The Victorian-Era Imagination in Relation to Public Health and Well-Being Among Tamil

Robin Oakley

ABSTRACT: The constitution, the law of the land of the modern state, is fertile ground for the Eurocentric imagination of the Canadian polity as a result of the resiliency of Victorian-era sentiments. The ethno-racial hierarchy contained within this political imagery merges well with the public health mandate process of ‘othering’. Othering situates the causes of disease and illness in foreign bodies rather than in the social structures of industrial capitalism. Chief among its morbid symptoms, othering pro- duces a sense of alienation in those subjected to it. Sri Lankan are one of the newer migrant populations who have been subjected to, and have resisted this intrinsically violent othering process. This article examines the Canadian constitution as it relates to ethno-racial classification, and then explores how this scheme is repro- duced in common experiences of the public health system and its effects on the health and well-being of Canadian Tamils.

KEYWORDS: public health, policy, structural violence, ethnicity, Tamils, morality

Introduction as embedded in social life and cultural val- ues. Ill health, on the other hand, is closely This analysis examines the alienating forces related to a variety of environmental condi- intrinsic in an advanced industrial capitalist tions, forms of structural violence (Galtung context on Tamil migrants from , 1969) such as poverty, unemployment, and how the discursive process of legal eth- homelessness, poor education (Olsen 1998: nocentrism affects the Tamil’s sense of health 194), and as I will argue, part and parcel of and well-being. Beginning with an examina- the migration process to a settler state domi- tion of the basic content of the constitutional nated by a set of moralities and phenotypes imagination that provides rich fodder for the popularly referred to as Anglo ‘whiteness’ preservation of othering practices of the Ca- (cf. Williams 1995; Mackey 1997; Molina nadian state (cf. Macklem 1993), I next exam- 2005). In this article, policy is viewed as a ine several key loci of health and well-being. potentially liberating force (Quadagno 1998: Toward the end of the analysis, I point to 250) that must be sensitive to the interrela- some of the ways that Tamils, the majority tionships among gender, ethnicity and class of whom have been torn from the peasant and their relationship to histories of migra- economies of northern Sri Lanka, have ac- tion, colonialism, imperialism and related tively resisted these experiences. In this arti- processes of exclusion and inclusion (Olsen cle, health is understood to include all and O’Connor 1998; Williams 1995). In order aspects of a sense of physical and mental for policy to be a potentially ‘liberating’ force, well-being, including the feeling of being at moreover, it must be formed in consultation home (Baer et al. 2004; Napolitano 2002), and with the people who constitute the polity.

Anthropology in Action, 14, 1 & 2 (2007): 12–27 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action doi:10.3167/aia.2007.14010203 Victorian Era and Public Health in Canada AiA

