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.
Best Reads in 2024
Collective
A sinister thread of horror, known and unknown, real and imagined, has connected much of what I have read this year....
Victims or Saviours? Women in Climate Adapted Agriculture Projects in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone
Nethmi Bathige
In recent years, both the government of Sri Lanka as well as national and international development organisations have...
Writing the life of author and filmmaker Hanif Kureishi: race, class and multiculturalism
Ruvani Ranasinha
"We had been devastated … in ways we didn’t understand by racism” ~ Kureishi, My Ear at His Heart (2004) In 2023, my...
Sri Lanka General Election 2024: How We See It; What We Want
Collective
In one or two words, describe your reaction to the overall picture from the general election; then go on to explain...
Reading the General Election 2024
Pasan Jayasinghe and Amali Wedagedara
The National People’s Power (NPP) has made history. With its unprecedented, record-breaking electoral victory at the...
Can the National People’s Power Consolidate its Presidential Victory in the Parliamentary Election?
Pradeep Peiris
The forthcoming parliamentary election on November 14 has attracted significant attention and raised several pertinent...
Current Issue
Out Now! Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025), LKR800 from the Social Scientists’ Association and LKR1000 from Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa bookshops.
170 pages of analysis, commentary and perspective: the implosion of liberal internationalism; aspirations for, and appraisal of, the NPP government; the long march of the JVP from subversive to sovereign; feminist statements demanding action against misogyny and male violence; the May 2025 local government election and axes of polarisation; US and Lankan narratives on culling USAID; the thriving and prosperous national security state, and its gaze on queers; Richard de Zoysa’s short life, long death, and literary legacy; Asoka Handagama’s Rani and memory against forgetting in struggles against enforced disappearances; avatars of privatisation in higher education; continuities and concerns in AKD’s first budget; anatomization of an economy in permanent crisis; retrieving the political economy of SBD de Silva; an IMF poster-child in the crosshairs of Trump’s tariffs and the Washington Consensus; combating corruption in market mode; caricaturing gay representation in mainstream media; celebrating Bapsi Sidhwa’s itinerary and oeuvre; Indian and Pakistani women speak out against war and hate; the performance of Tamil nationhood in and after war; international law facts and fictions in Filastin; and Iranian voices against Israeli-US warmongering and state repression. Front cover art by Minal Naomi Wickrematunge.
Calls
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.