In My Mother's House: Civil War in Sri Lanka

Acknowledgments

acknowledgments This book from fieldwork to its various reincarnations in writing has taken me close to a decade and left me indebted to more people than I can possibly name. The greatest debt is of course to those I interviewed in Sri Lanka, in Britain, and in Canada whom I keep anonymous but who have left an indelible mark on me. There are many stories that are not explicitly in this book but are the scaffolding which holds it together. My original fieldwork was fully funded by an ESRC Postgraduate studentship . Subsequent work was funded by a one year Nancy L. Buc Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pembroke center, Brown University, and a one year ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Edinburgh University. I would like to thank all my fellow participants in the Pembroke Seminar and the Pembroke Center for a wonderful and intellectually stimulating year. The Department of Anthropology and the South Asia Center at University of Edinburgh were my homes for more than seven years, and I have to thank all my colleagues, cohort, and friends for their help, intellectual support, and many cups of tea over these years. Needless to say some of the greatest input has come from Jonathan Spencer and Janet Carsten, who have always sustained me over the years with their intellectual inspiration and directions, mentoring, and ongoing friendship and love. The Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins also provided me with a home away from home, and I wish to thank the department and my graduate cohort for taking me in for a very influential semester . Thanks to Veena Das, who has continued to have faith in me over these years, I have written the book that she would have liked my dissertation to be . . . finally! I am ever grateful to Gerd Baumann, Anthony Good, Stephen Feuchtwang, and Chris Fuller all of whom for different reasons believed in me and have continued to support me and my work. Thanks to Joke Schrivers and David Kloos for their wonderful and indispensable gift of Peter Kloos’s library of Sri Lanka books, and Stephen Champion who allowed me to use his amazing photograph for the front cover. 294 Acknowledgments My colleagues and students at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, The New School University have been a source of enormous intellectual stimulation, fun, and community. Thanks especially to Lawrence Hirschfeld, Nicolas Langlitz, Hugh Raffles, Vyjayanthi Rao, Janet Roitman, Ann Stoler, and Miriam Ticktin. Thanks to Tyler Boersen who painstakingly went through the first draft of this manuscript! Dilshanie Perera has been my indispensable Girl Friday, editing and getting my manuscript ready for production, sending me efficient emails and enduring my rambling emails. Thanks to Ana Ulloa Garzon who did a fantastic index (again!). In Sri Lanka, I have to thank Mr. and Mrs. Balasubramaniam, staff at the MDDR, the staff in the Colombo National Archives, and ICES. I am ever grateful to Dr. Hasbullah (Peradeniya) who introduced me to people in Puttalam and has helped me throughout the years. I received more than my fair share of help from those working with Northern Muslims. I extend thanks to Zulfika from MWRAF, Jeweria and Farwhin at RDF (Puttalam), and Aneis, Rizni, and Farim at RAAF in Puttalam, and Sharmila. I am continually indebted to Indrakanthi Perera and Audrey Rebeira. There are so many in Sri Lanka I wish to thank, who spoke to me but whom I cannot name. One I can is the late Maheshwary Velautham. Thanks to Aathavan and Vasuki, Dr. Rajaratnam , Vasantha, and Kirupa. In Canada I would like to thank Rajmohan, Jacob, Regi, and Viji for all their help and friendship; I especially owe a lot to Manoranjan who enabled my work on treason and pushed me to find something that was important to say. Thanks to Helene Klodawsky, who helped my family find some peace with our past. Thanks to Rasanayagam and all the various dissident families in London. Of these, Keeran, Anushan, and Kandeepan, ex-militants and dear family friends, have been ever present in my life and my research. The greatest inspiration for my work has been the determination and work of K. Sritharan and Rajan Hoole of the UTHR (J) (University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna), who continue to stand up for human rights, integrity, and truth, and the women from Poorani women’s refuge (Jaffna), now dispersed and disappeared. Thanks especially to dear friends and colleagues across many different places, who have invaluably commented on...