Tamil Canadians and 172) and are aware that many of the latter tend to look down upon them (Tambiah 1986: 67). This article refers primarily to the experi- Ironically, if you were a Tamil Jaffna was ences of Tamils from the peasantries1 of the the safest place to be in Sri Lanka during the north and northeast of Sri Lanka, numbering ‘horrendous riots’ (Tambiah 1986: 1) of 1983, some 200,000 in Canada alone, and to a much and the Up-Country perhaps the least secure. lesser extent, the proletarianised Up-Country Urban centers such as Colombo were unsafe, Tamils, the latter of whom are much less and indeed parts of Batticaola and Trinco- prevalent in Canada. In Jaffna and Tamil mallee have much barren land where Tamil Nadu, the former community is ordered by villages, homes and other infrastructure have a dominance of the vellalan upper caste and been removed along with their occupants. a minority of the lower (dhalit) castes. Alter- Many Tamils trickled slowly away from the nately, the Liberation Tamil Tigers of , Up-Country or the North and Northeast to the main separatist force in the north, con- Colombo, , or abroad in the years that sists mainly of low non-vellalan castes and followed; some towns that were inhabited mainly the Karaya¯r (Daniel 1996: 163) as well almost exclusively by Up-Country Tamils as a significant Christian segment (Hell- have been replaced by Muslim Tamils or Sin- mann-Rajanayagam 2005). A salient feature halese (Daniel 1996). Along with this migra- of the Up-Country Tamil population con- tion has been an increase, for example, in the trasting sharply with that of both the Jaffna incidence of Buddhist shrines throughout the Tamil and those in Tamil Nadu, India, is that Up-Country; a region that had previously the highland plantation economy consists of been dominated by the Hindu shrines of the a majority of low-caste Tamils, and a minor- Tamil workers (Daniel 1996). This was ac- ity of upper castes, the latter mainly land companied by an increase in Sinhalese work- owners/merchant Mottai Vellalan caste ers on the plantations (Hollup 1994; Daniel (Hollup 1994: 220; cf. Bass 2004: 54). Al- 1996; Bass 2004: 243). It is, thus, possible that though there are areas of social life that have the migration experience may be different become ‘caste free’, caste still determines for the Up-Country Tamil people because modes of social interaction (Hollup 1994: of their more recent historical experience of 219). Furthermore, by virtue of their colonial migration from India (Jain 1970, 1993; Swan mobility, the Up-Country Tamils historically 1984; Erasmus 2001; Munasinghe 2001; Fee experienced the pressures of migration much 2002; Satyanarayana 2002; Moxham 2003), as longer than have the Jaffna Tamils, who have well as the prevalence of a significant work- 2 only been disrupted relatively recently. Dif- ing-class experience and leftist movement in ferences in spicing of foods (Daniel 1996: Sri Lanka (Nadesan 1993: 108; Hollup 1994; 165–166), cooking, dialect, brand loyalty, reli- Peebles 2001: 190), which could facilitate in- gious practices, as well as the Up-Country tegration into an advanced capitalist context, Tamils strong working-class consciousness whereas the Jaffna population was migrating as seen through the trade-union movement out of a peasant economy (cf. Oakley 2005). (Nadesan 1993; Peebles 2001: 190) are some Nevertheless, it can be said in general that the of the significant differences between Up- Tamil population in Canada has fled from Country and Jaffna Tamils. Some Up-Coun- considerable trauma, violence and social suf- try Tamils have felt antipathy for (Jayaraman fering in their homeland. 1975: 201), or a sense of betrayal toward Jaf- Since 1983 more than seventy-five percent fna Tamils (Bass 2004: 88–89; Daniel 1996: 18 of Sri Lanka’s pre-war Tamil population

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have left Sri Lanka. Major recipient countries and or cut of benefits to workers), Labour include Canada, Norway and Germany, Acts (increased work weeks), and the crimi- where many e´migre´s participate in various nalisation of dissent (arrests at protests and forms of long-distance nationalism (Fu- surveillance), sky-rocketing post-secondary glerud 1999). Experiences in host countries tuition rates, school and hospital closures varied dramatically. While Norway made a and the entrenchment of a two-tier health concerted effort to make the Tamils ‘feel at system, have been some of the macro changes home’ (Grønseth 2003), in Canada’s 1980s that were set in motion in Canada in the early liberal-based welfare state (O’Connor 1998: 1990s. With these deployments, the Cana- 159–60; Olsen 1998) Tamil refugees and im- dian state, which like the US, adopted wel- migrants were awkwardly shuffled through fare provisions much later than other the welfare apparatus and initially deposited advanced capitalist countries, has rapidly in various urban cores consisting of a number moved from being a liberal welfare state with of densely populated, run-down, high- and a relatively narrow scope (O’Connor 1998: low-rise apartment buildings where previ- 160) to a liberal state, period. Legislation ous generations of immigrants and refugees since 9/11 has heightened the intensity of from other countries had been deposited. these processes for those who are the recipi- Some of the original families continue to live ents of the deeply racialized war on terror, in the same apartments they received back creating a fertile ground for ‘cultural racism’, in the eighties, whereas the majority who ‘...rooted in a dislike towards the “other”, arrived in the 1980s have successfully en- not only because of who they are (‘biology’), tered the middle class (cf. Sarhadi-Raj 2003) but also because of what they do (‘culture’)’ and migrated to the suburbs; others exist in (Fleras and Lock Kunz 2001: 34). a state of oscillating migration never effec- Like Australia (cf. Bashford 2004), the An- tively putting down roots. glo-Canadian settler state relied on the imag- eries of ‘whiteness’ in its nation-building project (cf. Anderson 1991).3 Difference, as The Victorian Era Constitution had/has also been the basis of treatment by Anglo-Canadian society toward aboriginal peoples, ‘...isasserted and devalued in or- It is always intriguing to learn—as I have der to legitimate the assertion of Canadian each year while teaching various undergrad- sovereignty’ (Macklem 1993: 14). This ideol- uate courses—that so few Canadian students ogy is reinforced by the fact that Canada does realize that Canada does not have a modern not have a modern, but rather, a Victorian- constitution. The hegemonic discourse of the era constitution. Although there are numer- existence of a liberal democratic structure, ous subsequent amendments, there is no with its stress on individual development in fundamental political definition of the re- education systems (Amit and Rapport 2002) sponsibilities and inalienable rights of the in Western industrial and post-industrial polity, even in the most recent amendments. contexts, is one that clashes rather violently Indeed there is no clear notion of the Cana- with reality, particularly over the past two dian people as a ‘polity’. The constitution decades. With homelessness being recog- blasts the hegemonic rhetoric of an equal nised as a national disaster, sweeping playing field and equality before the law and changes to the federal elections act (altered so on by clearly indicating that there are four to prevent citizen politicization), the Em- basic groups in Canada: two founding nations, ployment Insurance Act (altered to reduce aboriginal peoples, immigrants and visible minor-

