Sharika Thiranagama …. Abstract of her refereed article in the American Anthropologist, Vol. 116, No. 2 (JUNE 2014), pp. 265-278 (14 pages) …. where the title reads thus: “Making Tigers from Tamils: Long-Distance Nationalism and Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto”
This article discusses the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Toronto and its relationship to the Tamil separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Taking the case of the Sri Lankan Tamils, oft-cited as the example par excellence of long-distance nationalism, I argue against naturalizing diasporic ethnonationalism to investigate instead how diasporas are fashioned into specific kinds of actors. I examine tensions that emerged as an earlier elite Tamil movement gave way to the contemporary migration of much larger class-and caste-fractured communities, while a cultural imaginary of migration as a form of mobility persisted. I suggest that concomitant status anxieties have propelled culturalist imaginations of a unified Tamil community in Toronto who, through the actions of LTTE-affiliated organizations, have condensed the Tigers and their imagined homeland, Tamil Eelam, into representing Tamil community life. While most Tamils may not have explicitly espoused LTTE ideology, as a result of the LTTE becoming the backbone of community life, Tamils became complicit with and reaffirmed the LTTE project of defending “Tamilness” militarily in Sri Lanka and culturally in Toronto. I suggest that the self-presentation of diasporic communities should be analyzed within specific histories, contemporary conflicts and fractures, and active mobilizing structures.
Rajini Thiranagama
Journal Information
American Anthropologist is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. The journal advances the Association’s mission through publishing articles that add to, integrate, synthesize, and interpret anthropological knowledge; commentaries and essays on issues of importance to the discipline; and reviews of books, films, sound recordings, and exhibits.
BACKGROUND NOTES ASSEMBLED By The Editor, Thuppahi
Rajini Thiranagama was a Sri Lankan Tamil doctor born in Jaffna to the Rajasingham family in 1954 who married Dayapala Thiranagama, a Sinhalese of like-minded radical disposition, She chose to serve in her hometown arena in the 1980s during a period of political maelstorm and violence involving competition between Tamil resistance groups, Sinhala state violence, violence by and against IPKF forces. Her political activism was prominent and effective enough to lead the LTTE to assassinate her in broad daylight on 29 September 1989 as she rode her bicycle on the way home.
In the result Dayapala Thiranagama migrated to the London area in UK with their two daughters Narmada and Sharika in late December 1989. SHARIKA eventually proceeded to secure a doctorate in the social sciences in the 2000s and did not hesitate to undertake fieldwork in Jaffna and Sri Lanka during the war-torn situation in the years 2002-04. A book entitled In My Mother’s House (pubd in 2011) and a position as a Lecturer in Anthropology at Stanford University are testimony to her fortitude and intellectual capacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharika_Thiranagama
