Up Country Tamils: Charting a New Future in Sri Lanka have lived in and worked for generations. In doing so, Up-country Tamils assert their firm foundation in Sri Lanka, although their fellow Sri Lankans may not necessarily share these sentiments. Up-country Tamils have regularly asserted their identity as Sri Lankan citizens, yet often they are made to feel that Sri Lanka is neither their home nor their homeland even after the end of the war. Examining the Past and Present: Charting the Future In addressing issues of belonging, citizenship and identity, this volume also focuses on the political economy of the plantation system in the era of globalisation. The privatisation of the plantations in 1993 initially brought significant capital investment after years of stagnation, neglect, and mismanagement under government ownership. Tea is no longer Sri Lanka’s main foreign exchange earner, having fallen behind garment exports and remittances from workers abroad. Twenty-six years after privatisation, Sri Lankan tea plantations are at a crossroads, as they encounter a changing global market and deteriorating local infrastructure. Many plantations have found new economic opportunities in tourism, specialty marketing, or planting other crops. While all stakeholders agree that the present plantation system is not economically sustainable in its current form, no consensus has emerged about what changes need to be introduced, especially in order to retain the resident workforce increasingly reluctant to work on the plantations under the existing terms and conditions. While tea plantation workers are paid more than what was paid to previous generations – their base Rs700 daily wage (as of xvi