1

Klem, B. (2014) ‘The political geography of war’s end:

Territorialisation, circulation, and moral anxiety in

Trincomalee, Sri Lanka’, Political Geography, 38(1): 33-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2013.10.002

Abstract:

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 multi-ethnic region on Sri Lanka's east coast, after 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 post-war shifts in circulation thus far.

Acknowledgements:

Valuable support during fieldwork from Shahul Hasbullah, Jasmy and Lansakara is

gratefully acknowledged. For constructive criticism, the author wishes to thank

Sarah Byrne, Rony Emmeneger, Georg Frerks, Urs Geiser, Jonathan Goodhand,

Jennifer Hyndman, Deborah Johnson, Agnieszka Joniak, Benedikt Korf, Timothy

Raeymaekers, Jonathan Spencer, and Oliver Walton, as well as five anonymous

reviewers and James Sidaway. The research was funded by the Swiss National

Science Foundation (ProDoc, grant no. PDFMP1-123181/1).

2

The political geography of war’s end: Territorialisation,

circulation, and moral anxiety in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

Bart Klem

The end of war is a confusing time. It marks the closure of a period of

tremendous human suffering and the beginning of an uncertain future. New rules

of the game are articulated, and this produces winners, losers, new forms of

order, and unforeseen consequences. This article uses the case of post-war

Trincomalee, a multi-ethnic region on Sri Lanka’s east coast, to highlight the

importance of two inter-related geographical processes in the transition after

war: territorialisation and circulation.

The literature on war endings and so-called ‘war-to-peace transitions’ has

burgeoned since the mid-1990s. Geography has followed suit with several

insightful forays into different dimensions of such transitions, including return and

resettlement processes (Dahlman & Ó Tuathail, 2005), securitised post-war forest

management (Peluso & Vandergeest, 2011), the spatial erasure associated with

genocide (Tyner, 2009), and the spatial politics of post-war power sharing

(Jeffrey, 2006). While we are far removed from a consolidated body of work on

the geography of war endings, these scholarly contributions provide a useful

springboard for exploring the many spatial changes spawned by a military

victory, a peace accord, or a combination of both.

This article aims to deepen this geographical scholarship by putting

territorialisation and circulation at the heart of the equation. In the case of post-

war Trincomalee, territorialisation comprises the consolidation of military victory

through the demarcation of zones, claims on religious sites and the construction

3

of strategic roads. Circulation refers to the opening up of a previously isolated

region to external influences due to lifted restrictions and improved

infrastructure. Both dynamics create anxieties and controversies, but in rather

different ways. Paradoxically, the region’s transition encompasses forms of

enclosure through the spatial consolidation of military victory, as well as a

process of opening up. While territorialisation has received some attention in the

literature on war endings, circulation has largely been neglected. My central

contention is that the conceptual pair of territorialisation and circulation is pivotal

to understanding the great diversity of processes that take place at the end of

war.

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WAR ENDINGS

Geographical research on war has gained new momentum in recent years.

Alongside attempts at unravelling the global interconnections, boundaries and

spaces of exception associated with the ‘War on Terror’ (Gregory and Pred, 2006;

Gregory, 2010; Kobayashi, 2009), scholars have explored contextualised

empirical landscapes of armed conflict. Military offensives, displacement,

hardening of societal fault lines, settlement politics, and symbolic apportionment

of space are among the processes that shape war-time geographies. At the

extreme end, political violence may completely overhaul or erase human

landscapes, through ‘ethnic cleansing’ (Dahlman & Williams, 2010; Ó Tuathail,

2010, on Bosnia-Herzegovina), ‘terror-induced deterritorialization’ (Lunstrum,

2009, on Mozambique) or genocide (Tyner, 2009, on Cambodia). But landscapes

of war may be shaped in more gradual, structural ways as well. Studies have

appeared of Israeli government actions in relation to Palestine, including the

construction of the wall, settlement schemes and land tenure (Alatout, 2009;

Yiftachel, 2002), which have been criticised as attempts at ‘biopolitical control’

(Parsons & Salter, 2008), and ‘graduated incarceration’ (Smith, 2011). Another

4

well-studied case – not an all-out war, but very violent nonetheless – concerns

the urban landscapes of Hindu-Muslim violence in India: the way riots and attacks

on religious sites erase adversarial spatial markers, harden boundaries, and

‘purify’ spaces (Banchetta, 2000; Berenschot, 2011; Chatterjee, 2009). These

studies of the landscapes of violence are complemented by conceptual work on

the way competing forms of order and sovereignty become manifest in armed

conflict. The convoluted geographies of armed conflict have been characterised as

multifarious ‘governable spaces’ (Watts, 2003) and ‘warscapes’ (Korf et al.,

2010).

To sum up, common spatial orderings that surface in these diverse geographical

case studies include securitised landscapes (frontlines, walls, checkpoints, and

interrupted flows), competing forms of spatialised authority (adversarial territorial

claims, governable spaces and projects of sovereign rule) and embattled

demographic geographies (displacement, settlement politics, and hardening social

boundaries).

What does the end of war do to spatial orderings? Is there something specific

about post-war geographies? Interestingly, there is no established body of work

that confronts these questions directly. There are, however, several good

scholarly starting points for exploring them. The edited volume Reconstructing

Conflict by Kirsch and Flint (2011) is perhaps the most encompassing effort to

date. The volume carries the subtitle Integrating War and Post-War Geographies

and it rightly posits that the war-peace dichotomy is a false one. There are

manifestations of peace in war zones, and peace may comprise a thin veneer for

suppressed conflicts and imposed pacification. Rather than an objective difference

in conditions, the divide between war and peace is a discursive expression of

power.

5

Several authors have pointed out that post-war societies embody hegemonic

power relations: military might translates into more domesticated forms of order

and subjectivity. In line with the literature on liberal peace (Duffield, 2001),

countries undergoing international efforts of ‘post-war reconstruction’ or ‘state-

building’ may be seen as frontiers of global neoliberal capitalism. Post-war

governments also craft geographies through surveillance and control, the

nurturing of state institutions and citizenship, or more subtle spatial means, such

as the use of urban planning for nationalist bravado: street names and

reconstructed archaeological sites glorifying victorious versions of history, while

projecting stable and orderly futures (Nagel, 2002; Robinson et al., 2001). Much

in line with the blurred boundaries between war and peace mentioned above,

Stephen Graham (2009) argues that any urban environment is a potential battle

space today. After all, contemporary security doctrines now conceive of any

global citizen as a potential threat and high-tech surveillance techniques travel

with ever-greater ease from long-time war zones like Palestine to Western

airports and neighbourhoods.

State territorialisation in peripheral areas tends to emphasize control and

surveillance as well. Peluso and Vandergeest’s (2011) research on Southeast Asia

examines how military strategies like depopulating forests, encouraging in-

migration of loyalist groups, changing land use and vegetation, and surveillance

infrastructure (roads, high-tech maps) cumulate into a post-war geography that

benefits state interests: clearly demarcated and largely unpopulated forests, the

concentration of potentially oppositional populations in administered settlements,

and established military presence in strategic locations. Brottem and Unruh’s

(2009) work on post-war Liberia complements these conclusions: war-time

displacement left forests empty, thus enabling land use planners to work with a

‘clean slate’, disregarding customary land mechanisms. Similar research on Laos

(Baird & Le Billon, 2012; Lestrellin, 2011) reminds us that domination and state

6

territorialisation are never absolute, however. Localised land struggles, steeped in

genealogical memories, may interfere with centralised programming, and

people’s everyday practices produce contingent counter-territorialisation.

The moving around of people and the reshuffling of struggles over land has

political ramifications. This becomes particularly clear in the geographical

scholarship on the post-war transition of former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia-

Herzegovina, the internationally imposed Dayton accord prescribed ethnic

cohabitation. In an attempt to redress the legacies of enmity and ‘ethnic

cleansing’, internationally supported schemes ventured to remix ethnic

populations and craft a democratic state with functioning liberal institutions and

federal checks and balances. However, these efforts got entangled in socio-

economic counter-forces, persistent concerns about insecurity, and electoral

pressures that mobilised against the spirit of Dayton (Dahlman & Ó Tuathail,

2005; Jeffrey, 2006). Similar tensions over boundaries, ethnic enclaves, and

violence aimed at consolidating sovereign spaces occurred in Kosovo (Dahlman &

Williams, 2010).