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ities (cf. Mackey 1997: 138). This classification strong anti-immigrant and anti-minority scheme subsumes both racial, ethnic and na- sentiment (Mackey 1997: 160). These senti- tionalist criteria and is therefore easily ments, legitimated by the ethno-racial consti- molded to fit the changing needs of the state, tutional categories and rooted in a liberal although one master narrative seems to run capitalist economy, constitute the ‘iceberg of through the scheme: white Anglophone Ca- power below the surface’ (Korpi 1998: viii), nadians often consider themselves simply which plays a large role in the distributive ‘Canadians’, whereas other groups are mea- processes in society and affects human health sured against this norm (Mackey 1997: 138– in a very direct way. 9). Canadians, are not, as popular media and politicians often assert, on Rousseau’s level playing field of civil society (cf. O’Connor Othering 1998: 212). Indeed policy is embrocated with the white Anglo-settler imagination of a Ca- nadian ‘demographic’ rather than a Cana- This kind of sentiment, effectively rooted in dian polity and this can be evidenced in the the Victorian-era constitution provides fertile first instance in the racialised immigration fodder for the public-health apparatus. The policy of the past century. In the 1940s and pre-eminent feature of the modern institu- 1950s, for example, at the same time that the tion of public health is that it imposes its state was restricting the inflow of domestic morality on immigrant bodies and communi- workers from the Caribbean on the basis that ties through demarcating and valuing the they were ‘sexually promiscuous’ (Calliste borders and boundaries between ‘us’ and 1989), Dutch from war-ravaged Netherlands ‘them’ (Bashford 2004; Donnan and Wilson were given free entry on the assumption that 2000; Molina 2005; Wailoo 2001). Paralleling as ‘white Christians’, they would easily as- the rise and expansion of industrial capital- similate into the white Christian settler-dom- ism, public health is both demographically inant Canadian society. This of course did and ideologically significant to the modern not happen, and in fact the peasant-based state in the ways that it divides populations Dutch faced grave racism and xenophobia into manageable units. With its power to from their host country, not to mention hard- quarantine individuals and whole communi- ship experienced through the contradictions ties viewed by the state as health threats, between the proletarianised social structure and armed with a mandate to impose foreign of Canada and the Dutch family-peasant so- morality upon people’s spirits and bodies (cf. cial norms (Oakley 2005). Furthermore, Foucault 1990; Seidel and Vidal 1997; Irschick Mackey has poignantly analysed these pro- 2003; Bashford 2004). This takes on a very cesses in more recent events in Canada dur- peculiar manifestation in settler-states such ing the Canada 125 festivities in 1992. In as Canada and Australia, where the othering addition to equating ‘the people’ with the practices of the state have resiliently focused traditions such as pumpkin festivals and on the concept of ‘whiteness’, consisting of raise-the-flag-day, these privatized events a naturalised link to European stock (cf. also attempted to entrench the political clout Grewal 2003; Linder 2004). This is repro- of white-Anglo people who were encouraged duced in spite of the historical demographic to embrace a contrived morality based on need for an inflow of immigrants in these anti-government sentiment, opposition to countries (cf. Bashford 2004). ‘Whiteness’ is taxes, the concept of ‘citizen’ replaced by a social category cross-cutting religious dif- ‘taxpayer’, belief in individual rights, and ferences. Consider, for example, the Irish, the

