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.
Resisting the Nationalist Right’s Framing of the Economic Alternative
Devaka Gunawardena
Given the design of the Budget for 2023, it is unlikely that Sri Lanka’s working people will see relief anytime soon....
“The Disaster (Before and) After the Disaster”: Writing the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
Gnei Soraya Zarook
The Indian Ocean tsunami that was triggered on December 26, 2004[i], killed approximately 35,000 people in Sri Lanka,...
Unpaid Care Work is Work
Sepali Kottegoda
Caring for household members. Well-being of the family. Putting food on the table. Washing clothes. Making ends meet....
‘Living for the Day’: Informality, gender, and precarious work in the Sri Lankan apparel industry
Shyamain Wickramasingha
Informality is highly prevalent in the Sri Lankan apparel industry in the Katunayake export processing zone where...
Policing the Patriline: Reading the Current Economic and Political Crisis through the Plantation
Mythri Jegathesan
In late December 2021, the Ministry of Plantation Industries announced that it had signed a Memorandum of...
No Magic Bullets on Women’s Waged Labour
Chulani Kodikara
As part of Sri Lanka’s economic bailout, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is telling us that we should increase...
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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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.