The scholarship on the geography of war endings thus covers a wealth of issues,

but is also rather fragmented. Cutting through the variety of thematic insights

and the contextual diversity, three important observations stand out. Firstly, war

endings comprise shifts, transitions and uncertainties, but also involve structural

continuity. The power configurations manifest in military victories or peace

agreements shape the political geography that follows in their wake. Secondly,

the location of populations plays a central role in post-war spatial politics. The

settlement patterns of identity groups are pivotal to visions of peace and national

unity (e.g. ethnic remixing), claims to sovereignty, territory or autonomy (e.g.

ethnic enclaves; administrative boundaries; electoral geography) and the

surveillance of unruly peripheries (e.g. moving people from forests to

7

administrable villages). Thirdly, attempts at crafting post-war hegemony are

prone to contingencies, counter-forces and localised variegation. People after all,

are not simply pawns of the state’s bio-political schemes or military calculus.

They are also social, cultural and economic actors who navigate different kinds of

force fields. Post-war landscapes are therefore not simply a derivative of the

order that prevails on the battlefield or the peace summit.

The concepts territorialisation and circulation are well-positioned to bring together

and further develop the diverse geographical literature on war endings.

Territorialisation touches on many of the above-mentioned studies, though the

term is not always invoked explicitly. The notion of circulation, however, barely

features at all in any of the geographical writing on societies emerging from war.

This is peculiar. Given that the regulation and crafting of flows is central to

warfare (smuggle, propaganda, checkpoints, frontlines), it seems strange to

neglect the role of circulation in the post-war context.

Territorialisation is an established theme in political geography, but it means

slightly different things to different authors and there tends to be some slippage

with related terms like territory and territoriality (for discussion, see Elden, 2010;

Klauser 2012). I use the term territorialisation to refer to: efforts of demarcating

spaces and regulating people’s presence and activity within these spaces, through

practices of boundary-making, forging (dis)connections, surveillance and

enforcement, which are rationalised, naturalised and legitimised through moral,

ideological or genealogical claims. Let me elaborate on this definition with three

observations. Firstly, the first part borrows the key terms (demarcation,

regulation, practices) from Robert Sack’s seminal definition of territoriality (1986:

19). It is important to add here that demarcations may not be crisp and rigid, and

it is not uncommon for there to be several different kinds of territorialisation

taking place in the same space. Secondly, territorialisation is not just about

8

practice, but also about interpretation and legitimation. The registers, rituals and

justifications of rule and belonging interact with spatial practices to reproduce a

particular spatial order as natural, indispensible and legitimate. Thirdly,

territorialisation is not a state prerogative. State claims to sovereignty and

territory are certainly important (and indeed dominant in the case of post-war Sri

Lanka), but the state is not a singular actor and non-state forms of

territorialisation may challenge or compromise the spatial order embodied by the

state.

I use the term circulation to refer to the way flows (mainly those of people, goods

and ideas) permeate and influence places, thus altering and compounding inter-

connections between them. At first glance, circulation appears to be the antonym

of territorialisation. After all, territorialisation is about demarcating spaces and

keeping people and things in or out, while the flows of circulation are all about

reaching out across such divides. The two, however, are not conceptual

opposites. Territorialisation is about regulating and influencing flows, rather than

mitigating them altogether (Elden, 2010: 12). And circulation does not

encompass flows that simply radiate through space. They flow through networks.

Circulation and territorialisation may be viewed as a conceptual pair. They

influence each other.

TRINCOMALEE AT WAR: ATTENUATED CIRCULATION AND COMPETING

TERRITORIAL PROJECTS

Scholarly interpretations of Sri Lanka’s ethno-secessionist war foreground the

problematic role of the state and ethnicised identity politics. In short, the island’s

post-colonial democracy and associated state institutions and policies fuelled the

confrontation between Sinhala majoritarianism and Tamil separatism (Spencer,

2008; Uyangoda, 2011; Wickramasinghe, 2006). Geographers have studied the

9

moral territorial underpinnings of these contentions (Brun & Jazeel, 2009). The

Tamil separatist ideology of Tamil Eelam pivots on a ‘traditional Tamil homeland’

in the northeast (the Muslim community, which also speaks Tamil, is often

incorporated into this category, be it quite instrumentally). Conversely, the

Sinhala-Buddhist claim on an undivided Sri Lanka spawns a ‘Sinhala kind of

geography’ in which genealogical, technological and ecological arguments

converge to pacify the island’s northeastern frontier and refute the idea of a

Tamil homeland (Korf, 2009).

The war (1983-2009) transformed Sri Lanka’s political geography. The insurgent

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government institutionalised and

territorialised their competing claims to sovereignty. The LTTE drove Muslims and

Sinhalese out of areas under their control. The government created an elaborate

system of checkpoints, transport restrictions, curfews, round-ups, fishing bans

and High Security Zones. This resulted in a highly convoluted geography of

overlapping and competing projects of rule (Goodhand et al. 2009; Korf &

Fünfgeld, 2006; Korf et al., 2010; Klem, 2012; Parasram, 2012). These violent

attempts at shaping Sri Lanka’s geography interacted with people’s coping

mechanisms, cultural registers of belonging and social fault lines (Brun, 2001;

Hyndman & De Alwis, 2004; Korf & Fünfgeld, 2006).

When I first visited Trincomalee, in 2000, I encountered a compartmentalised

geography of enclaves, frontlines and military surveillance. Part of the district

was under LTTE control (see map 1). Trincomalee town and smaller towns were

under army control, but they were heavily infiltrated by the rebels, particularly in

Tamil and Muslim settlements. The remainder of the region was a contested

borderland. Most roads were considered army-controlled, but only during

daytime, and the vast swaths of forest were considered safe passage for the

LTTE.

10

Map 1. The Trincomalee region in 2001

11

Note: Maps 1 to 5 were composed by the author, using field observations and

Google Earth satellite imagery, supplemented with policy documents and

Gaasbeek (2010a). Spheres of military control are estimated on the basis

of field observations, but leave some space for variance since there was

no clear frontline. Forested surface areas are a rough estimation using

satellite imagery. Special icons (temples, camps, military installations,

relocation sites) only depict the places that are discussed in the article.

Political claims and military control were inter-connected with controversial

changes in the region’s ethnic geography. As part of the late colonial and post-

colonial effort of making Sri Lanka’s northeastern Dry Zone suitable for irrigation,

large parts of Trincomalee’s scrub had been converted into irrigated agriculture.

People from elsewhere were brought in to work these lands, which effectively

meant increasing the Sinhala presence in the previously Tamil and Muslim

dominated northeast – in the case of Trincomalee from 3.8% in 1911 to 33.4% in

1981 – with concurrent electoral consequences (Gaasbeek, 2010a; Peebles,

1990). These changes undermined the Tamil claim of a geographically contiguous

traditional Tamil homeland and were fuel to the separatist fire. Some of the

LTTE’s first attacks in the Trincomalee region targeted the Sinhala colonies in the

1980s (Peebles, 1990).

During my initial fieldwork in 2000 and 2001, circulation was highly restricted by

checkpoints, military frontlines, and the fear of going to unfamiliar places. The

roads were bad, there was little public transport and many areas were only

accessible with ramshackle ferries. Leaving the district was a different matter

altogether. Most people had to register with the police to get a pass. The two

roads to the inland were the only way out; the coastal roads to the north

(Mullaitivu) and south (Batticaloa) passed through LTTE territory and were

practically closed. Public buses ran during the day only and the journey to

12

Colombo took up to twelve hours, because of the degraded roads and the many

checkpoints. Many people had family members in the sizable diaspora across the

globe, but few outsiders came to Trincomalee. In most of the region, cell phone

networks were shut down on military order, and few people had access to the

internet.