15 AiA Robin Oakley

original niggers during the nine long centu- ence’ (cf. Crewdson 2003; Nanda 1998)5 ‘west ries of British domination (Magubane 1995: Nile Virus’, ‘SARS’, ‘TB’ and ‘HIV/AIDS’ 130) and in North America during the early (Siedel and Vidal 1998; Nguyen and Pesch- part of the 20th century, who were not con- ard 2003). These illnesses all vie for natural- sidered suitable immigrants (Shanklin 1994). ization as ‘brought in’ by new immigrants Remarkable as it would seem to anyone who and the possibility of quarantine between witnessed the period when the Irish were provincial borders in the case of a flu pan- considered non-human, they have now demic has been enlivened as a potential passed into the ‘white’ and by warped ideo- reality in the public media discourse. Super- logical extension, therefore, the ‘human’ cat- imposed upon the historical resiliency of Vic- egory. torian-era ideals, the current shift from In the post 9/11 context, wars are waged liberal welfare state to liberal state (see both outside (Iraq, Afghanistan) and inside O’Connor and Olsen 1998) and the public- Canadian state boundaries. Mainstream me- health apparatus are operationalised to in- dia is tossing the concept of World War III crease the legitimacy, and thereby the valua- around, but few talk about the global eco- tion of naturalised borders between ‘white’ nomic competition between competing cur- Canadians and ‘others’,6 such as the 200,000 rencies and oil bourses, and the fear of the Tamil Canadians located mainly in Canadian crash of the US dollar. Economic motivations urban cores. Of late, on a daily basis, the state aside, there has been a very definite ideologi- and media construct visible minorities as po- cal move away from social democracy of the tential terrorist threats, and these violent im- 1970s and 1980s to neo-liberalism the 1990s ageries affect the social lives of those who and into the 21st century. Methods that were the liberal state reminds us are not part of deemed unsavory under the previous politi- Anglo ‘white’ dominant civil society and can cal ideology are in the process of being natu- never be full-fledged Canadians. I argue that ralized in Canada. Methods such as racial these are inhumane, heart-wrenching experi- profiling, detention of Canadian citizens who ences that preclude any sense of good health are suspected of terrorist activities in Canada or well-being and can only lead to a myriad and the United States, deportations and issu- of morbid symptoms at the social and indi- ing of ID cards to landed immigrants, the vidual level. recent development of a jail in Ontario espe- cially designed to hold terrorists, endorse- ment of so-called soft torture by some Health, Wellness and Alienation politicians,4 all mark a return to the liberal imperialism of Alex de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill (Pagden 2004: 255). There are a number of avenues that one can Moreover, all these changes influence explore concerning the ways that health be- strongly the state’s attitude toward health comes a vehicle of inscription and ascription and public health. With considerable dimen- for the state to determine who is subsumed sions of power held through the vehicle of within its imagined borders and who re- quarantine, It proves to be an important mains a perpetual outsider. Who, in short trope in reifying the legal imagination of a are the main recipients of the terror of deep battle between us and them. Moral panics, neo-liberalism (Giroux 2005; Gledhill 2005) nurtured through popular media sur- that in essence involves an intensification of rounding the transmission of viruses and the processes of alienation that reverberates bacteria deemed by capitalist for–profit ‘sci- on a daily basis through the social relations

