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.
Chemmani: Where the Soil Speaks, Where Memory Refuses Silence
Sakuna M. Gamage
The wind returns to the streetteeming with life and death. It hesitates a littleas it crosses the bridge. This wind...
Stirring the Hornet’s Nest: The NPP’s Education Reforms
Niyanthini Kadirgamar
Estate primary school in disused century-old tea plantation factory building Education occupies a special place in the...
Magic Maids: Sweeping Up a Storm at the Sorbonne
Nadeera Rajapakse
After performing in several theatres across Paris, Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera bewitched the spectators, students,...
‘When the Devil Drums, We Dance’: Sex Work and Sexual Violence in Wartime Sri Lanka
Radhika Hettiarachchi
In the context of Sri Lanka’s civil war, transactional sex work was a particularly dangerous survival strategy for...
Mountain at a Center of the World: Pilgrimage and Pluralism in Sri Lanka. Alexander McKinley. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024.
Anushka Kahandagamage
Between the lines of this book, the Siripāda mountain emerges not merely as a place, but as a living, breathing...
Editorial: There is great disorder under heaven
Editors
The post-1990 world order—an ensemble of norms, rules, and institutions, informed by economic and political...
Current Issue
Out Now! Vol. 13 No. 2 (July – December 2025). 148 pages. #SriLanka. Politics. Cyclone Ditwah. Ecology. Feminism. Education. Justice. Domestic Violence Act. History. Culture. Work. Labour. Books. Cover Picture Sakuna M. Gamage. LKR1000 from the Social Scientists’ Association or Barefoot or SLBOOKS.lk.
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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.