Methodology

This article builds on a series of eleven research visits to eastern Sri Lanka from

2000 onwards, but focuses on the period after the war ended (May 2009). The

main body of fieldwork took place in 2010 (three months) and 2011 (two weeks).

The data gathered in this period were used for three related articles (Klem, 2012;

Klem, forthcoming; and this one). This article draws on the 74 interviews that

were directly relevant to the question of territorialisation and circulation. It pivots

on a detailed study of three locations. I revisited two of my research sites from

before the end of the war (Veeramanagar and Nilaveli), and added a third one,

which had been a desolate place earlier (Lankapatuna). During these visits, I

made observations about visible changes taking place, and interviewed villagers

about these and other changes (29 interviews). For these interviews in Tamil and

Sinhala, I used a translator. I also interviewed relevant civil servants (18

interviews, mostly in English) who had sufficient oversight to place developments

in broader political, cultural and historical context, such as schoolteachers,

religious leaders, businessmen, journalists, and local politicians (27 interviews,

mostly in English). While some of these respondents were approached through

my own network and ‘snowballing’, I also sought deliberate contact with people

with different backgrounds who were likely to provide a different or opposing

view. Reflecting the ethnic composition of the region’s coastline, the majority of

my respondents were Tamils and Muslims, though I obviously interviewed

Sinhalese as well.

13

POST-WAR TRINCOMALEE: TRIUMPHANT TERRITORIALIZATION AND

INCREASED CIRCULATION

The surveillance, severed ties, and competing territorial claims that were

characteristic for Trincomalee’s wartime geography were unsettled in the

turbulent decade after my first visit in 2000. The government and the LTTE

signed a ceasefire in 2002. The subsequent peace talks produced no political

breakthrough, but there were remarkable changes on the ground with the lifting

of restrictions and (most) checkpoints (Gaasbeek, 2010a; Korf, 2006; Korf &

Fünfgeld, 2006). Violent incidents continued to occur, however, and this

deteriorated after a split in the LTTE in 2004, which resulted in fierce attacks

between the renegade eastern faction and the northern core of the movement.

Violence temporarily subsided after the December 2004 tsunami, but the

subsequent aid response got heavily embroiled in political competition and

struggles over relocating victims in places with different ethnic and caste

compositions (Hasbullah & Korf, 2009; Hyndman, 2007; McGilvray & Gamburd,

2010; Ruwanpura, 2008).

Open warfare resumed in 2006 with a battle over the Tamil-Muslim town Muthur

and the LTTE hub Sampur (see map 1). Heavy bombardments pushed both the

militants and civilians southward. In 2007, the government declared the east

‘liberated’, and initiated reconstruction efforts to consolidate its victory

(Goodhand, 2010). Trincomalee continued to be subject to tension and LTTE

infiltration (particularly in the northern half of the district) as the war continued in

the north of the island. The final offensives culminated in a government victory at

the cost of a human massacre. A special UN panel writing about the violations of

human rights and humanitarian law during the last months of the war in Sri

Lanka cited a possible number of 40.000 civilian casualties in this period (UN

14

Panel of Experts, 2011: 41). While the end of the war can be clearly pinpointed in

Sri Lanka – the LTTE was comprehensively annihilated on 19 May 2009 – Kirsch

and Flint’s (2011) observation about the continuities between what is declared

war and peace is no less valid. Peace remains a highly controversial term in Sri

Lanka and as we will see below, the post-war landscape is riven by war-time

legacies, antagonism and unresolved tensions.

The political geography of the Trincomalee region changed in profound ways

following the defeat of the LTTE. As shown on map 2, the division between LTTE

and government controlled territory disappeared; roads were repaired or newly

built; bridges replaced ferries; deserted settlements came back to life; new

settlements were created; special zones and sites were declared.

15

Map 2. The Trincomalee region in 2011

How do we make sense of these diverse changes? How are they meaningful for

the people undergoing them? My respondents perceived these developments as

inter-related and political geography was central to their interpretations, which

16

propelled territorial claims, rendered people and processes in or out of place, and

voiced political anxieties about preserving local purities and traditions.

Territorialisation: The Spatial Consolidation of Military Victory

The defeat of the LTTE ended a long period of competing projects of territorialised

sovereign rule. The ‘erasure of Tamil Eelam’ (Parasram 2012) opened up space

for the Sri Lankan state to ‘normalise’ its rule and integrate the northeast into an

undivided Sri Lanka. Many of my Tamil and Muslim respondents were concerned

about the declaration of special zones (which were controlled by the military),

and the appropriation of specific religious sites for celebrating Buddhism (the

prevalent religion among the Sinhala majority). They were suspicious about the

influx of Sinhala people and the military’s role in road construction. They saw

these processes as the consolidation of a longer history of ‘Sinhala colonisation’.

The present transition was enabled by the military victory over the Tamil

separatists. And that victory was the capstone to a long history of ethno-politics

and controversial state interventions in the northeastern Dry Zone.

‘Why are they building all these roads? Because they want to put down this

uprising forever,’ an old Christian priest said (interview May 2010). A Tamil

lecturer who recently retired from university added: ‘Trincomalee was

systematically colonised,’ through irrigation schemes, roads, the creation of new

villages, land politics and the discovery of ‘ancient’ Buddhist sites. These

interventions continued with full vigour after the LTTE defeat, he explained and

the spatial pattern was clear: ‘there’s a [Buddhist] shrine, an army camp, a

[Sinhala] village’ (interview September 2011). A prominent Tamil businessman:

‘people feel as if our place is invaded by another force.’ He acknowledged that

‘the government has the right to bring some people in, but not to change the

demography, to change the political scenario’ (interview September 2011).

17

The scholarly literature on Sri Lanka discusses ample historical precedent for

changing ethnic demography paired with development schemes (Gaasbeek,

2010a; Korf, 2009; Peebles, 1990), purification of sacred spaces at politicised

archaeological sites (Nissan, 1988; 1989) and cultural appropriation of nature for

nationalist ends (Jazeel, 2005; Tennekoon, 1988). The war disrupted these

processes, but we see them reincarnated in the post-war era. Other processes,

conversely, have war-time antecedents, which are now ‘normalised’. For

example, the security regimes around roads (Hyndman & De Alwis, 2004) and

security zones have generally become less restrictive and intrusive (fewer

checkpoints, more mobility), but some of these spatial schemes have now

adopted more permanent forms.

The government development discourse associated with many of the above

interventions has historical antecedents too (Korf, 2009; Peebles, 1990; Spencer,

2003; Tennekoon, 1988). In this modernist outlook, the cultivation of remote

forest in the northeast by rural poor from the south is a double-edged sword:

exploiting the under-utilised agricultural potential of the sparsely populated

northeastern Dry Zone, while easing demographic pressure in the overpopulated

southwestern Wet Zone. ‘The problem’, a retired Sinhala administrator explained

with incontrovertible simplicity, ‘is we have population growth, but no land

growth’ (interview April 2010). The government has the duty to provide land for

the poor, he argued, so people are settled, mostly the majority Sinhala, but

Tamils and Muslims as well. They ‘used to live together peacefully’, until the

‘ethnic problem’ stirred them up. It is communalism that caused trouble, he

concluded, not the clearing of forest for the poor (ibid). Seen from this

perspective, post-war development interventions and the freedom to move

around were the hallmarks of peace, and it was in fact rather ethno-centric of the

Tamil-speaking minorities to claim the whole northeast for themselves.

18

This tendency to subsume ‘the ethnic’ under a harmonious discourse of

development and national integration was clearly manifest in government

planning documents: Mahinda Chintanaya (‘Mahinda’s plan’, nationally),

Negenahira Navodaya (‘Reawakening’ of the Eastern Province) and the plan for a

‘Metro Urban Development Area’ (around Trincomalee’s harbour area). These

plans projected an image of a developmental state inspired by the success of

countries like Singapore and Malaysia. They steered clear from ‘the ethnic

problem’ and political reforms. In similar vein, President Mahinda Rajapaksa

negated these contentions when he announced the military victory in parliament:

he called for ‘peace, development and good governance’, and argued there would

no longer be any minorities, only those who love Sri Lanka and those who do not

(for critical discussion, see Jazeel & Ruwanpura, 2009).

