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.
Selvi: Loss, Dissent, and Hope
Sivamohan Sumathy
What can I write about a PEN awardee, a prisoner of conscience, a feminist, human rights activist, co-actor, and...
SL Govt – Stop Labeling Student Protestors and Activists as Terrorists!
We are a group of feminists writing to call urgent attention to the extra-constitutional attempts of the Government of...
‘Aragalaya’: Situation Nominal, Tense Future
Vajra Chandrasekera
There is a tendency to shrink and reify that which is too big, too complex, and too diverse to otherwise easily talk...
The Postcolonial Handbook of Violent Repression: Constructing Citizens as Enemies, Fascists, Extremists, Drug Addicts, Terrorists, etc., etc.
Chulani Kodikara
On 20 May 2022, in an interview with Sky News, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was asked whether it was safe for...
“Illegitimate Government, Immediately Halt Repression!” FUTA Statement on the Current Situation
As a professional trade union which has historically stood for social justice in Sri Lanka, FUTA is appalled by the...
“We condemn the violent assault on peaceful protestors”
Academics Abroad
We, the undersigned academics who work on Sri Lanka and South Asia more broadly, fully condemn the violent assault on...
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.