The Factory is Like the Paddy-field: Gam Udawa Performances, Ethnicity and Neoliberalism in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Between 1978 and 1994, a series of cultural festivals called the Gam Udawa Jayanthiya or Village Re-awakening Celebrations were held in different districts in rural Sri Lanka. The festivals were part of a public housing and development program implemented in the post 1977 era, when the party in power at the time, the United National Party (UNP), directed the country toward neoliberal reforms. Gam Udawa helped consolidate state ideologies at a time when its political and moral authority was being challenged by insurrectionary and separatist groups. The festivals also deployed post- and anticolonial language to legitimize Sinhala Buddhist dominance.

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