Emergence Available to Purchase

Chapter 1 provides more context for Sri Lanka’s fraught postindependence politics with a particular focus on the east of Sri Lanka, where much of the author’s fieldwork was conducted. Using “disaster” as a lens, the chapter traces the emergence of legacies of state governance leading up to the Sri Lankan government’s disaster management practices after the tsunami. It highlights a new dimension of national governance and state power through disaster nationalism while also building on a longer history of institutionalized exclusion and Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian politics and nationalism. By drawing a longer history of political “disaster” in Sri Lanka, this chapter highlights the recursiveness of violent nationalist politics in Sri Lanka, illustrating the difficulties in locating the beginning or end of disaster.