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.
Nationality, Complex Identities, and Multiple Belongings
Rohini Hensman
As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pravada/Polity, it is a pleasure to have been associated with it, as a regular...
‘A Letter from the Village’
Udan Fernando
I was recently, and abruptly, reminded of a conversation that a junior researcher at a research institute I previously...
The Office on Missing Persons post-2020: Who and What is it for?
Chulani Kodikara
Demonstration held in front of the National War Heroes' Monument by the National Collective of War Heroes...
Polity turns 30!
30 years ago, the Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) of Sri Lanka began publishing in print an English-language...
Debating the Transition from a Closed to an Open Economy
Devaka Gunawardena
The year of 1977 has become a highly charged symbol for understanding the current crisis. After the transition from a...
‘Executive Authoritarianism’ as Sri Lanka’s New Political Normal since COVID-19*
Jayadeva Uyangoda
The ways in which countries from the global North to the global South have politically managed the unprecedented...
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.