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- Title
Vulnerable Bodies Precarious Lives: Women Voices from the Sri Lankan Civil War.
- Authors
CHADHA, SIMRAN
- Abstract
In this article I begin by addressing stereotypes associated with the bodies of women in traditional south Asian societies. My focus is Sri Lanka and chronologically the civil war therein. While traditional societies such as the Sri Lankan have deified the reproductive body of the woman, extolling it in religion and celebrating it's sensuousness in poetry, these strictures changed drastically with the formation of the Illavar -- the women's brigade of the LTTE. The need of the hour was to enlist women-fighters for the cause of the imaginary homeland of Tamil Eelam. This move had to be successful not just through the arduous physical training undertaken by young women training to be cadres but sociologically there had to be acceptance for women forfeiting their roles as sacrificing wives and mothers. This societal acceptance is accomplished through discourse wherein reverence for the self-sacrificial role bestowed on women in traditional societies is now transferred to their duty as suicide bombers offering the ultimate sacrifice of their body as martyrdom performed for the cause of the imaginary motherland. I compare this with the poetry of women writing the self during wartime and show the aesthetic as the space where women could truly exercise autonomy, choice and resistance.
- Subjects
SRI Lanka Civil War, 1983-2009; STEREOTYPES; TAMILILA Vitutalaippulikal (Organization); SOCIAL acceptance; SUICIDE bombers; WOMEN
- Publication
Creative Forum, 2022, Vol 35, Issue 1/2, p7
- ISSN
0975-6396
- Publication type
Article