(Commissioned and originally published by GenderIT.org in December 2017.) How the stories of movements for queer liberation are told is a historically complicated thing. What and who constitute the gay rights movement is a perennial question to which we know now clearly that there is no one answer. There is no homogeneous ‘LGBT’ community in… Read More Where have all the queer women gone?: An Editorial for GenderIT
This is the transcript for the short talk I delivered at the event South Asian Feminisms: A MEMORIAL FOR LALA RUKH, hosted by A Collective for Feminist Conversations and Women and Media Collective, in Colombo on 23 August 2017. The bulk of it includes an excerpt from an essay titled Forging a New Political Imaginary:… Read More South Asian Feminisms: A Memorial for Lala Rukh, 23 August 2017 (Transcript)
We have been hearing a lot about ‘free speech’ recently – and not in the way that we in Sri Lanka are typically used to; not as a call to defend journalists and activists against persecution. For example: the highly divisive Milo Yiannopoulos’ speaking appointment at the University of Berkeley was cancelled in January after… Read More We need to talk about ‘Free Speech’
For awhile now, I’ve been thinking about intersectionality and what it would mean for feminists and other activists in a Sri Lankan context at this moment. For young women activists and queer-rights activists in Sri Lanka, like myself, the temptation is strong to follow young, American liberational discourses. on social justice. We ‘stood with Standing Rock’.… Read More A True Sri Lankan Intersectionality: LGBTIQ equality, MMDA reform and more
(Written originally for and published in ShishtaLanka – DecentLanka – February 2017, in translation in Sinhala) What is the role, and what is the status, of women in Sri Lanka today? Where do we stand? These are the primary questions I asked of myself when I began writing this essay. It seemed a good moment,… Read More The ‘Women’s Question’ in Sri Lanka: A Reflection in 2017
“Sri Lankan mothers from the “Dead and Missing Person’s Parents” organisation hold photographs as they takes part in a protest in Jaffna, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Colombo. Photo: AFP” (International Commission on Missing Persons) Note: This piece was commissioned for and originally published in Options Magazine, 51 edition, in Sri Lanka,… Read More The Women Are Still Here: The Mothers and Wives of Sri Lanka’s Disappeared and the Trope of Reconciliation
Feminism is the only real way to challenge sexism; when we reject feminism, we play right into its hands. You would be surprised at the amount of messages I get from women (writing to say they so agree with something I have written) which begin with ‘I am not a feminist, but…’. There are some… Read More It’s Really Time We Stopped Rejecting Feminism
Below are some notes and observations about how, why and when we choose to speak and what we choose to say on social media – but also in general. This is about how we respond to injustice, and how we respond to those who respond to injustice – and while specifically about recent events,… Read More Holding Space and Speaking: Why, When, How We Say the Things We Say About Injustice
This post has been a long time coming. It has taken many shapes and been many versions of itself. Now I am back home in Sri Lanka, where all the nuances of our lives in this place and belonging to this place somehow pull and tug simultaneously, I think it’s time to say it… Read More Ethical Divides: ‘This Divided Island’ and ‘The Seasons of Trouble’
(A Jungle Healing was originally written for and published in the UK magazine So It Goes, in April 2015. It was a collaboration with Cassie Machado, a British-Sri Lankan artist, whose images the original article was printed with, when they appeared in the magazine. The title, A Jungle Healing, was taken from R Cheran’s poem,… Read More A Jungle Healing
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