Category Archives: commoditification

September 18, 2025 · 3:04 am

Lankan Tamil Migration in Wintry Norway: “Working For Our Sisters”

Oivund Fugleruud in  ???? where the the title runs  thus: ‘ “Working for  Sisters”  — Tamil Life on the 71st Parallel’

The article discusses the phenomenon of migration of Sri Lankan Tamils to Finnmark, the northemmost part of Nonvay. While most other groups of immigrants in Nonvay tend to settle in the larger Cities, this particular group has a tradition of settlement in the fishing villages in Finnmark, facing the Barents Sem.

[t is argued fhat there is a continuity in this pattem from the early migration workers in the 1970s ro present•day asylum-seekers. The “imicrohistory” of Tamil migration to one particular village is presented and discussed. It shows an overlap from one type of  migration to another.

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September 14, 2025 · 11:50 am

Tony Peries: First Lankan Director of George Steuarts

Being  CHAPTER ELEVEN of The George Steuart Story  1835-1985 ++

THE FIRST SRI LANKAN CHAIRMAN

When a young Sri Lankan walked into the office of George Steuart on February 1, 1953, no one is likely to have imagined that he would become not only the first Sri Lankan Chairman of what was then essentially a British firm, but also the youngest man to hold that important office.

The young man, whose name was John Francis Anthony Paul Peries, and was generally known as Tony Peries, had been edu cated at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo, and had applied for a post as a trainee Tea Taster. His father, ·W. Peries, a Director of Mackwoods, was held in the highest esteem in agency circles.

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September 7, 2025 · 2:57 pm

Indigenous ‘Touches’ within the British Colonial Era of Capitalist Expansion

Vinod Moonesinghe, IN  Factum Perspectives March 3, 2025, where the title runs thus: “Tindals, Dhonis, and Sampans – The interconnectedness of historical Indian Ocean commerce” ….  NB: the two photos &  the map are insertions by The Editor, Thuppahi

 In the days of the British Raj, bullock carts were used to transport goods inland and to bring coffee beans (and later tea) from the montane plantations down to Colombo, for shipment overseas.

The distance from the coffee plantations to the main seaport of Galle caused the colonial government to override the wishes of the British Admiralty and of the steamship lines (who all wished to operate from Galle, which was closer to the main sea route to the Orient) and to develop Colombo harbour at a considerable cost.

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August 29, 2025 · 1:30 pm

Sri Lanka’s Maritime Legacy: A Discerning Study … Many Revelations

Avishka Mario  Senewiratne in The Island, 24 August 2025, where the title is “A Mirror to the Sea: Revisiting Sri Lanka’s Forgotten Maritime Legacy” …. Review of “Sri Lanka, Serendib & the Silk Road of the Sea” by Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha …. with the highlighting here being impositions  by The Editor, Thuppahi

It is not often that a slim volume quietly arrives on the literary shore, only to awaken something dormant and forgotten within the national consciousness. Sri Lanka, Serendib & the Silk Road of the Sea, the latest work by Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha, is just such a book—a timely voyage through history’s less-traversed sea lanes, executed with scholarly rigour, personal charm, and a deep-rooted love for this resplendent isle.

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August 22, 2025 · 11:12 am

Sanjiva’s Silken “SILK ROAD” Launched Today

Sanjiva Wijesinha

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August 16, 2025 · 12:53 pm

A Thoughtful Assessment of THE CEYLON JOURNAL

Dhanuka Bandara, in The Daily Mirror, 15 August 2025 … where the  title reads “The Ceylon Journal III: A Review,”  while the title here and the  highlighting are  the imprint of The Editor, Thuppahi

 The third installation of the bi-annual periodical The Ceylon Journal certainly continues the success of the two previous issues. Edited by Avishka Mario Senewiratne, The Ceylon Journal was first launched in July 2024. This unique journal, which in turn draws inspiration from Young Ceylon, a 19th-century Sri Lankan journal published by Charles Lorenz Ambrose and his friends, continues to publish immensely readable, yet well-researched and informative articles on a wide range of topics.

 

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August 5, 2025 · 7:21 pm

Global Economics & Sri Lanka over the Recent Centuries

Sunil Bastian: “Sri Lankan state in a changing global context”  … a 2025 article presented  here with highlights  imposed by The Editor,  Thuppahi.**

This short article emphasises the need to analyse the Sri Lankan state by placing it in the global context. This means not confining our minds within the borders of the Sri Lankan state. To emphasise this point I would like to point out that the formation of the Sri Lankan state itself was a product of a global phenomenon – British colonialism (see Bastian Sunil (2025) State formation and Conflicts in Sri Lanka. London: Bloomsbury Academic for an analysis of Sri Lankan state formation).

Under British colonialism the entire geographic space of the island was covered by a single unit of territorial power. To administer the territory, the island was divided into spatial units using the directions of a compass. In this way cartography became an instrument of British colonialism. Other techniques of state formation were establishing an administrative structure, a judicial system, a system to collect taxes, regular census and the coercive power of the state to cover the entire island.

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July 10, 2025 · 9:21 pm

Professor Sinnappah Arasaratnam: Historian Outstanding

Michael Roberts

Sinnappah Arasaratnam was one of my inspirational teachers in History at Peradeniya University in the late 1950s. In chancing upon a printed copy of one of his articles — entitled “Sri Lanka’s Tamils under Colonial Rule,” (date ??), I have been inspired to remind new generations, as well as older ones. of his contributions to scholarship in Lanka, Malaysia/Singapore and Australia.

It was to my benefit that I was able to interact with him on occasions after he moved to Malaysia and Australia. Alas, the details of these exchanges have not taken root in my fading memory.

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March 31, 2025 · 5:39 pm

Reflections on Gananath’s Wide-Ranging Corpus of Work

Professor M.W. Amarasiri de Silva, about 3/4 years back in … … where the full title of the essay reads thus: “Sinhalese Society Through The Prism Of Religion: An Appreciation Of Gananath Obeyesekere’s Work On Sinhalese Buddhism”

This article celebrates the remarkable scholarly contributions of Gananath Obeyesekere, specifically in the field of popular Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Obeyesekere, now aged 93, embarked on his anthropological career at the University of Ceylon (now University of Peradeniya), where he earned his undergraduate degree in English. Subsequently, he served as a lecturer and professor in the Department of Sociology from the 1960s to 1972, before moving on to the United States. He was Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University from 1980 to 2000.

 

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March 26, 2025 · 10:05 pm

An Epitaph for Gananath Obeyesekere

Chandra R. De Silva, … with highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi

I write to add a few words to the outpouring of appreciations of Gananath Obeyesekere, a scholar whose research in anthropology, religion, myth, and cultural practices  has won him accolades across the world. I will not comment on the advances in knowledge and the discussions he provoked by his many scholarly works of which among the best known are Land Tenure in Village Ceylon, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini, Buddhism Transformed (co-author), The Work of Culture, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific, and The Doomed King. There has been much written on this world renowned scholar, and there will undoubtedly be more comments by experts in the years to come.

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