Changing Patterns of Anthropology and Sociology Practices in Sri Lanka in the Context of Debates on Northern and Southern Theory

Abstract

Former British colony Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) developed the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya as a model for the region. Its academic staff in the Social Sciences had their intellectual roots in the British or US traditions of scholarship due to their postgraduate training and research in these countries. Up to the early 1970s, there was a thriving academic atmosphere along with knowledge production and dissemination activities but this started to deteriorate with the socio-economic and political changes, changes in the language of instruction and the composition of the student body. A brain drain contributed to the creation of a different practitioner community of Anthropologists and Sociologists in the universities whose focus was more inward looking. Its links to Western traditions of scholarship also became weaker. Being a participant in this process from early 1970s up to the mid 1980s, the author uses his reflections and experiences to recount the changing nature of Anthropology and Sociology practice, theoretical emphasis, players involved, and the role of two research centres established outside the university system. The paper looks at the views of three Sri Lankan Anthropologists and Sociologists who have expressed concerns about the changing nature of teaching practices and constructed reality in Sri Lankan universities. The author connects these with the ongoing debate about Northern vs. Southern theory and prospects of alternative knowledge production articulated by Raewyn Connell.