Bart Klem | University of Melbourne (original) (raw)

Publications by Bart Klem

This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual ar... more This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual argument about sovereignty. Despite its aura of natural order, sovereignty is ultimately self-referential and thus somewhat arbi- trary and potentially unstable. At the heart of this unsteadiness, we posit, lies the paradox between the systematic tenets of rational governance and the capri- cious potential of sublime violence. Both are highly relevant to the LTTE case: the movement created de facto state institutions to mimic governance, but simul- taneously deployed an elaborate transcendental register of sacrifice, meaning, and intractable power wielded by a mythical leader. To capture this paradox, we connect the literature on rebel governance with anthropological debates about divine kingship. We conceptualize sovereignty as a citational practice that involves the adaptation, imitation, and mutation of different idioms of authority: political and religious, modern and traditional, rational and mythical. Understand- ing sovereignty in this way debunks the idea that insurgent movements are merely lagging behind established states. As sites of mimicry, bricolage, and innovation, they transform the way sovereignty is practiced and understood, thus affecting the frame that sovereignty is.

European Journal of Development Research, 2009

!

This article narrates how bureaucrats in eastern Sri Lanka operated during and after the war. The... more This article narrates how bureaucrats in eastern Sri Lanka operated during and after the war. They managed to keep minimal state services running whilst being locked between the government and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). When the government defeated the LTTE in 2009, civil servants were freed from rebel coercion, but they also lost their counterweight against unappreciated policies from the capital and interference by local politicians. The article links the thinking on armed conflicts with the literature that conceptualizes 'the state' not as a coherent entity, but as a subject of continuous negotiation. The state's insigne provides a sense of legitimacy and supremacy, but governments have no monopoly on using it. Other powerful actors capture state institutions, resources and discourse for contradictory purposes. This perspective helps us reconcile the appearance of bureaucratic order with the peculiar and hybrid forms of rule that emerged in the war between rebels and government, and it sheds light on some of the surprising changes and continuities that occurred when that war ended. Public administration is neither just a victim of war, nor plainly a victor of the post-war situation.

This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical... more This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical debates on war endings.It uses detailed empirical analysis and up-to-date maps to explore these two concepts in the context of eastern Sri Lanka.The vantage point of territorialisation highlights forms of post-war hegemony, which resonate with observations elsewhere.The vantage point of circulation opens up an analytical terrain that has been neglected by the literature so far.This article argues that territorialisation and circulation are centrally important to the transition that takes place at the end of a war. It does so with a case study of Trincomalee, a multiethnic region on Sri Lanka's east coast, after the end of the ethno-separatist war in 2009. Post-war territorialisation comprises the consolidation of the government's military victory through the establishment of military zones and sacred sites, the construction of strategic roads and shifts in the ethnic settlement patterns. There are, however, a number of contingent counter-forces that unsettle the common interpretation that this is orchestrated 'Sinhala colonisation'. The angle of circulation directs us to flows and influences that become manifest when the curtailment of war (checkpoints, frontlines, collapsed infrastructure, surveillance) comes to an end. This propels a peace dividend - access, security, mobility - but also incites concerns among all ethnic communities about exposure to the moral decay of a globalised world. While territorialisation and circulation may appear to be opposites, they are in fact a conceptual pair. The two terms expose a field of tension that has much to contribute to the geographical literature on war endings, which has neglected the significance of postwar shifts in circulation thus far.

Disasters, 2010

This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contami... more This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contaminated' the 'purity' of good intentions with the politics of patronage and international aid. It argues that gifts are not just material transfers of 'aid', but also embodiments of cultural symbolism, social power, and political affiliations. The tsunami gift re-enforced and reconfigured exchange relationships among different patrons and clients in Sri Lankan communities, perpetuating the political economy that has driven social conflict and discontent in the post-independence years. Beyond dominant rationales of ethnic or political party patronage, the paper finds that gifts by disingenuous patrons not only became patrimonial, but that the patrimonial rationale emerged as much from above as from below-a dynamic that became nearly inescapable and self-reinforcing. Through three case studies, we explore the intricate chain of relations, obligations, and expectations pertinent in the co-evolving, but often contradictory, gift rationales that permeate the practices, performances, and discourses of tsunami aid.

