Violating the State Body: Sexual Violence and Control in the Sri Lankan Civil War as Nation-Building in the Body Politic
Abstract
This article examines the use of sexual violence and rape during the Sri Lankan civil war by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), as well as the control of sexuality by the insurgent force by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). While in both circumstances male bodies were also victims of sexual violence by the state, particularly when in custody, or forced celibacy, I specifically examine the political imaginaries which surrounded female bodies during and since the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 as forms of nation-building and state cartographic practices. Following Matthew H. Edney’s (2007) observation on the connected imaginaries of mapped bodies and female bodies, as they can be claimed and controlled in much the same way, I argue that sexual violence and/ or control becomes a form of nation-building. I suggest that the Sri Lankan civil war can tell us much about the violence required in nation-building.
References
AFP 2017, ‘Study says Sri Lankan men face rape a decade after civil war’, DAWN.COM, 18 May, viewed 10 October 2018, .
Ahmed, I 1998, The Efficacy of the Nation State in South Asia: a post-nationalist critique, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo.
Anand, D 2007, ‘Anxious Sexualities: Masculinity, Nationalism and Violence’, British Journal of Politics & International Relations, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 257–269. https://doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2007.00282.x
Butalia, U, Murthy, L & Navsharan, S 2016, ‘Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia: An Introduction’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. vii–xvi.
Cronin-Furman, K 2017, ‘Analysis|Are Sri Lankan officers ordering soldiers to sexually assault Tamil detainees?’, Washington Post, 16 November, viewed 10 October 2018, .
Death Penalty Database: Sri Lanka, 2011, Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, .
de Mel, N 2001, Women & the Nation’s Narrative: Gender and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Sri Lanka, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham.
Edney, MH 2007, ‘Mapping Empires, Mapping Bodies: Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Cartography’, Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia, vol. 63, pp. 83–104.
Enloe, C 1993, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War, University of California Press; Berkley; Los Angeles; London.
Enloe, CH 2014, Bananas, beaches and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics, University of California Press, Berkeley; Los Angeles; London.
Foucault, M 1978, The history of sexuality, Pantheon Books, New York.
Gregory, D 2004, The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.
Haniffa, F 2016, ‘Sex and Violence in the Eastern Province: A Study in Muslim Masculinity’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 193–236.
Harley, JB 1988, ‘Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe’, Imago Mundi, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 57–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085698808592639
Hyndman, J & Amarasingam, A 2014, ‘Touring “Terrorism”: Landscapes of Memory in Post War Sri Lanka’, Geography Compass, vol. 8, no. 8, pp. 560–575. https://doi: 10.1111/gec3.12149
Ismail, Q 2019, ‘From casualty to catastrophe’, Groundviews, 5 May, viewed 5 May 2019, pp. 1–8, .
Jazeel, T 2009, ‘Reading the geography of Sri Lankan island-ness: colonial repetitions, postcolonial possibilities’, Contemporary South Asia, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 399–414. https://doi: 10.1080/09584930903324138
Jazeel, T 2012, ‘Postcolonialism: Orientalism and the Geographical Imagination’, Geography, vol. 97, no. 1, pp. 4–11.
Kitchin, R & Dodge, M 2007, ‘Rethinking maps’, Progress in Human Geography, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 331–344. https://doi:10.1177/0309132507077082
Kodikara, C & Emmanuel, S 2016, ‘Global Discourses and Local Realities: Armed Conflict and the Pursuit of Justice’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 1–35.
Krishna, S 1994, ‘Cartographic Anxiety: Mapping the Body Politic in India’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 507–521. https://doi: 10.1177/030437549401900404
Maunaguru, S 2009, ‘Gendering Tamil Nationalism: The Construction of “Woman” in Projects of Protest and Control’, in P Jeganathan & Q Ismail (eds), Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity & History in Modern Sri Lanka, South Focus Press Colombo, pp. 157–173.
Mashal, M & Bastians, D 2018, ‘Sri Lanka Declares State of Emergency After Mob Attacks on Muslims’, The New York Times, 6 March, viewed 29 July 2018, .
Massey, DB 1994, Space, place, and gender, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
McClintock, A 2013, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, Routledge, New York; Oxon.
Mohan, R 2016, ‘The Fear of Rape: Tamil Women and Wartime Sexual Violence’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 237–295.
Mouffe C, 1994 ‘For a politics of nomadic identity’, in G Robertson (ed), Travellers’ tales: narratives of home and displacement, Routledge, pp. 105–113.
Pinto-Jayawardena, K 2009, The Rule of Law in Decline; Study on Prevalence, Determinants and Causes of Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CIDTP) in Sri Lanka, Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT), pp. 1–229, .
Pinto-Jayawardena, K & Anantharajah, K 2016, ‘A Crisis of “Legal Indeterminacy” and State Impunity’”, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 36–169.
Pinto-Jayawardena, K & Guthrie, J 2016, ‘Introduction’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. xix–lii.
Rasheed, Z & Cader, I 2018, ‘Sri Lanka “on the brink” amid fresh anti-Muslim violence’, Aljazeera, 8 March, viewed 29 July 2018, .
Richardson, JM 2005, Paradise Poisoned: Learning about Conflict, Terrorism, and Development from Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars, International Center for Ethnic Studies, Colombo.
Sooka, Y 2014, An Unfinished War: Torture and Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka 2009–2014, The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) and The International Truth & Justice Project, Sri Lanka, pp. 1–110, .
Sparke, M 1998, ‘A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 463–495. https://doi:10.1111/0004-5608.00109
Sumathy, S 2016a, ‘A Spoonful of Sugar: The Quest for Survival and Justice’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 296–368.
Sumathy, S 2016b, ‘Territorial Claims, Home, Land and Movement: Women’s History of Violence and Resistance’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 369–399.
Thangarajah, P 2016, ‘Rape and the Evidentiary Process in Sri Lanka’, in K Jayawardena & K Pinto-Jayawardena (eds), The Search for Justice: The Sri Lankan Papers, Zubaan Series on Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, pp. 170–192.
Thiranagama, S 2011, In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2015, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka, Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General A/HRC/30/61, United Nations Human Rights Council, pp. 1–19, .
University Teachers for Human Rights 2001, The Fatal Conjunction: Women, Continuing Violations & Accountability, Information Bulletin 25, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, .
Wang, P 2011, ‘Women in the LTTE: Birds of Freedom or Cogs in the Wheel?’, Journal of Politics and Law, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 100–108.
Wood, EJ 2009, ‘Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare?’, Politics & Society, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 131–162. https://doi: 10.1177/0032329208329755
Full Text: pdf
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.