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…
Ukraine: A People’s Peace, not an Imperial Peace
Bewegung für den Sozialismus/Mouvement pour le Socialisme (Switzerland), solidaritéS (Switzerland), Sotsialnyi Rukh (Ukraine), Posle Media Collective (Russia), emanzipation – Zeitschrift für ökosozialistische Strategie (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Editors’ Note: The declaration below was presented on June 4 by the above organisations for international endorsement...
‘A Collective Voice must be raised for Plantation Workers’
Ceylon Workers Red Flag Union
“This Tribunal is horrified and shocked by the stark realities of the lives of tea and rubber plantation workers. It...
Authoritarian Populism in the Global South
Alf Gunvald Nilsen
During the 2010s, many states across the global South turned decisively to the right. Foreshadowed by the rise of...
Performance in a Time of Terror: A Conversation with Dr Ranjini Obeyesekere
Kanchuka Dharmasiri
In 2021, Dr Ranjini Obeyesekere published her English translation of five Sinhala plays from the 1980s and 1990s...
Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala, and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas. Edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, and Shash Trevett. Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books Ltd. 2023. 424p.
Gnei Soraya Zarook
Out of Sri Lanka, the “first true anthology of Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry,” is a wonderfully complex...
A Hierarchy of Grief and the Politics of Mourning: Reflecting on Sri Lanka in the shadow of Palestine
Tania Perera
On 18 May, Sri Lanka marked the 15th anniversary of the end of war. In 2009, many Sinhala people in the South took 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.