Polity aims to advance democratic consciousness, gender equity, 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.
Conversion and Tradition: The Religious Public in Millennial Sri Lanka
Geethika Dharmasinghe
A proletarian ethic parallel to the bourgeois ethics of Protestant Buddhism has not developed in the city’s working...
A Tale of Two Islands
Anne M. Blackburn
As long as I have studied Buddhism and Southern Asia, Gananath Obeyesekere has been a guide and interlocutor, always...
Gananath’s Tryst with Lawyers
Radhika Coomaraswamy
After the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) was set up in 1982, it gradually became a dynamic centre for...
An Accidental Education with Gananath Obeyesekere
Mark P. Whitaker
I must begin with an embarrassing admission. Although Gananath Obeyesekere became my PhD thesis supervisor in...
Twenty Years of the PDVA: How has it worked for Women?
Chulani Kodikara
October 2025 marked 20 years since the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA) was unanimously passed by...
Gananath: Two Stories and A Review
Victor C. de Munck
I was an undergraduate, and later a graduate, student of Gananath.[1] I have two stories I would like to recount. The...
Current Issue
Vol. 14 No. 1 (January – June 2026). 134 pages. Gananath Obeyesekere Memorial. NPP and Neutrality. Iran Solidarity. Justice for Easter Sunday. Chemmani. Cyclone Ditwah. Flood Relief. Microfinance Bill. Peasant Politics. Lunar Calendar. Partitions. Women’s Health. Malaiyaha History. Diasporic memory. Mannar’s ecology. Aloysius Peiris SJ. Cover image Ranjini Obeyesekere. LKR1000 from the Social Scientists’ Association or Barefoot or SLBOOKS.lk.
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.
