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.
Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: Impunity, violence, and the politics of representation – The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Shehan Karunatilaka. Gurugram, Harayana: Penguin Books, 2022
Reviewed by Harshana Rambukwella
A murdered journalist “awakens” in a ghostly world to witness his dead body being pulled out of a polluted Colombo...
A Hierarchy of Grief and the Politics of Mourning: Reflecting on Sri Lanka in the shadow of Palestine
Tania Perera
On 18 May, Sri Lanka marked the 15th anniversary of the end of war. In 2009, many Sinhala people in the South took to...
Where does peace rest?
Natasha Ranawake
For the People of Palestine In the quiet rush of light that stands still, in a pool of faith and hope, where...
#GoHomeGota: The Story Behind Sri Lanka’s Hashtagged Protest Movement. Sulochana Peiris. 2023. 51 minutes
Oliver Walton, Deborah Johnson, and Jonathan Goodhand
#GoHomeGota is a documentary by Colombo-based freelance filmmaker and writer Sulochana Peiris that explores Sri...
Resisting Genocide in Gaza: Is a New Political Imaginary Possible?
Devaka Gunawardena
Watching the protests opposing genocide in Gaza on college campuses across the US, and which are now spreading like...
Am I A Settler Too? Reflections of a Sinhalese from Sri Lanka after Gaza
Nalin Jayathunga
Mapping temporal and spatial lines between the past and the present, this reflection draws parallels between the...
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.
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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.