The consolidation of the government victory over the LTTE was thus a central

plank in prevalent interpretations of post-war territorialisation in Trincomalee, but

the values attached to it were diametrically opposed. The basic political binary

was one between the state’s ‘development’ agenda, which could be taken forward

after the military ‘victory’, and the counter-narrative of Sinhala ‘colonisation’ of

the historic ‘homeland’ of the Tamils (and the Muslims). The former tends to

render interventions technical, thus circumventing sensitive issues around ethnic

demography and political rights. The latter does the opposite: it renders post-war

changes political, thus attributing a whole set of changes to a state-engineered

scheme of Sinhala-domination.

Trincomalee is undergoing many of the processes of territorialisation that we

encountered in the geographical literature on war-torn regions. Interestingly, the

case of post-war Trincomalee reminds us that – supposedly peace-oriented –

landscapes of ethnic (re)mixing (Dahlman & Ó Tuathail, 2005) may converge with

19

less harmonious forms of territorialisation: securitised landscapes of surveillance

(Alatout, 2009), the depopulation of forests for strategic reasons (Peluso &

Vandergeest, 2011), and the creation of ‘pure’ religious spaces in conjunction

with violence (Banchetta, 2000). These are quite diverse phenomena with quite

different connotations, but in eastern Sri Lanka these aspects of territorialisation

occur together, and they are interpreted in close connection to each other, be it

as post-war order and ‘development’ or as Sinhala ‘colonisation’.

Increased Circulation: Cultural Preservation and Moral Decay

Interestingly, the same process of integrating Sri Lanka’s northeastern frontier

into the Sri Lankan state also enabled increased circulation in a previously

isolated region. This raises an entirely different set of issues: moral anxiety about

the influx of new cultural practices after the war.

My respondents were generally very appreciative of the increased mobility and

security. They were being reconnected with the world and that made life easier.

It provided better access to education, services, and livelihoods. ‘After the war,

we are blossoming,’ a Sinhala school principal said (interview September 2011).

But the lifting of the barriers also exposed the region to the world. A world that

was seen to threaten the cherished sense of being a community of chaste, devout

and dignified people. In the words of the Sinhala Buddhist monk at one of the

village temples:

‘the opening up also brings drugs and internet and mobile phones.

Unnecessary [implying bad] things come. We are closer to the world. So

those things are also closer to us’ (interview September 2011).

20

Significantly, these concerns around the decay of dignity and morality were

shared by Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim leaders alike. The arrival of Sri Lankan and

foreign tourists (a rare phenomenon during the war) was often mentioned as an

example. ‘Tourism will bring so many cultures,’ a Muslim journalist predicted. ‘We

may lose our cultural values. Narcotics, child abuse, those things’ (interview

February 2010). Many people also complained about the marked increase of litter

with the influx of tourists. Massage parlours, a novelty in the region, were a

particular source of concern. The arrival of young Sinhala women who ran an

independent business by massaging strange men provoked rumours of

prostitution. ‘Sometimes, they do a second massage also,’ a Muslim civil servant

suggestively confided to me. ‘Now, if people are talking about a massage, we

immediately think about the second massage’ (interview September 2011).

These controversies were part of a wider concern with purity: the cultural

commandment of keeping things and people ‘in place’, and the continuous work

of purification required to shed impure influences. As is nicely captured in Mary

Douglas’ (1966) famous dictum that dirt is ‘matter out of place’, it is not the

existence of impurity per se that is perceived as the a moral threat, but its ability

to permeate, and thus pollute, supposedly pure places. And this was what

troubled some of my informants in the aftermath of the war. The account of a

middle-aged career bureaucrat, a respected Muslim from Muthur, is illustrative:

‘Cultural wise, our town was very isolated during the war’ (interview September

2011). The end of the war unleashed new threats to that culture.

‘Young people are taking alcohol. And when they are drunk, bad things

happen. Theft, for example. They are even smoking. Because they are

connected to the other areas. People are worried about this, but we can’t

control that’ (ibid).

21

When the LTTE was there, Muslim people would not just go to the next town.

‘People were with their families. So children were under close control of their

father. Now, the youngsters are free to go’ (ibid). Mosques – a primary source of

surveillance in Muslim settlements during the war – were losing authority.

‘Before, the mosque had the power to control everything,’ but now ‘our

society can’t be controlled so easily. The sale of alcohol is high. The selling

of cigarettes is high. People’s use of public places, also very high. They

think, after freedom, we need entertainment’ (ibid).

Access to modern communication aggravated this sentiment. Very few places had

internet during the war, cell phone networks were heavily curtailed by the state,

and few people had a mobile phone. After the defeat of the LTTE, these media

became widely available across the district. Computer use was seen as a welcome

hallmark of modernity, but the downside was obvious. The same Muslim leader

from Muthur said:

‘I can’t control my son not to use the internet. I teach him to use it for his

future. But when he goes out, I don’t know what kind of internet he’s

using. What kind of pages he is watching. In Tamil we say, we can’t see

the other side of the wall. We are thinking, maybe that is better. However,

we are trying to see what is on the other side. Muslim youth may also

want to see what’s on the next page’ (ibid).

Once isolated towns and villages were thus being absorbed into a world of liquor,

procrastination, tobacco, and pornography. Of course, the region had never been

cut off completely during the war (transnational ties with the diaspora being the

prime example), but external influences had been attenuated and constrained by

checkpoints, frontlines, curfews, lack of infrastructure, and surveillance.

22

These observations bear striking semblance with the moral anxiety discussed in a

body of Sri Lankan scholarship that is not primarily concerned with the war:

anthropological work on movement, looseness and exposure as a source of moral

decay. As Jonathan Spencer (2003) points out, the cultural pedigree of these pre-

occupations goes well beyond supposedly modern times of globalisation, but it is

in the wake of the drastic liberalisation of Sri Lanka’s economy from the late

1970s onwards that concerns about modernity and moral corruption become

particularly pronounced. This process drove an unprecedented form of – mainly

female – labour migration, both internally (often to garment factories in newly

established Free Trade Zones) and internationally (especially to the Gulf). The

cultural and political repertoires around this movement include alcoholism, bad

manners and even suicide in village communities disrupted by the departure of

young women (Gamburd 2000; Spencer 2003), who in turn live modern, impure

and morally loose lives, working in far away factories (Hewamanne 2008; Lynch

2007). A detailed discussion of this literature is beyond the scope of this article,

but the observation that increased circulation and exposure spawn moral concern

with ‘modern’ lifestyles, female sexuality, and undignified behaviour suggests that

there are interesting parallels between the shock of opening up the economy and

the shock of ending the war.

The war shielded eastern Sri Lanka from some of these economic changes, but

labour migration to the Gulf left important traces, not least through shifts in the

circulation of Islamic schools of thought. The increased spread of Islamic

movements like Tabligh Jamaat and Tawhid created remarkable religious shifts

and tension, even during the war (Hasbullah & Korf, 2013; Klem, 2011). More

recently, the movements after the 2004 tsunami also produced anxiety about

external influences threatening local purities, be it fear for so-called ‘unethical

conversions’ by Christian agencies (interviews October 2007; April 2008;

23

Hasbullah & Korf, 2009), or cultural indignation around the western lifestyle of

foreign aid workers (Gaasbeek, 2010b; Perera-Mubarak, 2012).

CONNECTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS: THREE SITES IN TRINCOMALEE

Having discussed some of the prevalent contentions and anxieties around

territorialisation and circulation in post-war Trincomalee, we now turn to the

developments in my three research sites: Veeramanagar, Lankapatuna, and

Nilaveli. Apart from providing concrete examples of territorialisation and

circulation, this section does two things. Firstly, it explores the contradictions and

inter-connections between territorialisation and circulation. And secondly, it

exposes the inconsistencies of overly sweeping political readings of these two

processes in contemporary Trincomalee.