Modern Asian Studies, 2014

This article analyses Sri Lanka's April 2010 parliamentary elections as they played out in the Mu... more This article analyses Sri Lanka's April 2010 parliamentary elections as they played out in the Muslim community on the east coast. The political work of elections, so the article shows, involves a lot more than the composition of government. Antagonism over group identities and boundaries are at centre stage. Elections force people to show their colours which causes turbulence as they grapple with several, possibly contradictory, loyalties. The article argues that elections bring together different political storylines, rather than one master antagonism. It is the interaction between different narratives that paradoxically provides elections both with a sense of gravity and dignity, and with the lingering threat of rupture and disturbance.

The end of war marks a reconstitution in what is seen as legitimate politics.The shift is a resul... more The end of war marks a reconstitution in what is seen as legitimate politics.The shift is a result of political work attempting to produce legitimacy.This constrains certain actors, tactics, and registers and amplifies others.Spaces for dissent are reduced, while the space for politicking expands.Underlying fallibilities and contradictions of democracy are thus exposed.Bringing together ethnographic evidence from mid-Western Nepal and eastern Sri Lanka, this article explores how political legitimacy is constructed and contested in post-war environments. We posit that in the post-war context there are important changes in the kinds of politics, agenda-setting, players and tactics that are considered acceptable and those that are rendered transgressive, threats to order and stability, or otherwise placed ‘out of bounds’. The art of crafting political legitimacy is defined in sharp contrast to the immediate history of armed conflict. The end of the war and the resumption of supposedly democratic politics thus mark a shift in what is seen as legitimate or normal politics. This shift constrains certain kinds of actors, tactics, and registers and it amplifies others, while being itself a result of political work. We argue that a reduction of the space for dissent, and an increase of the space for politicking are complementary aspects of the redefinition of what constitutes legitimate politics in the post-war context. These adverse political effects are not simply problems of context – post-war environments being non-conducive to democracy – but rather expose the more fundamental fallibilities and contradictions of demarcating a legitimate sphere of democratic politics in particularly visible and precarious ways.

This article bridges Sri Lankan studies and the academic debate on the relation between contempor... more This article bridges Sri Lankan studies and the academic debate on the relation between contemporary Islam and politics. It constitutes a case study of the Muslim community in Akkaraipattu on Sri Lanka's war-ridden east coast. Over two decades of ethnically colored conflict have made Muslim identity of paramount importance, but the meanings attached to that identity vary substantively. Politicians, mosque leaders, Sufis and Tablighis define the ethnic, religious and political dimensions of "Muslimness" differently and this leads to intra-Muslim contradictions. The case study thus helps resolve the puzzle of Sri Lankan Muslims: they are surrounded by hostility, but they continue to be internally divided. Akkaraipattu's Muslims jockey between principled politics, pragmatic politics and anti-politics, because they have to navigate different trajectories. This article thus corroborates recent studies on Islam elsewhere that argue for contextualized and nuanced approaches to the variegated interface between Islam and politics.

Bart Klem (MA) is an independent researcher in conflict and development issues. Throughout the pa... more Bart Klem (MA) is an independent researcher in conflict and development issues. Throughout the past five years, he has published widely on violent conflict and international interventions in conflict-affected areas. His background is development sociology. Stefan van Laar (MA) works for the Emergency Aid and Reconstruction Sector of Cordaid, but was seconded to the research team for a year to participate in this study. He was trained as an anthropologist. Both authors are currently involved in a Cordaid follow-up research project focussing on the role of NGOs in processes of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants.

It involves the dynamics of peace and conflict, discussed in the other chapters of this book. It ... more It involves the dynamics of peace and conflict, discussed in the other chapters of this book. It also involves the interaction between the tsunami disaster and responses to it. There was a plethora of evaluations and reports in the wake of the tsunami response which examined these dynamics. The aid response has been subjected to fairly close scrutiny, with a particular focus on adverse relations between local response capacities and the influx of foreign agencies, mismatches between informal private initiatives and the official aid industry, coordination and competition between aid agencies and throughout the 'gift chain' (Fernando and Hilhorst intra-Sri Lankan solidarity have all been reviewed in some detail. This chapter discusses two main questions. First, how did the context and legacy of war affect the tsunami impact and the tsunami response? This question is answered by drawing upon the disaster literature, which emphasizes man-made dimensions of natural disasters and the importance of vulnerability, coping strategies and contextual factors of disaster response. Numerous scholars have discussed these issues in relation to the tsunami in Sri Lanka, with particular emphasis on the buffer zone controversy and spatial dimensions of the disaster (Shanmugaratnam 2005; Hasbullah and Korf forthcoming), human rights aspects of the tsunami response (Action Aid 2006), ethnic and ethno-political dynamics dimensions (e.g. Ruwanpura 2009; Hasbullah and Korf 2009; Haug and Weerackody 2007), and the macroeconomic linkages between the tsunami and the Sri Lankan context (Steele 2005; Jayasuriya, Steele and Weerakoon 2005).

