Polity aims to advance democratic consciousness, gender equality, state reform, and social change in Sri Lanka, while interested in South Asia and the World.
As its predecessor Pravada (1991-2002), Polity is published by the Social Scientists’ Association in Colombo, with critical content on politics, political economy, history, women, ethnicity, sexualities, religion, labour studies, agrarian relations, nationalisms, violence, ecology, and much more.
Family Law and Practice in Sri Lanka: Women’s Declaration
Suriya Women’s Development Centre
The Women’s Declaration on Family Law and Practice was officially submitted to Minister of Women and Child Affairs...
Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism and Political Legitimacy in Contemporary Sri Lanka
Shashik Silva
Cleavage politics has emerged as one of the most defining features of Sri Lanka’s party system and political behaviour...
Man in the Mirror
Ruben Thurairajah
The photograph came first. Ranil Wickremesinghe walks out of the intensive care unit of Colombo’s National Hospital, a...
Chemmani: Where the Soil Speaks, Where Memory Refuses Silence
Sakuna M. Gamage
The wind returns to the streetteeming with life and death. It hesitates a littleas it crosses the bridge. This wind...
Stirring the Hornet’s Nest: The NPP’s Education Reforms
Niyanthini Kadirgamar
Estate primary school in disused century-old tea plantation factory building Education occupies a special place in the...
Magic Maids: Sweeping Up a Storm at the Sorbonne
Nadeera Rajapakse
After performing in several theatres across Paris, Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera bewitched the spectators, students,...
Current Issue
120 pages of analysis and perspective including: Sri Lanka’s elections, politics, and parties; ‘settler tourism’ in the wake of the Gaza genocide; the spaces of the Aragalaya; child marriages and their miseries in the East; gendering climate-adaptation projects in agriculture; the ‘hidden politics’ of critical agrarian studies; Europe’s far right and its battery of women’s rights; Martin Wickramasinghe and the Sinhala short story; trans-gendered lives amidst war, violence, and displacement; South Asia’s debt crisis is missing collective action; India’s general election; race, class and multiculturalism in Hanif Kureishi’s work; and some favourite books in 2024.
Vol. 12, Issue 2 (December 2024) is now available for LKR 500, from the Social Scientists’ Association and Barefoot bookshop, Colombo 3.
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Archive
Pravada (1991-2002) and Polity (2003-) back issues available here.
Social Scientists’ Association
The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) was founded in 1977, at a turning point in Sri Lankan politics, economy, and society, marked by among other aspects: the ‘open economy’ market reforms; deepening ethnic conflict; and the growing concentration of executive power. Its initiators were academics from public universities, seeking an autonomous space to grapple with these shifts; and to promote progressive political, economic, and social change.