War has long-lasting consequences for the livelihoods and well-being of people caught up in conflict in ways that are often ignored by policymakers keen to ‘move-on’ post-conflict and get back to development. The particularities of how people are affected by violence and war crimes; and how the physical and mental impacts of violence are themselves mediated through gender, identity, class and other types of social and economic difference will be the subject of this panel.

Chair: Mr Paul Harvey, SLRC CEO and Partner, Humanitarian Outcomes

This panel is part of a recovering from conflict conference sub-stream convened by The Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). SLRC is a six-year global research programme exploring livelihoods, basic services and social protection in conflict-affected situations. Funded by UK Aid from the UK government (DFID), Irish Aid and the European Commission (EC), SLRC was established in 2011 with the aim of strengthening the evidence base and informing policy and practice around livelihoods and services in conflict. SLRC’s research focuses on eight conflict-affected countries: Afghanistan; Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); Nepal; Pakistan; South Sudan; Sri Lanka; Uganda; and Sierra Leone. The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) is a partner institution and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is the lead institution. www.securelivelihoods.org

Abstracts:

On the impact of war crimes on recovery in Uganda

Ms Rachel Gordon, SLRC Uganda and Tufts-FIC

Exclusion and discrimination in Sri Lanka’s tourism and sanitation sectors

Dr Vagisha Gunasekara, SLRC Sri Lanka and American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies

Through two studies - post-war tourism development in the Eastern seaboard of Sri Lanka and institutionalization of lower caste ‘parayars’ into sanitation work, this presentation will examine extent to which political, economic, social and cultural factors, their changes and continuities from war time to the post-war period, and relations with state and non-state actors, complicate glib pronouncements linking economic prosperity to peace and cementing of caste hierarchies in the socio-political landscape of post-war Sri Lanka.

Based on qualitative information gathered from three communities in Passikudah and the capital Colombo, one paper suggests that the Sri Lankan state’s tourism promotion has been characterized by patronage politics, little consultation with communities and local government actors, as well as a lack of transparency. While some individuals have been able to leverage the opportunities brought about by the tourism industry, the benefits from Passikudah’s ‘resort economy’ have in many ways evaded much of the local population, creating an ‘enclave industry’ (Britton 1982), characterized by low levels of local employment and locally sourced products, that pushes people into precarious subsistence and informal-level work. While development interventions by non-state actors advocate “independent” “entrepreneurship” to poor segments of the war-affected population, and subsequently praise those who are able to sustain themselves through self-employment, the flipside is that these people continue to remain outside the circuit of formal capital or the ‘accumulation economy’ (Sanyal 2007: 234). Additionally, the presence of tourism has exacerbated gender and ethnic relations, creating a gap between people’s own perceptions and experiences of tourism and the state’s expected outcomes. Thus, this paper argues that the promise of tourism as one response to the challenges of post-war development has not yet been realized. 

The second paper examines the institutionalizing of the parayars into the ‘modern’ British and Sri Lankan state has significant implications for the identity of the sanitation workers. The sanitation workforce is made up of a distinct social and political identity that is in constant interaction with broader society. And the relationship between the two sets is based on a historical socio-cultural contract. The paper argues that on entering the government service the nature of that contract has shifted but fundamentally continues to harbour discriminatory caste sentiment towards the parayars. This research is based on a qualitative study in Jaffna.

References:

Britton, S.G. (1982) ‘The political economy of tourism in the third world’, Annals of Tourism Research 9: 331–58.

Sanyal, K. (2007) Rethinking capitalist development: Primitive accumulation, governmentality and post-colonial capitalism. New Delhi: Routledge.

On displacement

Ms Georgina Sturge, SLRC-ODI

Legacies of conflict in FATA

Dr Abid Suleri/Dr Babar Shahbaz

Mr. Sakandar Ali, Representative for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Department for International Development Pakistan