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 2009

Papers by Bart Klem

This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual ar... more This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual argument about sovereignty. Despite its aura of natural order, sovereignty is ultimately self-referential and thus somewhat arbi- trary and potentially unstable. At the heart of this unsteadiness, we posit, lies the paradox between the systematic tenets of rational governance and the capri- cious potential of sublime violence. Both are highly relevant to the LTTE case: the movement created de facto state institutions to mimic governance, but simul- taneously deployed an elaborate transcendental register of sacrifice, meaning, and intractable power wielded by a mythical leader. To capture this paradox, we connect the literature on rebel governance with anthropological debates about divine kingship. We conceptualize sovereignty as a citational practice that involves the adaptation, imitation, and mutation of different idioms of authority: political and religious, modern and traditional, rational and mythical. Understand- ing sovereignty in this way debunks the idea that insurgent movements are merely lagging behind established states. As sites of mimicry, bricolage, and innovation, they transform the way sovereignty is practiced and understood, thus affecting the frame that sovereignty is.

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 2009

Political Geography, 2014

This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical... more This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical debates on war endings.It uses detailed empirical analysis and up-to-date maps to explore these two concepts in the context of eastern Sri Lanka.The vantage point of territorialisation highlights forms of post-war hegemony, which resonate with observations elsewhere.The vantage point of circulation opens up an analytical terrain that has been neglected by the literature so far.This article argues that territorialisation and circulation are centrally important to the transition that takes place at the end of a war. It does so with a case study of Trincomalee, a multiethnic region on Sri Lanka's east coast, after the end of the ethno-separatist war in 2009. Post-war territorialisation comprises the consolidation of the government's military victory through the establishment of military zones and sacred sites, the construction of strategic roads and shifts in the ethnic settlement patterns. There are, however, a number of contingent counter-forces that unsettle the common interpretation that this is orchestrated 'Sinhala colonisation'. The angle of circulation directs us to flows and influences that become manifest when the curtailment of war (checkpoints, frontlines, collapsed infrastructure, surveillance) comes to an end. This propels a peace dividend - access, security, mobility - but also incites concerns among all ethnic communities about exposure to the moral decay of a globalised world. While territorialisation and circulation may appear to be opposites, they are in fact a conceptual pair. The two terms expose a field of tension that has much to contribute to the geographical literature on war endings, which has neglected the significance of postwar shifts in circulation thus far.

This evaluation assesses Norway’s peace efforts in Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2009. It tells the stor... more This evaluation assesses Norway’s peace efforts in Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2009. It tells the story of Norway’s engagement, assesses the effects and identifies broader implications and lessons. The analysis is based on interviews with key informants, an in-depth perusal of ministry archives in Oslo, several subsidiary studies, and a review of relevant research, secondary literature and the Sri Lankan press. Since the end of the Cold War, Norway has shown remarkable foreign policy activism in the pursuit of peace and Sri Lanka is a prominent example of this. Norwegian efforts to bring about a negotiated settlement between successive Sri Lankan governments and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spanned a twelve-year period. Apart from its role as peace facilitator, Norway was involved as a ceasefire monitor and an aid donor during this period. The Sri Lankan peace process is largely a story of failure in terms of bringing an end to the civil war. Norway, however, cannot be hel...

This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual ar... more This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual argument about sovereignty. Despite its aura of natural order, sovereignty is ultimately self-referential and thus somewhat arbi- trary and potentially unstable. At the heart of this unsteadiness, we posit, lies the paradox between the systematic tenets of rational governance and the capri- cious potential of sublime violence. Both are highly relevant to the LTTE case: the movement created de facto state institutions to mimic governance, but simul- taneously deployed an elaborate transcendental register of sacrifice, meaning, and intractable power wielded by a mythical leader. To capture this paradox, we connect the literature on rebel governance with anthropological debates about divine kingship. We conceptualize sovereignty as a citational practice that involves the adaptation, imitation, and mutation of different idioms of authority: political and religious, modern and traditional, rational and mythical. Understand- ing sovereignty in this way debunks the idea that insurgent movements are merely lagging behind established states. As sites of mimicry, bricolage, and innovation, they transform the way sovereignty is practiced and understood, thus affecting the frame that sovereignty is.

