Livelihood Anxieties of Communities in Mannar,Sri Lanka

Abstract

The laws in Sri Lanka mandate the allocation of state resources, including access to land, business, educational and employment opportunities on the basis of the population ratio of different communities in the country’s districts. Minority communities located in the north are therefore seized with a demographic anxiety over their access to and control of land and resources. These anxieties have been further sharpened in the process of return and rehabilitation of communities displaced by the civil war and known officially as internally displaced persons (IDP). The article explores how these anxieties have played out with Muslim and Tamil Christian communities in Mannar district located in the north west of Sri Lanka in the nation’s Northern Province. The article is based on a a case study of the dispute between the Uppukulam and the Joseph Vaz Nagar fishermen over the use of a fishing pier. It also examines the role of the state, the courts and the church in locking these communities in competition over access to a source of livelihood.