Site 1: Veeramanagar

This first case illustrates some of the remarkable developments taking place in

what used to be LTTE controlled area: it is here that we encounter the crudest

form of territorialisation, and it is here that the reconnecting with the outside

world perhaps marks the biggest change. Veeramanagar is a marginal village of

about 180 families. When I first visited in 2000, it consisted largely of huts made

of sticks and palm leaves, situated along a dirt road. There was a small Hindu

temple and a few wells, but no running water, electricity, or telephone. Sources

of income were scarce. People survived on the collection of firewood, shifting

(chena) cultivation and fishing, but all three were curtailed by the war. Access to

the outside was heavily constrained. The next town of any significance (Muthur)

was on the other side of the frontline. Apart from the trouble of questioning at

the army checkpoint, that journey was impaired by the bad state of the roads and

lack of transport. Over the years, the LTTE had become a professional army with

24

a firm grip on society. The youth were recruited for combat – with force or

persuasion. I never saw uniformed LTTE cadres moving around, but when I

studied the role of the local village organisation, it became clear that all decisions

and financial transactions had to be accorded by the LTTE leader in Sampur.

The 2002 ceasefire eased the tension and the many restrictions, but war came

back with a vengeance. Following the army offensives of 2006, the entire

population ended up in camps in the neighbouring Batticaloa District

(Amirthalingam & Lakshman, 2009). When the government declared the east

liberated from the LTTE a year later, the camps in Batticaloa were closed and

people were housed in a transfer camp in Kilivetti (depicted on map 2 and 4).

When I returned to the village in 2010, Veeramanagar’s inhabitants had been

resettled in their village. With foreign aid many families had constructed small

brick houses, roads were being asphalted, and bridges replaced ferries. There

was some controversy about the ‘Outer Circular Road’, from close to

Veeramanagar all the way up to Nilaveli (map 2 and 3). This road was built by

the army and was seen to serve military purposes: it put ring around the

strategic town of Trincomalee, enabling troop movement and surveillance if

needed. But for the inhabitants of small villages like Veeramanagar, the road

enhanced mobility. They gained access to the most rudimentary services and

they could eke out a living with wage labour or fishing.

25

Map 3. Veeramanagar in 2011

Note: Though lines of military control were somewhat fuzzy during the war, the

approximate former frontlines on maps 3, 4 and 5 give a rough indication

of what used to boundary between government and LTTE-controlled area.

The disappearance of LTTE rule also opened up the village for new religious

movements. The insurgents had been strict with regard to newly arriving

organisations of any sort, and as a result one would primarily encounter Catholics

and Methodists (‘mainline churches’ in the vernacular) in the areas under their

control. These destitute areas – normally conducive to proselytising – were thus

insulated from the remarkable proliferation of evangelical churches that took

26

place elsewhere in Sri Lanka, but after the war this changed rapidly.

Veeramanagar, which is rather small, became home to three evangelical

churches, of which the Assembly of God and the Calvery Church were the most

successful. They converted a house into a ‘church’, and spread the gospel in

passionate services with lots of chanting, the miraculous healing of sick people

and material assistance. About half the village community, both Hindus and

mainline Christians, had joined these new churches, one of the village leaders

told me (interview September 2011). A Catholic priest confirmed to me that this

was the prevalent pattern across former LTTE areas (interview May 2010).

Mainline churches were losing members rapidly and had trouble coming up with

an effective response. Post-war circulation comes in many kinds.

The biggest change in Veeramanagar’s environs was the depopulated zone

around Sampur (map 3). The area had initially been cordoned off as a High

Security Zone, right after the military conquered it from the LTTE, presumably to

secure Trincomalee’s navy harbour across the bay. It was then turned into a so-

called ‘Special Economic Zone’, with plans for a power station to be constructed

by an Indian company. Ironically, the re-labelling of the zone made little

difference. The large swath of land remained an inaccessible militarised area.

There were local, domestic and international concerns about the legal process

through which the zone displaced a large number of people and about the fact

that the military continued to play a central role even though the security

imperative had clearly lost much of its validity (Fonseka & Raheem, 2009).

Even the local bureaucrats responsible for the area were not allowed to enter the

zone. They were nonetheless responsible for dealing with the consequences of

displacement. They tried to find alternative lands for those displaced by the zone

(interview March 2010; September 2011), but many of Sampur’s former

inhabitants rejected their suggestions (interviews September 2011). Over 1200

27

families remained in the Kilivetti camp (and smaller numbers in three other

camps), demanding a return to their lands. In line with some of the recent

geographical literature on camps (Ramadan 2012), the Kilivetti camp was thus

not just a site of disempowerment, but also a space of agency and protest. Even

when the government was trying to make the camp redundant by settling people

elsewhere, the inhabitants kept it in place to protest against the zone and

mobilise domestic and international pressure against the government. The

spatiality of the camp thus provided the inhabitants with a very tangible and

visual way of engaging in what Ramadan calls ‘everyday geopolitics’ (ibid: 10).

Not all inhabitants of the Kilivetti camp were so insistent, though. Most people

from Navaratnapuram – a fishing village on the fringe of the zone (map 3) –

opted for relocation. About 120 families were settled in a new village (which they

named after the old one: Navaratnapuram), right by the side of Veeramanagar.

Veeramanagar thus underwent a remarkable set of changes after the war. New

forms of territorialisation turned a big part of its environs into a depopulated,

militarised zone, and a new village emerged by its side. At the same time, the

demise of LTTE rule and new connections, exposed Veeramanager to new

influences, of which the rapid growth of evangelical churches was one visible

example.

Site 2: Lankapatuna

The second site illustrates some of the non-military processes of what my Tamil

and Muslim respondents would refer to as ‘Sinhala colonisation’. Some of the

developments in and around Lankapatuna indeed lend credit to such

interpretation, but we also see fissures and counterforces that offset the narrative

of unimpeded Sinhala territorialisation. Lankapatuna (‘Lanka’s Port’; in Tamil

Ilankaithurai) is a small natural anchorage at the mouth of the Ullackalli lagoon,

28

with a small settlement on the southern bank and a rock on the northern one

(see map 4). In the 1940s, a Buddhist monk identified Lankapatuna as the place

where Buddha’s tooth – Sri Lanka’s most prominent relic – was brought to the

island in 301 CE. During the war, LTTE cadres captured the rock and used it as a

gun post; if the air force would bomb them they would also destroy the

archaeological evidence of Sinhala-Buddhist historical presence. Following

government recapture in 2006, Lankapatuna became a Buddhist pilgrimage site

and a busy Sinhala tourist attraction.

Map 4. Lankapatuna in 2011

29

The checkpoint at the foot of Lankapatuna’s rock and the large military camp

along the approach road (map 4) provide physical reinforcement for the site’s

symbolic significance. According to the government narrative, the site was first

occupied by Tamil ‘terrorists’, then ‘liberated’ by Sinhala-Buddhist soldiers.

Lankapatuna thus ties together Buddhism, Sinhala genealogy, and heroic struggle

over territory and as such, it forms a contemporary continuation of Buddhist

chronicles. Today, Lankapatuna’s history can be read on a small memorial stone

or on the postcards sold at the site. There are important precedents for such a

remarkable conjunction of Buddhist archaeology, territorial demarcation, ethno-

political genealogical narratives and religio-political readings of ‘nature’ (Jazeel,

2005; Nissan, 1988; 1989; Tennekoon, 1988). The conversion of post-colonial

Anuradhapura into a ‘sacred city’ is particularly salient in this connection. Placed

in a similar ethnic borderland, 100 kilometres inland from Trincomalee,

Anuradhapura was ‘rediscovered’ as a site of Buddhist heritage and Sinhala

kingship in the 1940s and subsequently ‘purified’: the old town with all its non-

Buddhist elements was razed to the ground, and the population was relocated to

New Anuradhapura. The sacred city itself was (re)constructed with a peculiar

combination of modernist order and spiritual symbolism, and became a top

pilgrimage and tourist destination (Nissan, 1989). Parallels can be drawn to

Kataragama in the south, where a multi-religious space was transformed into a

predominantly Buddhist one in the 1960s (Nissan, 1988) and – currently –

Dighavapi in the (south)east, where significant controversy and ethnically-

coloured land conflict precipitated over a site similar to Lankapatuna.