European Journal of Development Research, 2009

!

This article narrates how bureaucrats in eastern Sri Lanka operated during and after the war. The... more This article narrates how bureaucrats in eastern Sri Lanka operated during and after the war. They managed to keep minimal state services running whilst being locked between the government and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). When the government defeated the LTTE in 2009, civil servants were freed from rebel coercion, but they also lost their counterweight against unappreciated policies from the capital and interference by local politicians. The article links the thinking on armed conflicts with the literature that conceptualizes 'the state' not as a coherent entity, but as a subject of continuous negotiation. The state's insigne provides a sense of legitimacy and supremacy, but governments have no monopoly on using it. Other powerful actors capture state institutions, resources and discourse for contradictory purposes. This perspective helps us reconcile the appearance of bureaucratic order with the peculiar and hybrid forms of rule that emerged in the war between rebels and government, and it sheds light on some of the surprising changes and continuities that occurred when that war ended. Public administration is neither just a victim of war, nor plainly a victor of the post-war situation.

This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical... more This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical debates on war endings.It uses detailed empirical analysis and up-to-date maps to explore these two concepts in the context of eastern Sri Lanka.The vantage point of territorialisation highlights forms of post-war hegemony, which resonate with observations elsewhere.The vantage point of circulation opens up an analytical terrain that has been neglected by the literature so far.This article argues that territorialisation and circulation are centrally important to the transition that takes place at the end of a war. It does so with a case study of Trincomalee, a multiethnic region on Sri Lanka's east coast, after the end of the ethno-separatist war in 2009. Post-war territorialisation comprises the consolidation of the government's military victory through the establishment of military zones and sacred sites, the construction of strategic roads and shifts in the ethnic settlement patterns. There are, however, a number of contingent counter-forces that unsettle the common interpretation that this is orchestrated 'Sinhala colonisation'. The angle of circulation directs us to flows and influences that become manifest when the curtailment of war (checkpoints, frontlines, collapsed infrastructure, surveillance) comes to an end. This propels a peace dividend - access, security, mobility - but also incites concerns among all ethnic communities about exposure to the moral decay of a globalised world. While territorialisation and circulation may appear to be opposites, they are in fact a conceptual pair. The two terms expose a field of tension that has much to contribute to the geographical literature on war endings, which has neglected the significance of postwar shifts in circulation thus far.

Disasters, 2010

This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contami... more This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contaminated' the 'purity' of good intentions with the politics of patronage and international aid. It argues that gifts are not just material transfers of 'aid', but also embodiments of cultural symbolism, social power, and political affiliations. The tsunami gift re-enforced and reconfigured exchange relationships among different patrons and clients in Sri Lankan communities, perpetuating the political economy that has driven social conflict and discontent in the post-independence years. Beyond dominant rationales of ethnic or political party patronage, the paper finds that gifts by disingenuous patrons not only became patrimonial, but that the patrimonial rationale emerged as much from above as from below-a dynamic that became nearly inescapable and self-reinforcing. Through three case studies, we explore the intricate chain of relations, obligations, and expectations pertinent in the co-evolving, but often contradictory, gift rationales that permeate the practices, performances, and discourses of tsunami aid.

Modern Asian Studies, 2014

This article analyses Sri Lanka's April 2010 parliamentary elections as they played out in the Mu... more This article analyses Sri Lanka's April 2010 parliamentary elections as they played out in the Muslim community on the east coast. The political work of elections, so the article shows, involves a lot more than the composition of government. Antagonism over group identities and boundaries are at centre stage. Elections force people to show their colours which causes turbulence as they grapple with several, possibly contradictory, loyalties. The article argues that elections bring together different political storylines, rather than one master antagonism. It is the interaction between different narratives that paradoxically provides elections both with a sense of gravity and dignity, and with the lingering threat of rupture and disturbance.

