In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

137 7 Reconstructing Class Discourse on Theft, Loot, Cheating, and Gifts Narrative Politics and Status Dynamics in Discussions of Aid Immediately following the tsunami, Naeaegama villagers reported a sense of generosity , equality, and open-hearted community spirit. Shortly thereafter a reassertion followed of self-interest and social hierarchy. As people strove to make sense of damage, death, and disbursement of disaster aid, they interpreted what had happened, why it had happened, and who deserved what. In mid-2005, conversations about fate and fairness took place on several topics. One topic was what had caused the tsunami deaths. Another topic was the distribution of tsunami aid, with which southwestern Sri Lanka was awash at the time. Local and international donors had generously channeled gifts of food, clothing, and household items; contractors were swiftly constructing new homes; and businesses were being rebuilt and revitalized. Talking about both topics, villagers discussed what people deserved and what they received in terms of ethical character and morality. In analyzing social status, anthropologists have long discussed how gift giving creates social hierarchies and long-term obligations (Godelier 1999; Mauss [1925] 1990). Giving a gift puts the gift giver in a position superior to the gift receiver (Cronk 1997).1 Although gifts circulate outside of the market economy, they still create debts in the social sphere. In Naeaegama, people associated the receipt of aid with poverty, greed, or lower-class status. They also associated receipt of aid with lower-caste status, within the South Asian understanding of higher-caste or politically central patrons as gift givers and lower-caste, marginal clients as recipients (Raheja 1988, 1990). In the frames 138 | The Golden Wave of reference described by both caste and class, receiving handouts diminished status.2 Some scholars go so far as to discuss gift giving as a form of wounding (de Alwis 2009, 122–25). Approaching from this theoretical viewpoint opens fruitful avenues for the analysis of the massive infusion of humanitarian aid that donors sent to Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the tsunami. Although from a pragmatic and material perspective the aid was needed and welcomed, these gifts created countless arenas of inequality from a social and symbolic point of view. The massive scale of gift giving changed and challenged preexisting status hierarchies . Complex cultural calculations surrounded “getting one’s due,” condemning those who sought more than their due, and critiquing the people in charge of the distribution. As they spoke of what people had lost and what they had received in the fluid post-tsunami social environment, Naeaegama villagers simultaneously constructed images of self and other, good and bad, and right and wrong. As they spoke of entitlement, accountability, and inequity, my interlocutors portrayed ideals of citizenship , class status, and social prestige. They critically examined access to resources and power structures in society (Bastian 2009, 241). Descriptions of the aid environment thus provided opportunities for people to craft images of themselves, others, and the emerging social context through narrative. Here I examine the moral construction of self and other in Naeaegama discussions of theft, looting, and the receiving of tsunami aid. My informants uniformly disapproved of various forms of “cheating,” in which people pushed to the front of lines, hijacked aid, received what they did not deserve, and wasted or sold aid. Condemnation of morally inferior “others” crystallized in the discussion of the “golden wave” mentality—the idea that the tsunami was good because it provided easy wealth. In contrast, ethical, principled people refused aid and never took what they did not deserve. Ashamed of the image of Sri Lankans as beggars, my interlocutors created a middle-class status by describing themselves as gift givers rather than gift receivers. Thieves, looters, and cheaters provided a foil against which narrators portrayed themselves as upstanding, honorable, middle-class individuals. Theft and Looting I start my analysis of gift giving and humanitarian aid with a discussion of theft and looting because the two seemingly disparate subjects shared a moral and narrative framework in Naeaegama in the aftermath of the tsunami. Blaikie suggests as objects of a narrative’s analysis “its frames of reference, assumptions, problem focus, what is in the frame and left out, its logical structure, its language and metaphors, and its ethical and ideological underpinnings” (2010, 7). Thefts and gifts share a cultural logic of property, propriety, and personhood. The terms theft and looting describe similar actions in radically different social contexts. Theft is the dishonest taking of someone else’s property with the...

Share