And indeed, for many of the (mainly Sinhala) visitors of Lankapatuna, the site

does not stand alone. It is part of a tour, which includes the – much more

established – Seruwila Buddhist temple, the Somawathie Buddhist temple further

south, and the (Sinhalised) ‘ancient city’ Polonnaruwa, in the neighbouring

district. The latter part of the journey is a new possibility. The Somawathie shrine

30

lies in a vast, forested area and used to be poorly accessible, but is now

reachable on the new road from Seruwila to Polonnaruwa District. Significantly,

the road connects prominent Buddhist sites on the coast with the Sinhala

hinterland. Like the Outer Circular Road, this connection was created by the

army. The Road Development Authority had been bypassed entirely. One of the

RDA’s staff members explained that the proper procedures (land appropriation,

environmental assessments, technical standards) had not been followed

(interview September 2011). He claimed that neither the Somawathie road, nor

the Outer Circular Road served a clear developmental purpose. His office was not

keen to take responsibility for an army initiative that served to enable

surveillance and Buddhist pilgrimage. Because of that, both army roads started to

show signs of erosion.

The land along the Somawathie road belongs to the Seruwila Buddhist temple and

the leading monk ventured to invite poor Sinhala families from outside the district

to settle there. In September 2011, nearly one hundred families from

neighbouring districts had started a living in this erstwhile frontline forest. These

marginalised rural Sinhalese had left their far-away villages for the prospect of

free land, though the conditions were difficult. There were wild elephants and

drinking water was a few kilometres away. Some of the settlers had in fact

deserted their new homes again. Weeds encroached on their neglected dwellings

of clay, sticks and asbestos. Along with the eroding army roads, these collapsing

houses bear tribute to some of the counterforces to ‘Sinhala colonisation’. As is

further elaborated in the case of Nilaveli below, living conditions, economic

opportunities, family ties, and bureaucratic procedures at times worked counter

to the influx of Sinhalese settlers or returnees.

The majority of the new arrivals, however, defied the wild elephants, the heat,

and the lack of facilities. They pioneered a life, cultivated their crops, and sent

31

their children to school. Moving to the colony was not just a land deal to escape

the poverty in their home district. It was part of a bigger civilising effort of

‘taming the jungle’ and making the Buddhist shrines accessible. ‘The monk told

us to come and help protect the pilgrims,’ a man from Badulla (some 250

kilometres southwards) explained to me. ‘I am here to cultivate and contribute to

the nation’ (interview September 2011). The settlers provided a demographic

mantle to this road in previously LTTE-controlled forest. Much in line with the

above-cited literature, the sacred sites, the pilgrims and tourists, the army road

and the new settlers were thus understood as part of a larger political project.

Site 3: Nilaveli

The third site, Nilaveli, explores the role of tourism more explicitly, and it brings

forward the multi-layered struggles over resettlement, access and land. It shows

that what is circulation for some amounts to the exclusion of others, and tussles

over belonging may get entangled with forces of capital.

Along the coast north of Trincomalee town, one finds small Tamil and Muslim

settlements. Further inland there are Sinhala farming areas. Most of these

farmers arrived with the irrigation schemes that were developed between the

1950s and the 1980s. During the war, big parts of this region were sparsely

inhabited. The LTTE drove Sinhala settlers away and many Tamils and Muslims

living along the coast fled towards Trinco town.

Some of the Tamils ended up in the ‘Nilaveli Welfare Centre’ (see map 1), a camp

just outside Nilaveli town, where I briefly resided in 2001. There were about one

hundred families, mostly agricultural labourers and fishermen, who either lost

their homes, or could not access it, because it was occupied by one of the many

military installations. After the war, the camp was closed and its inhabitants were

32

relocated in a newly built housing scheme called Naval Cholai, in Kumburuputty,

ten kilometres to the north (see map 5). This had long been a relatively desolate

area. Peculiarly, the relay station of the Deutsche Welle (‘Voice of Germany’) had

continued to function, but for common people, the area was considered insecure

and the ferry service across the mouth of the lagoon was unreliable. But with the

refurbishment of the roads, the newly constructed bridges, the disappearance of

checkpoints, and the improved bus service, it was only a short ride from

Trincomalee town in 2011.

Map 5. Nilaveli in 2011

33

Relocation in Naval Cholai was met with a mix of appreciation and complaint

(interviews March 2010, September 2011). It was good to have a fenced-off plot

of land, with a brick house and proper sanitation after spending years in palm-

leaf huts. Yet, many people in Naval Cholai were still struggling to survive. The

fishermen were dissatisfied with the long walk to the beach. Naval Cholai was

very close to the sea, but the adjacent coastal strip was largely off-limits; not

because it was already inhabited, but because the government had installed a

large tourism zone: the ‘Nilaveli Kumburuputty Tourism Resort’ (map 5).

The beaches along the coast north of Trincomalee town have long been known for

their pristine beauty, but the few hotels that survived the war were in a

deplorable state. After the 2009 defeat of the LTTE, the tourism potential of

Nilaveli’s coast re-entered the limelight. But this increase in circulation, the

tourism zone shows, resulted in territorial exclusion for the local fishermen. It

was hard to get any public information on the newly declared tourism zone, but I

managed to have a look at confidential documents through one of my politically

well-connected informants. The zone was to cater for 48 hotels with a total of

3000 rooms. Emphasis was placed on ‘five star’ or ‘boutique’ hotels. The

government thus thought big, but in 2011, only one of these hotels was making

visible progress. The sign at the construction site read: ‘Jungle Beach, a 50 key

luxury resort’. Two other projects (outside the zone) had discontinued

construction efforts. This was because of the high land lease prices levied by the

government, a local bureaucrat explained to me (interview September 2011).

Many other lots remained empty for the same reason, but the land continued to

be cordoned off. Along the road to Trincomalee town, smaller hotels, beach

bungalows, restaurants, and massage parlours mushroomed. Some hotels and

restaurants were run by the armed forces; in other cases local families or newly

arrived Sinhala entrepreneurs responded to the emerging market. Foreign

tourists and the Colombo elite stayed in Trincomalee’s luxury resorts for US$250

34

per night. Busloads of middle and lower class Sri Lankan tourists found a place to

rest with relatives, in cheap guesthouses, or in Buddhist temples. Despite the

grossly under-utilised tourism zone, these travellers transformed the environs of

a sleepy town like Nilaveli – a junction with a school, a church, and an army

camp – into a more lively place. The evening silence used to be interrupted by

the mosque azan only; now there were occasional late-night parties with drums,

singing, and young men getting drunk on the beach.

Alongside tourists and day-trippers, the area witnessed an influx of Sinhala

returnees. Their parents or grandparents had settled in Nilaveli and

Kumburuputty from the 1950s onwards, but they were displaced by the war. The

government victory over the LTTE paved the way for their return, but many had

built up new lives in places with better infrastructure and schools. Social networks

had moved and unlike their bi-lingual parents, the children no longer spoke

Tamil. The government had put up a camp at Irrakandy Sinhala Vidalaya (map 5)

for returnees. Its inhabitants explained to me they were driven by personal

misfortune or poverty (interviews September 2011). Though they were not

altogether homeless, the government provided these returnees with temporary

shelters and food rations. Many families decided to send one or two people only.

The children stayed behind to continue their education, while a parent or

grandparent settled in the camp, with one main objective: to reclaim their lands.

The problem was, however, that in most cases the land was no longer theirs.