The end of war marks a reconstitution in what is seen as legitimate politics.The shift is a resul... more The end of war marks a reconstitution in what is seen as legitimate politics.The shift is a result of political work attempting to produce legitimacy.This constrains certain actors, tactics, and registers and amplifies others.Spaces for dissent are reduced, while the space for politicking expands.Underlying fallibilities and contradictions of democracy are thus exposed.Bringing together ethnographic evidence from mid-Western Nepal and eastern Sri Lanka, this article explores how political legitimacy is constructed and contested in post-war environments. We posit that in the post-war context there are important changes in the kinds of politics, agenda-setting, players and tactics that are considered acceptable and those that are rendered transgressive, threats to order and stability, or otherwise placed ‘out of bounds’. The art of crafting political legitimacy is defined in sharp contrast to the immediate history of armed conflict. The end of the war and the resumption of supposedly democratic politics thus mark a shift in what is seen as legitimate or normal politics. This shift constrains certain kinds of actors, tactics, and registers and it amplifies others, while being itself a result of political work. We argue that a reduction of the space for dissent, and an increase of the space for politicking are complementary aspects of the redefinition of what constitutes legitimate politics in the post-war context. These adverse political effects are not simply problems of context – post-war environments being non-conducive to democracy – but rather expose the more fundamental fallibilities and contradictions of demarcating a legitimate sphere of democratic politics in particularly visible and precarious ways.

This article bridges Sri Lankan studies and the academic debate on the relation between contempor... more This article bridges Sri Lankan studies and the academic debate on the relation between contemporary Islam and politics. It constitutes a case study of the Muslim community in Akkaraipattu on Sri Lanka's war-ridden east coast. Over two decades of ethnically colored conflict have made Muslim identity of paramount importance, but the meanings attached to that identity vary substantively. Politicians, mosque leaders, Sufis and Tablighis define the ethnic, religious and political dimensions of "Muslimness" differently and this leads to intra-Muslim contradictions. The case study thus helps resolve the puzzle of Sri Lankan Muslims: they are surrounded by hostility, but they continue to be internally divided. Akkaraipattu's Muslims jockey between principled politics, pragmatic politics and anti-politics, because they have to navigate different trajectories. This article thus corroborates recent studies on Islam elsewhere that argue for contextualized and nuanced approaches to the variegated interface between Islam and politics.

Bart Klem (MA) is an independent researcher in conflict and development issues. Throughout the pa... more Bart Klem (MA) is an independent researcher in conflict and development issues. Throughout the past five years, he has published widely on violent conflict and international interventions in conflict-affected areas. His background is development sociology. Stefan van Laar (MA) works for the Emergency Aid and Reconstruction Sector of Cordaid, but was seconded to the research team for a year to participate in this study. He was trained as an anthropologist. Both authors are currently involved in a Cordaid follow-up research project focussing on the role of NGOs in processes of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants.

It involves the dynamics of peace and conflict, discussed in the other chapters of this book. It ... more It involves the dynamics of peace and conflict, discussed in the other chapters of this book. It also involves the interaction between the tsunami disaster and responses to it. There was a plethora of evaluations and reports in the wake of the tsunami response which examined these dynamics. The aid response has been subjected to fairly close scrutiny, with a particular focus on adverse relations between local response capacities and the influx of foreign agencies, mismatches between informal private initiatives and the official aid industry, coordination and competition between aid agencies and throughout the 'gift chain' (Fernando and Hilhorst intra-Sri Lankan solidarity have all been reviewed in some detail. This chapter discusses two main questions. First, how did the context and legacy of war affect the tsunami impact and the tsunami response? This question is answered by drawing upon the disaster literature, which emphasizes man-made dimensions of natural disasters and the importance of vulnerability, coping strategies and contextual factors of disaster response. Numerous scholars have discussed these issues in relation to the tsunami in Sri Lanka, with particular emphasis on the buffer zone controversy and spatial dimensions of the disaster (Shanmugaratnam 2005; Hasbullah and Korf forthcoming), human rights aspects of the tsunami response (Action Aid 2006), ethnic and ethno-political dynamics dimensions (e.g. Ruwanpura 2009; Hasbullah and Korf 2009; Haug and Weerackody 2007), and the macroeconomic linkages between the tsunami and the Sri Lankan context (Steele 2005; Jayasuriya, Steele and Weerakoon 2005).