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permeating the culture of capitalism (Robbins who do not engage in consulting work to 2004). As an essential feature of industrial want to offer something of value to those capitalism (Miller 1987: 68) alienation is a with whom they work (Stewart and Strath- process whereby ‘appropriation appears as ern 2005: 1), and at the same time anthropolo- estrangement,asalienation; and alienation ap- gists who are hired as consultants find their pears as appropriation, estrangement as true results the confidential property of the com- admission to citizenship’ (Marx 1988). Coming pany that hired them (Brutti 2005: 107). Core from a peasantry in Sri Lanka to occupy an data has been gleaned through repeated con- intense working-class experience in Canada tact, in order to procure the emically salient leads to extreme cognitive dissonance, in dimensions of experience and meaning. I do large part due to the intense and thoroughly not use either personal names nor place foreign experiences of alienation (cf. Appa- names. One of the salient features of my ex- durai 1996). In the remainder of the analysis I perience as a volunteer consultant, what with examine how alienation is amplified through very little distance between myself and the the law of the land and argue that these di- enactment of violence (cf. Nordstrom and minish the health and well-being of Tamils Martin 1992), was to ‘bear witness’ (Scheper- through three loci: (1) illness and death Hughes 1994; Petersen 2005: 311) to the myr- through preventable and treatable diseases iad ways that Tamils came up against the including work-related injuries and alien- white-Anglo morality outlined in the first ation, (2) women in terms of pre-natal educa- part of this analysis, and what these interac- tion and post-natal care, (3) the situation of tions convey to Tamils about the realities of the elderly. All three have in common the living in a liberal economic state. The specific contradictions emanating from the alienation manifestations and everyday forms of these and physical stresses of being an essential interactions are outlined in the following sec- component of the labour force of the country, tions. all the while being the recipient of hegemonic discourses of state, industry and the media that depict the ‘non-white’, ‘non-European’ Work and Health immigrant in terms of threat, carriers of risk, and bearers of disease. I worked on a volunteer basis for several The Jaffna are a highly edu- years in a non-profit organization in a Cana- cated and skilled group, although overall the dian city catering to a large immigrant popu- cohort born between 1940–1965 have a re- lation. I helped people to write letters in markable educational background in terms English, decipher various state and non-state of the breadth and content of their training. A forms, proofread various print media rang- strong cultural value of education, paralleled ing from letters to newsletter articles and by being favored by the British during the some assistance with proposal writing (cf. colonial period, meant that the predomi- Brutti 2005: 108). It is common for critical nantly high vellala caste of Jaffna while being medical anthropologists to work in their a slave-owning society also developed into community (cf. Baer at al. 2004; Farmer 2005), a micro bourgeoisie. Dominating in the sci- in an attempt to incorporate a humanistic ences, Jaffna’s Medical College was re- approach designed to develop a better social nowned in South India as well as Sri Lanka environment that fosters better health and other colleges such as Mahajana or Jaffna (Strathern and Strathern 1999: 190). It is Hindu Women’s College produced intellec- equally common for trained anthropologists tual experts who became the cre`me de la cre`me

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of the society. Many of these same Tamils, health professionals for their second opinion upon , were working rather than trusting the word of the Cana- as dishwashers, security guards, petrol ser- dian doctors. vice workers or taxi-cab drivers. These working women and men expressed Many Tamil males (whether married or reluctance about going to the doctor when unmarried) and single females work two or they became sick. They complained of symp- in some cases three jobs: two full time, or toms of stress and severe fatigue, not surpris- two full time and one part time. In order to ing given the length of their work day. Some fulfill financial obligations in Canada where people also experienced depression and deep rent can take up as much as seventy-five sorrow from the trauma of war, of losing percent of one’s monthly earnings, as well as their homes and property, and of the lack of sending remittances back to kin in Sri Lanka, commensurability in the Canadian cultural many individuals also straddle the expecta- context. Doctors could not relate to the tions of two very different cultural worlds trauma and horror of the civil war that these (Oakley and Jayapalan 2005). One man, aged people had fled, and if it did come up in 38, typically went three consecutive days per conversation, anti-depressants were often week with no sleep. Another, aged 47, work- recommended. Anne Sigfrid Grønseth’s ing three jobs, worked seven days per week, (2003) Norwegian findings indicated that and some days the only sleep he got was on Tamils felt like they were being treated as a the trains and buses back and forth from discrete organ rather than a whole person work. When the Ontario Tories expanded with emotions and connections to a collective the work week to 60 hours in 2001—thereby (cf. Napolitano 2002) and this feeling, not eliminating the standard overtime pay that surprisingly, resonates in Canada as well. many workers came to expect—it repre- But it was not just the physicians who sented a significant economic loss to Tamil alienated the Tamils. Several people, for ex- families who depended on the extra income ample, noted a terrible tension when faced not only to make ends meet, but to allow the with interacting outside the Tamil commu- breadwinner respite from seeking an addi- nity, as it was always pregnant with the pos- tional job to meet the household budget. Sor- sibility of humiliation that had to be glossed row and confusion over deaths during over. One example is in regard to their treat- hospitalization from treatable diseases such ment by health care secretaries who would as diabetes and workers under the age of often grumble over names that were ‘too forty perishing on shop floors from massive long’, with ‘too many letters’, and were ‘im- heart attacks are recurring discursive themes possible to pronounce’. Some indicated that brought up by Tamils. Each person I encoun- secretaries often would ask for the ‘short ver- tered had a story of someone he or she knew sion’ of their name, or for the ‘English ver- dying at a factory, dying of heart attack at a sion’. Several had teenage children who had young age after migrating to Canada, or go- actually adopted an Anglicized name that ing to the hospital for an outpatient treatment they used at school and for interactions with and never coming home again. Many ex- ‘Canadians’. Another indicated he often had pressed the sense that Canadian doctors to scold the secretaries back and remind them were poorly trained and did not know what that the clinic forms ought to be revised so they were doing, as compared to the effi- they had enough squares for the full name ciency and trusted biomedical expertise of to be entered. The not-having-enough-spaces doctors in Sri Lanka. Many expressed the syndrome is metaphoric of the ironic position importance of consulting with Sri Lankan that we are ‘free to be whatever we wish’ in

