Breaking the Ashes: The Culture of Illicit Liquor in Sri Lanka

Conclusion

Conclusion Having read this lengthy discussion of alcohol use in Sri Lanka, the reader may ask what contribution it makes to the literature. I hope this work will illustrate the value of holism in the study of alcohol. In the past, many anthropologists have focused on the functional, integrative roles that drinking plays in society. Indeed, drinking can solidify group identity, enforce kinship links, and allow cliques and communities to differentiate themselves from others. In Naeaegama, drinking serves these functions at village ceremonies and in local taverns. Through specific drinking patterns, people enact identities of family membership, gender, age, class, and profession. But concluding the discussion of alcohol use with the cultural construction of identity would tell only part of the story. In this ethnography, I move beyond issues of individual and community identity to examine the political economics of alcohol. This allows me to look at power dynamics in a series of concentric settings. At the household level, I explore negotiations over how to spend scarce resources. These consumption struggles reveal valuable insights into spousal relations and gender roles in local families. A political economic perspective also illuminates issues around the manufacture and sale of illicit liquor, the status of bootleggers within the community, and relationships between kasippu businesspeople and local police and politicians. This orientation situates alcohol as a commodity within the economy, and shows how its production, distribution, and consumption are deeply embedded within local, national, and international relations of power and inequality. In addition to talking about identity and political economics, this book also focuses on issues of problem drinking.“We drink alcohol because it is 230 Breaking the Ashes good for us, and study it because it is bad for us,” write Plant and Cameron (2000, 237). Similarly, Heath notes, “Part of the fascination of the subject of alcohol is its double-edged capacity to induce euphoria and sociability on the one hand, and, on the other, to lead to serious personal and social problems” (2000, xiii). All too often in the past, scholars have separated the functional and dysfunctional in their discussions of ingested substances. But a study focusing solely on functional drinking would leave the reader asking why anyone would consider alcohol use bad, and a study focusing only on problem drinking would raise the query of why anyone would drink or allow others to do so. In this study of alcohol use in Naeaegama, I hope that I have demonstrated both the positive and the negative aspects of drinking, neither inflating nor deflating the problem (Room 1984) but presented drinking in a holistic context by talking about its many roles in the village community. Within alcohol studies, much of the research on abusive drinking comes from the clinical literature on treatment. This area would benefit from an integration of interdisciplinary insights and a greater attention to wider contexts within which destructive drinking takes place. Simultaneously presenting both edges of the proverbial sword helps make sense of why people drink, why some drink to excess, and how community members approach the issue of problem drinking. My holistic perspective sets both the functional and the dysfunctional aspects of alcohol use into dialog with one another within the framework of a community ethnography. Where Next? In light of this historical and contemporary discussion of alcohol use in Naeaegama, one might ask what the future will bring to the village and to the island of Sri Lanka. This book describes the micro-politics of alcohol use in a village context.Although I have tried to tie local dynamics to a wider social context, the larger system deserves fuller attention. Various scholars contend that integration into a cash-based market economy increases the availability of alcohol and the number of people who drink heavily (Dietler 2006; Kunitz 2006; Singer 1986; Suggs 2001). Over the past fifty years, Sri Lanka has grown evermore integrated into the global economy and life for many people has gotten harder. The International Monetary Fund has implemented Structural Adjustment Programs, tourism has expanded, the export of garments has grown, and international labor migration continues to rise.During this same time period,Naeaegama elders have noted an increase in male drinking, with more men drinking, drinking Conclusion 231 at younger ages, and drinking in less respectful and less circumspect ways. With the current escalation in Sri Lanka’s ongoing ethnic conflict, possibilities for economic growth and development...