Introduction
Colombo for decades, and urban migration has been increasing
in recent years. Beginning in the 1970s, many Up-country
Tamils moved to the North and East, searching for safety and
community in Tamil-majority areas. Up-country Tamils outside
of the Up-country have conflicted senses of home and belonging,
which affects their political activities, as Anton Piyarathne and
Periyasamy Muthulingam explore in this section.
Conclusion
This book does not claim to encompass the breadth of
issues that concern many Up-country Tamils, nor the full
range of perspectives on how to interpret and respond to them.
Nevertheless, it marks a departure in the not insubstantial
literature on the community. There is within it a conscious
loosening of the identification of Up-country Tamils with Sri
Lanka’s foremost agricultural export crop and with the plantation
as a unit of production. The increased mobility of the community
and their dispersal as well as settlement outside of plantation
districts has de-homogenised them. This is welcome and overdue.
Also, members of the community are themselves represented
among the authors. No longer is it tenable for Up-country Tamils
to be written about without also including their own activists,
practitioners, and scholars. Forthcoming research on the UpCountry Tamils of Sri Lanka must move beyond traditional
narratives and train a more dynamic and nuanced lens to chart
the future of their journey on this island.
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