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the advanced liberal democracies of the west diminish during rainy days for these North- (cf. Amit and Rapport 2002) when that free- erners only supped in sunshine. His ma- chine and he relaxed on these days. In these dom is reserved only for the top one percent moments, Raja tried to make the machine of the society who have the power and means realized that he was a university graduate. to realise that vision. Few of the Tamils I met Like the landlady, the restaurant manag- ever tasted this freedom during their time in er...themachine did not show any interest Canada, and many were in fact quite shocked in knowing about his personal attributes. This is the only reason for his dispute with at that state of the advanced industrial con- the machine....Before Raja came here, he text in which they had found themselves. lived in a world free of dirty plates (Oakley Those who attended University, found that and Jayapalan 2005: 3–4 and 9). their BA was spent learning things they had already covered in their A and O levels in Jeyapalan’s story is significant for it maps Sri Lanka. They were also stunned by what a recurrent pattern among the Jaffna Tamils they regarded a deep ignorance and intellec- who had been the subject of street plays, arti- tual lethargy among Canadians, who they cles and diasporic discussions. At some point felt accepted the hollow arguments of the in their migration, so the story goes, most Jaffna Tamil men have worked as a dish- politicians without protest, whereas in Sri washer. The underlying contradiction to the Lanka, at an early age youth are well-devel- objective fact that the Canadian economy is oped political critics with a strong sense of dependant upon immigrants is manifested entitlement and rights. through hegemonic discourses that miscon- The alienating experiences of being over- strue and twist this relationship through ex- qualified for the work one is doing, to the clusionary practices that lead to increasing trauma of war memories among young and alienation, making people vulnerable to old alike (cf. Chase 2002), to the contradic- mental and physical ailments. As one man, tions observed and lived in the new context aged 64, and trained as an engineer indi- have been poignantly characterized in a short cated: ‘Yes, life too has been hard for me in this story written by Norwegian Tamil writer VIS country. I used to stop drinking in the morning— Jeyapalan (see Oakley and Jayapalan 2005; now I start drinking in the morning’. Indeed he cf. Fuglerud 1999): took this further by quoting a famous pas- sage from Frederick Engels in the Conditions For more than two years Raja was working of the Working Class in England that, ‘murder as for the dishwashing machine in a restau- has also been committed if society places hundreds rant....Thework he performed was to feed the dirty plates that constantly poured in of workers in such a position that they inevitably from the restaurant into the mouth of the come to premature and unnatural ends’. After steel giant and put the plates in their proper more than a decade in Canada, this same place after they were licked clean by the man works delivering groceries in a suburb. machine....When the manager of the res- Another individual claiming to have been taurant came to understand that the well tortured in Sri Lanka and who subsequently built boy who came in search of a job was spent several hard years in Canada indicated a Sri Lankan, he saw that he would be a ‘I would still like to go back home’. suitable candidate for dishwashing. The machine itself understood Tamil through its long collaborations with Tamils over the years... Women When Raja realized that even a monkey could be trained to do such work, he began The situation of Jaffna Tamil women in Can- to despise his life. The dirty plates would ada cannot be understood without examin-