They had sold it during the war, because it was hard to imagine returning to the

war zone. Some also claimed they had been tricked or pressured into selling their

land. Several returnees had initiated court cases to sort out these matters, but

their expectations were low. Since the present inhabitants of these contested

plots were unlikely to vacate it for Sinhala returnees, the local government

administrator identified an alternative site for the returnees to settle down. And

35

that brings us back to Naval Cholai, Kumburuputty, the scheme where the former

inhabitants of Nilaveli Welfare Centre had been relocated. The administrator, a

Tamil who was sceptical of both the tourism zone and Sinhala land claims,

selected the scrubby area right behind the Naval Cholai scheme (see map 5) for

the Sinhala returnees (interview September 2011). Unsurprisingly, the returnees

were unhappy with his suggestion. Sixteen out of the twenty-seven families

residing in the Irrakandy Sinhala Vidalaya camp declined the offer altogether. The

proposed relocation site was remote, and drinking water was hard to come by,

but most importantly: many returnees had a better place to stay. They had come

back to claim their parents’ land – to live there or to sell it – but not to be

relocated in a desolate ‘jungle’ area (interview September 2011).

These conflicts over land titles, social pecking orders, place-making and

belonging, and protracted struggles with the bureaucracy over entitlements

(often complicated by political interference and the activities of development

agencies) are common themes in Sri Lanka’s elaborate experience with

displacement and resettlement (Brun, 2001), particularly after the tsunami

(Ruwanpura, 2008; Perera-Mubarak, 2012). These dynamics resurfaced in Naval

Cholai in a particularly pronounced form, because of the post-war context. As

elaborated before, Sinhala return was accompanied by a sense of post-victory

triumphalism, and the Tamil (and Muslim) community perceived the influx of

returnees, settlers, tourists, and pilgrims as threatening. The Tamil respondents

in Naval Cholai were less adept in providing a sophisticated discourse of state

oppression and Sinhala domination, but they did see the above developments in

that light. ‘Little by little, they are taking,’ a middle-aged woman summarised the

anxiety (interview September 2011).

CONCLUSIONS

36

This case study of post-war Trincomalee suggests that territorialisation and

circulation are centrally important processes in a post-war society. In this case,

territorialisation comprises the spatial consolidation of the government’s military

victory over the LTTE. This includes the creation of demarcated zones for

economic and military purposes, strategic road construction, the refurbishment of

‘sacred sites’ and contentious changes in the ethnic demography. With regard to

circulation, the defeat of the LTTE ended the curtailment of flows that had

characterised the war. This rapidly increased the region’s exposure to external

influences, ranging from evangelical churches and Buddhist pilgrims to (drunken)

tourists, and massage parlours.

The productive tension between territorialisation and circulation helps account for

the apparent paradox that we encounter in contemporary Trincomalee. We see

both processes of territorial closure, control and order as well as processes of

opening up and unsettling, due to increased circulation. New roads may serve

military interests, but also channel new influences. The moving around of people

may result in Sinhala claims on land, but also in evangelisation and changed

economic opportunities. This diversity of processes unsettles overly simplistic

political readings of post-war developments in Trincomalee. While some

developments certainly suggest powerful forms of state territorialisation to the

detriment of ethnic minorities (such as the depopulated zones), a plain discourse

of unhampered ‘Sinhala colonisation’ sits uneasily with the counterforces that

became manifest. Economic forces prevented hotel companies from buying into

the tourism zone, and the Special Economic Zone failed to attract much economic

investment. Some of the Sinhala settlers were leaving the region again, because

of the tough living conditions (Somawathie Road) or because a Tamil bureaucrat

assigned them to an unfavourable plot (Naval Cholai). As in other cases

(Lestrellin, 2011), these counterforces complicate Sri Lanka’s historical script of

the Tamil and Muslim minority being oppressed by a Sinhala-dominated state.

37

Moreover, some of the controversy around circulation escaped the ethnicised

logic altogether. Concerns about external influences were shared by all groups:

Sinhala Buddhist monks, Muslim leaders and Christian priests all expressed

dismay over the corrupting influence of modernity. And threats to local purities

did not only come from the ethnic other: for example, mainline Christian

disapproval of evangelical proselytization was essentially an intra-Tamil affair.

As an analytical pair, the terms territorialisation and circulation open up analytical

space to conceive of Sri Lanka’s future in a more open-ended manner. It is true,

the present political playing field is fundamentally uneven; the government has

neutralised opposition, cold-shoulders international pressure and rather than

addressing the minority question it has further centralised power. But increased

circulation in the northeast may transform the region in unpredictable ways. The

literature on ‘war-to-peace’ transitions is a little threadbare in this regard, but

there is a useful body of work on cultural responses to liberalisation and

globalised exposure. In the Sri Lankan context, there is valuable anthropological

research on cultural controversies following the opening up of the economy in the

late 1970s. Indeed, the concerns over moral decay and disorientation resulting

from increased circulation and exposure to modern influences ring remarkably

similar (Gamburd 2000; Hewamanne 2008; Lynch 2007; Spencer 2003). In the

east, concerns over the preservation of pure Muslim spaces (Hasbullah & Korf

2009; 2013) and indignation around the ‘modern’ behaviour of post-tsunami

expatriate aid workers (Gaasbeek 2010b) provide recent analogies.

While these historical parallels deserve to be examined in detail, the emphasis on

circulation raises a more fundamental point. The concerns over increased

exposure suggest that the current transition in eastern Sri Lanka should not only

be branded as a ‘war ending’ that lends itself to comparison with other countries

emerging from violent conflict. It is also a case of a region that grapples with a

38

relatively suddenly exposure to new influences and forms of ‘modernity’, and thus

lends itself to a rather different set of comparisons: to regions that get

(re)connected with the outside world. In terms of everyday place-making and

moral anxieties over circulation, it is worth exploring whether post-war

Trincomalee perhaps has as much in common with post-communist spaces (e.g.

Eastern Europe in the early 1990s), landscapes of disaster aid (e.g. Kashmir after

the 2005 earthquake), and frontier regions undergoing imperial or state

integration (e.g. northwestern China or the Amazon region today), as with former

war zones.

REFERENCES

Alatout, S. (2009). Walls as technologies of government: The double construction

of geographies of peace and conflict in Israeli politics, 2000-present.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(5): 956–968.

Amirthalingam, K. & Lakshman, R. (2009). Displaced livelihoods in Sri Lanka: An

economic analysis. Journal of Refugee Studies, 22(4): 502–524.

Baird, I. & Le Billon, P. (2012). Landscapes of political memories: War legacies

and land negotiations in Laos. Political Geography, 31: 290–300.

Banchetta, P. (2000). Sacred space in conflict in India: The Babri Masjid affair.

Growth and Change, 31(2): 255–284.

Berenschot, W. (2011). The spatial distribution of riots: Patronage and the

instigation of communal violence in Gujarat, India. World Development,

39(2): 221–230.

Brottem, L. & Unruh, J. (2009). Territorial tensions: Rainforest conservation,

postconflict recovery, and land tenure in Liberia. Annals of the Association

of American Geographers, 99(5): 995–1002.

Brun (2001). Reterritorializing the relationship between people and places in

refugee studies. Geografiska Annaler 83B(1): 15–25.

39

Brun, C. & Jazeel, T. (2009)(eds). Spatialising politics: Culture and geography in

postcolonial Sri Lanka. New Delhi: Sage.

Chatterjee, I. (2009). Violent morphologies: Landscape, border and scale in

Ahmedabad conflict. Geoforum, 40: 1003–1013.

Dahlman, C. & Ó Tuathail, G. (2005). Broken Bosnia: The localized geopolitics of

displacement and return in two Bosnian places. Annals of the Association

of American Geographers, 95(3): 644–662.

Dahlman, C. & Williams, T. (2010). Ethnic enclavisation and state formation in

Kosovo. Geopolitics, 15(2): 406–430.

Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and

taboo. London: Routledge.

Duffield, M. (2001). Global governance and the new wars. London: Zed Books.

Elden, S. (2010). Land, terrain, territory. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6):

799–817.

Fonseka, B. & Raheem, M. (2009). Trincomalee High Security Zone and Special

Economic Zone. Colombo: Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Gaasbeek, T. (2010a). Bridging troubled waters? Everyday inter-ethnic interaction

in a context of violent conflict in Kottiyar Pattu, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka.

PhD Dissertation, Wageningen University.

