Everyday Resistance
Female Headed Households in Northern Sri Lanka
Northern Sri Lanka has been at the heart of the country’s 30-year civil war, a bloody conflict which has given rise to an estimated 40,000 households headed by women in this region. Based on fieldwork conducted in 10 villages and towns, this ePaper aims to identify and describe the most pervasive economic, physical and psycho-social vulnerabilities that female heads of households (FHHs) in the north face in the post-war context. It also traces how the state has shaped these vulnerabilities thr...
Editor’s note
Cover photo Sri Lanka, Vavuniya: Displaced Tamil civilians listen to unseen Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse speaking at a displaced camp in Manik Farm, located on the outskirts of the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya, on December 9, 2009. The camps in the northern town of Vavuniya were made open camps last week as the government claimed to settle more than 50 per cent of the near 300,000 civilians from the former Tamil Tiger regions. AFP PHOTO/Lakruwan WANNIARACHCHI/POOL.
Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications
Place of publication: Genève
Published on OpenEdition Books: May 16, 2013
Digital ISBN: 978-2-940503-27-8
Series: eCahiers de l’Institut | 19
Year of publication: 2013
ISBN (Print version): 978-2-940503-26-1
Northern Sri Lanka has been at the heart of the country’s 30-year civil war, a bloody conflict which has given rise to an estimated 40,000 households headed by women in this region. Based on fieldwork conducted in 10 villages and towns, this ePaper aims to identify and describe the most pervasive economic, physical and psycho-social vulnerabilities that female heads of households (FHHs) in the north face in the post-war context. It also traces how the state has shaped these vulnerabilities through its pursuit of a national security agenda under the guise of “reconstruction.” The response strategies that FHHs have deployed in response to these vulnerabilities range from the creation of innovative livelihood opportunities to acts of “everyday politics” that contest the structures of patriarchy and state-led domination which attempt to marginalize the diversity of FHHs’ stories, hardships and responses. These findings suggest that, rather than being passive victims of socio-political manipulation and oppression, FHHs are highly vulnerable but active agents in their own lives. Though inevitably influenced by unequal power relations and gendered norms, through their response strategies, they also contest the narrow identities constructed for Tamil women and their simplistic portrayal as either “powerless victims” or “empowered warriors”.
Raksha Vasudevan holds a Master's degree in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute, Geneva and a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from the University of Calgary. Her research interests include gender, security and the private sector's role in post-conflict reconstruction. She has previously worked with a microfinance NGO in Bangladesh, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva, and a management consulting firm in Canada. Raksha is currently working for a Swiss-based mine action NGO.
Only the text can be used under the Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Other elements (illustrations, attached files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
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