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 2009

This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual ar... more This article uses the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to make a conceptual argument about sovereignty. Despite its aura of natural order, sovereignty is ultimately self-referential and thus somewhat arbi- trary and potentially unstable. At the heart of this unsteadiness, we posit, lies the paradox between the systematic tenets of rational governance and the capri- cious potential of sublime violence. Both are highly relevant to the LTTE case: the movement created de facto state institutions to mimic governance, but simul- taneously deployed an elaborate transcendental register of sacrifice, meaning, and intractable power wielded by a mythical leader. To capture this paradox, we connect the literature on rebel governance with anthropological debates about divine kingship. We conceptualize sovereignty as a citational practice that involves the adaptation, imitation, and mutation of different idioms of authority: political and religious, modern and traditional, rational and mythical. Understand- ing sovereignty in this way debunks the idea that insurgent movements are merely lagging behind established states. As sites of mimicry, bricolage, and innovation, they transform the way sovereignty is practiced and understood, thus affecting the frame that sovereignty is.

Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 2009

Political Geography, 2014

This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical... more This article introduces the analytical pair of territorialisation and circulation to geographical debates on war endings.It uses detailed empirical analysis and up-to-date maps to explore these two concepts in the context of eastern Sri Lanka.The vantage point of territorialisation highlights forms of post-war hegemony, which resonate with observations elsewhere.The vantage point of circulation opens up an analytical terrain that has been neglected by the literature so far.This article argues that territorialisation and circulation are centrally important to the transition that takes place at the end of a war. It does so with a case study of Trincomalee, a multiethnic region on Sri Lanka's east coast, after the end of the ethno-separatist war in 2009. Post-war territorialisation comprises the consolidation of the government's military victory through the establishment of military zones and sacred sites, the construction of strategic roads and shifts in the ethnic settlement patterns. There are, however, a number of contingent counter-forces that unsettle the common interpretation that this is orchestrated 'Sinhala colonisation'. The angle of circulation directs us to flows and influences that become manifest when the curtailment of war (checkpoints, frontlines, collapsed infrastructure, surveillance) comes to an end. This propels a peace dividend - access, security, mobility - but also incites concerns among all ethnic communities about exposure to the moral decay of a globalised world. While territorialisation and circulation may appear to be opposites, they are in fact a conceptual pair. The two terms expose a field of tension that has much to contribute to the geographical literature on war endings, which has neglected the significance of postwar shifts in circulation thus far.

This evaluation assesses Norway’s peace efforts in Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2009. It tells the stor... more This evaluation assesses Norway’s peace efforts in Sri Lanka from 1997 to 2009. It tells the story of Norway’s engagement, assesses the effects and identifies broader implications and lessons. The analysis is based on interviews with key informants, an in-depth perusal of ministry archives in Oslo, several subsidiary studies, and a review of relevant research, secondary literature and the Sri Lankan press. Since the end of the Cold War, Norway has shown remarkable foreign policy activism in the pursuit of peace and Sri Lanka is a prominent example of this. Norwegian efforts to bring about a negotiated settlement between successive Sri Lankan governments and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spanned a twelve-year period. Apart from its role as peace facilitator, Norway was involved as a ceasefire monitor and an aid donor during this period. The Sri Lankan peace process is largely a story of failure in terms of bringing an end to the civil war. Norway, however, cannot be hel...

... Implications Changes military responses Trends peace operations Changes the role the superpow... more ... Implications Changes military responses Trends peace operations Changes the role the superpowers and regional actors Changes donor positions Terminology The changing interface between military and civil actors under the current peace operations Practical forms ...

Disasters, 2010

This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contami... more This paper analyses the commodification of post-tsunami aid in Sri Lanka, a process that 'contaminated' the 'purity' of good intentions with the politics of patronage and international aid. It argues that gifts are not just material transfers of 'aid', but also embodiments of cultural symbolism, social power, and political affiliations. The tsunami gift re-enforced and reconfigured exchange relationships among different patrons and clients in Sri Lankan communities, perpetuating the political economy that has driven social conflict and discontent in the post-independence years. Beyond dominant rationales of ethnic or political party patronage, the paper finds that gifts by disingenuous patrons not only became patrimonial, but that the patrimonial rationale emerged as much from above as from below-a dynamic that became nearly inescapable and self-reinforcing. Through three case studies, we explore the intricate chain of relations, obligations, and expectations pertinent in the co-evolving, but often contradictory, gift rationales that permeate the practices, performances, and discourses of tsunami aid.