Polity is a magazine which 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 (since 2003), with critical content on politics, political economy, history, women, ethnicity, sexualities, religion, labour studies, agrarian relations, nationalisms, violence, ecology, and much more…
Queer Representation in Sri Lankan Media: A Double-Edged Sword?
Kasun Kavishka
Queer[1] representation in the media is a polarising topic that has sparked many debates in recent years, revealing...
The Sarajevo Declaration of the Gaza Tribunal
Gaza Tribunal
We, the members of the Gaza Tribunal, having gathered in Sarajevo from 26 to 29 May 2025, declare our collective moral...
‘Crop Top Terrorism’ and the Security State in Sri Lanka
Themal Ellawala
The evening of 28 February 2025. A friend and I left his house in Mount Lavinia to board a waiting PickMe...
The ‘Governance of Corruption’ in Sri Lanka – An IMF-NGO-NPP Consensus
B. Skanthakumar
“Between consent and force stands corruption/fraud” ~ Antonio Gramsci IntroductionSri Lanka’s ‘National...
Horu versus Boru: The politics of the 2025 local government elections in Sri Lanka
Harindra B. Dassanayake and Rajni Gamage
In the 2025 May local government (LG) election, the National People’s Power (NPP) secured a nominal majority in 265...
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Noura Erakat. Stanford University Press, 2019
Kiran Grewal
Introduction A direct and consequential outcome of the past 19 months of hell experienced by the people of Gaza is...
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) is an organization working to investigate the way in which social change is contouring the multiple realities faced by communities in Sri Lanka and South Asia. The SSA is deeply committed to promoting a culture of knowledge production that informs and undergirds interventions aimed at achieving social emancipation for marginalized communities.