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…
South Asia in the New Global Debt Crisis – A Call for Collective Solutions
Amali Wedagedara
Debt payments of developing countries exceed their national revenue. According to a new report, Resolving The Worst...
Child Marriages in Muslim Families in Batticaloa and Ampara Hasanah Cegu, Ermiza Tegal, and Nadia Ismail
Child marriages occur in all communities in Sri Lanka, and teenage pregnancies are a concern nationwide. Unlike the...
Mary and Manju Emmanuel, Sarala (Director). 2021-2024. 19 mins and 24 mins respectively Pasan Jayasinghe
Pasan Jayasinghe
Contemporary social conversations about trans people often do not actually involve trans people. Instead, they are...
Sri Lanka’s Pre-Presidential Election Politics: Uncertainty or Turmoil?
Jayadeva Uyangoda
The coming few months have the potential to produce major political changes in Sri Lanka. The presidential election is...
Anatomy of a Protest and Aragalaya Cinema
Hiranyada Dewasiri
The 2022 people’s uprising and occupation movement in Sri Lanka, widely known as the Aragalaya, was heavily documented...
The conjuncture in the crisis
B. Skanthakumar
“Aaranchiya Subhai!” (‘Await Good News’) read posters plastered across the country recently. It was the build-up to...
Current Issue
120 pages of analysis and perspective including: Sri Lanka’s elections, politics, and parties; ‘settler tourism’ in the wake of the Gaza genocide; the spaces of the Aragalaya; child marriages and their miseries in the East; gendering climate-adaptation projects in agriculture; the ‘hidden politics’ of critical agrarian studies; Europe’s far right and its battery of women’s rights; Martin Wickramasinghe and the Sinhala short story; trans-gendered lives amidst war, violence, and displacement; South Asia’s debt crisis is missing collective action; India’s general election; race, class and multiculturalism in Hanif Kureishi’s work; and some favourite books in 2024.
Vol. 12, Issue 2 (December 2024) is now available for LKR 500, from the Social Scientists’ Association and Barefoot bookshop, Colombo 3.
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Archive
Pravada (1991-2002) and Polity (2003-) back issues available here.
Social Scientists’ Association
The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) is an organization working to investigate the way in which social change is contouring the multiple realities faced by communities in Sri Lanka and South Asia. The SSA is deeply committed to promoting a culture of knowledge production that informs and undergirds interventions aimed at achieving social emancipation for marginalized communities.