreign funded NGOs allowed to impinge on defence and sovereignty. In Sri Lanka, foreign funded NGOs have advocated erosion of sovereignty and have often acted as ideological proxies for the LTTE. The paper discusses the actions of several foreign funded NGOs such as the National Peace Council, International Alert, Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Berghof Foundation in eroding sovereignty, calling for two near states, promoting demilitarisation of the armed forces, and inciting the armed forces to go against the country’s unitary constitution. Outside those foreign funded NGOs directly promoting a pro LTTE agenda are some organisations purportedly studying Sri Lanka from a social science perspective. These organisations include the ICES (Colombo) and SSA both of which have acted as major clearing houses for much of the anti Sri Lanka, and specifically anti Buddhist propaganda couched in an academic garb. Those associated with ICES Colombo have written a variety of fiction masquerading as social science whose implied messages have been against the nationalist renaissance in Sri Lanka. Some in the SSA have explicitly called for the unmaking of the Sri Lankan nation. The paper examines in general terms the activities of these organisations as ideological warfare conducted against Sri Lanka and its people and as proxies acting for foreign interests bent on recolonization. The paper examines in greater detail activities of International Alert, the National Peace Council, and the Berghof Foundation as particular obnoxious examples. It also gives evidence that many of these organisations are run by a small coterie of persons who hold several interlocking positions in the different organisations. It is posited that the Sri Lanka's situation is a unique example of the reassertion of global Western power at a time when Asian states are getting stronger. It fits into an attempted recolonisation agenda.