Gaasbeek, T. (2010b). Actors in a masala movie: Fieldnotes on the NGO tsunami

response in eastern Sri Lanka. In D. McGilvray and M. Gamburd (eds)

Tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka. Ethnic and regional dimensions (pp. 125-

142). London: Routledge.

Gamburd, M. (2000). The kitchen spoon’s handle: Transnationalism and Sri

Lanka’s migrant housemaids. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Goodhand, J. (2010). Stabilising a victor’s peace? Humanitarian action and

reconstruction in eastern Sri Lanka. Disasters, 34(S3): S342−S367.

Goodhand, J., Klem, B. & Korf, B. (2009). Religion, conflict and boundary politics

in Sri Lanka. European Journal of Development Research, 21(5): 679–698.

40

Graham, S. (2009). Cities as battlespace: The new military urbanism. City:

analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 13(4):383-402.

Gregory, D. (2010). War and peace. Transactions of the Institute of British

Geographers, NS 35: 154–186.

Gregory, D. & Pred, A. (2006)(eds). Violent geographies: Fear, terror and political

violence. London: Routledge.

Hasbullah, S. & Korf, B. (2009). Muslim geographies and the politics of

purification in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami. Singapore Journal of

Tropical Geography, 30: 248–264.

Hasbullah, S. & Korf, B. (2013). Muslim geographies, violence and the antinomies

of community in eastern Sri Lanka. The Geographical Journal, 179(1): 32–

43.

Hewamanne, S. (2008). Stitching identities in a Free Trade Zone: Gender and

politics in Sri Lanka. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hyndman, J. (2007). The securitization of fear in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. Annals

of the Association of American Geographers, 97(2): 361–372.

Hyndman, J. & De Alwis, M. (2004). Bodies, shrines, and roads: Violence,

(im)mobility and displacement in Sri Lanka. Gender, Place & Culture,

11(4): 535–557.

Jazeel, T. (2005). ‘Nature’, nationhood and the poetics of meaning in Ruhuna

(Yala) National Park, Sri Lanka. Cultural Geographies, 12: 199–227.

Jazeel, T. & Ruwanpura, K. (2009). Dissent: Sri Lanka’s new minority? Political

Geography, 28: 385–387.

Jeffrey, A. (2006). Building state capacity in post-conflict Bosnia and

Herzegovina: The case of Brcko District. Political Geography, 25: 203–227.

Kirsch, S. & C. Flint (2011)(eds). Reconstructing conflict: Integrating war and

post-war geographies. Farnham: Ashgate.

Klauser, F. (2012). Thinking through territoriality: Introducing Claude Raffestin to

Anglophone sociospatial theory. Environment and Planning D: Society and

41

Space, 30: 106-120.

Klem, B. (2011). Islam, politics and violence in eastern Sri Lanka. Journal of

Asian Studies, 70(3): 730-753.

Klem, B. (2012). In the eye of the storm: Sri Lanka’s front-line civil servants in

transition. Development and Change, 43(3): 695–717.

Klem, B. (forthcoming). Showing one’s colours: The political work of elections in

post-war Sri Lanka. Accepted by Modern Asian Studies.

Kobayasyi, A. (2009). Geographies of peace and armed conflict: Introduction.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(5): 819–826.

Korf, B. (2006). Who is the rogue? Discourse, power and spatial politics in post-

war Sri Lanka. Political Geography, 25: 279–297.

Korf, B. (2009). Cartographic violence: Engaging a Sinhala kind of geography. In

C. Brun & T. Jazeel (eds), Spatialising politics: Culture and geography in

postcolonial Sri Lanka (pp. 100-121). New Delhi: Sage.

Korf, B. Engeler, K. & Hagmann, T. (2010). The geography of warscape. Third

World Quarterly, 31(3): 385–399.

Korf, B. & Fünfgeld, H. (2006). War and the commons: Assessing the changing

politics of violence, access and entitlements in Sri Lanka. Geoforum, 37:

391–403.

Lestrellin, G. (2011). Rethinking state-ethnic minority relations in Laos: Internal

resettlement, land reform and counter-territorialization. Political

Geography, 30: 311–319.

Lynch, C. (2007). Juki girls, good girls: Gender and cultural politics in Sri Lanka’s

global garment industry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Lunstrum, E. (2009). Terror, territory, and deterritorialization: Landscapes of

terror and the unmaking of state power in the Mozambican ‘civil’ war.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(5): 884–892.

McGilvray, D. & Gamburd, M. (2010)(eds). Tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic

and regional dimensions. London: Routledge.

42

Nagel, C. (2002). Reconstructing space, re-creating memory: Sectarian politics

and urban development in post-war Beirut. Political Geography, 21: 717–

725.

Nissan, E. (1988). Polity and pilgrimage centres in Sri Lanka. Man, 23(2): 253–

274.

Nissan, E. (1989). History in the making: Anuradhapura and the Sinhala Buddhist

nation. Social Analysis, 25: 64–77.

Ó Tuathail, G. (2010) Localizing geopolitics: Disaggregating violence and return in

conflict regions. Political Geography, 29: 256–265.

Parsons, N. & Salter, M. (2008). Israeli biopolitics: Closure, territorialisation and

governmentality in the occupied Palestinian territories. Geopolitics, 13:

701–723.

Parasram, A. (2012). Erasing Tamil Eelam: De/re territorialisation in the global

war on terror. Geopolitics, 17(4): 903–925.

Peebles, P. (1990). Colonization and ethnic conflict in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka.

Journal of Asian Studies, 49(1): 30–55.

Peluso, N. & Vandergeest, P. (2011). Political ecologies of war and forests:

Counterinsurgencies and the making of national natures. Annals of the

Association of American Geographers, 101(3): 587–608.

Perera-Mubarak, K. (2012). Reading ‘stories’ of corruption: Practices and

perceptions of everyday corruption in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. Political

Geography, 31: 368–378.

Ramadan, A. (2012). Spatialising the refugee camp. Transactions of the Institute

of British Geographers, 38(1): 65–77.

Robinson, G., Engelstoft, S. & Pobric, A. (2001). Remaking Sarajevo: Bosnian

nationalism after the Dayton Accord. Political Geography, 20: 957–980.

Ruwanpura, K. (2008). Putting houses in place: Rebuilding communities in post-

tsunami Sri Lanka. Disasters, 33(3): 436–456.

43

Sack, R. (1986). Human territoriality: Its theory and history. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Smith, R. (2011). Graduated incarceration: The Israeli occupation in subaltern

geopolitical perspective. Geoforum, 42: 316–328.

Spencer, J. (2003). A nation ‘living in different places’: Notes on the impossible

work of purification in postcolonial Sri Lanka. Contributions to Indian

Sociology, 37(1-2): 1–23.

Spencer, J. (2008). A nationalism without politics? The illiberal consequences of

liberal institutions in Sri Lanka. Third World Quarterly, 29(3): 611–629.

Tennekoon, S. (1988). Rituals of development: The Accelerated Mahaväli

Development Programme of Sri Lanka. American Ethnologist, 15(2): 294-

310.

Tyner, J. (2009). Imagining genocide: Anti-geographies and the erasure of space

in democratic Kampuchea. Space and Polity, 13(1): 9–20.

UN Panel of Experts (2011) Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on

Accountability in Sri Lanka, 31 March 2011, available at:

www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/POE_Report_Full.pdf [accessed

26 September 2013]

Uyangoda, J. (2011). Travails of state reform in the context of protracted civil war

in Sri Lanka. In K. Stokke and J. Uyangoda (eds) Liberal peace in

question: Politics of state and market reform in Sri Lanka (pp. 46-75).

London: Anthem Press.

Watts, M. (2003). Development and governmentality. Singapore Journal of

Tropical Geography, 24(1): 6–34.

Wickramasinghe, N. (2006). Sri Lanka in the modern age: A history of contested

identities. London: Hurst.

Yiftachel, O. (2002). Territory as the kernel of the nation: Space, time and

nationalism in Israel/Palestine. Geopolitics, 7(2): 215–248.

44