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ing their role and status in Jaffna itself. The tool of the state over the past century to high status of the woman in the Jaffna matri- ‘change the minds’ of women about their lineal society was well-established during bodies and souls (cf. Molina 2004; Oakley the colonial period and continues to exist 2006a). Many immigrant women who be- today. Although matrlineality does not of came pregnant in a ghetto in the urban core course translate into matriarchy, but rather in the 1990s were filtered through a local tends to solidify the power of the mother’s reproductive public health NGO (non-gov- brother in inheritance and social relations, ernment organization). This state-funded in most matrilineal societies, the women’s NGO provided pre- and post-natal care and status is heightened at least somewhat by the advice to pregnant and lactating women. fact that she is surrounded by her relatives, How odd it was for these women, who in and her husband is a stranger in the house- Sri Lanka would be educated by the elderly hold. This pattern differs significantly from matriarch in food taboos and preferred foods the patrilineal pattern in most ‘traditional’ during pregnancy and lactation, to be given societies, whereby the woman enters a mar- a magnetic chart of Canada’s food guide to riage a lineal stranger. tack onto their fridge and advised to eat ‘bal- In Canada, the matrilineal protection is anced meals from the four food groups’. Nu- sometimes lost for women, as people are spa- trition and notions of a balanced diet are tially separated in their apartment and mid- cultural, and many of these women, who dle-class suburban homes (cf. Napolitano were Hindu and vegetarian, felt conflicting 2002). Yet it is also true that in the major emotions about being advised to eat the rec- Canadian cities where Tamils live, there are ommended meat portions each day as they numerous individuals who have the bitter- did not want to jeopardize the health of their sweet benefit of having 80–100 percent of unborn babies. Other cultural norms that their entire pre-war village population living held significance for some Jaffna women in Canada. For example, one woman, aged such as not buying clothes for the baby and 37, had some 465 relatives living in the same not speaking its names until it is born were city as she, whereas another, aged 35 had cultural elements that were not recognized only 23 with whom she was in regular con- by the female volunteers and paid staff of tact. In the former case, the woman’s entire the NGO. The taboo, for example, that the village population had fled Jaffna over the Tamil woman does not leave the home after past decade and a half, while in the latter birth until the 31st day, was blasted by visits case, most of her relatives had fled Jaffna, from NGO reps asking the women to come to but relocated to the capital city of Sri Lanka, the meetings before the 31st day, and created Colombo. In most cases, whether with many conflict in the household. Other aspects such or few relatives in the city, most are scattered as promoting tinned baby food, singing An- around the suburbs, and the matrilineal ‘pro- glo-nursery rhymes and the ‘baby games’, tection’ women enjoyed is compromised. were not always welcomed in households Add to this that with the failed cease-fire, with an elderly female who saw her role be- and the return to civil war, many live in fear ing challenged by an institution outside for their relatives still in Sri Lanka and get- the household. ting phone calls in the middle of the night The NGO made no effort to discover the to indicate that a relative has been killed cultural logic of pre- and post-natal care or disappeared. among these women, but pushed their own Reproductive public-health policy and agenda to educate them and their children practice has been an important ideological to become ‘Canadian’. For them, being Cana-

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dian meant embodying Anglo practices and For this woman whose family had been so symbols and there was no room in this opera- rooted in one place, her life has been one of tionalisation for in that for- migration and always waiting to move again. mula. When asked why they attended, Isolated in their apartments and middle-class sometimes they expressed an interest to learn homes in the suburbs, elderly people experi- more about Canadian culture, at other times ence severe alienation and an inability to feel they noted that it gave them something to at home in Canada, which is massaged by do in the mornings, and several times the an intense longing to return home. Some el- desire to ensure the health of her baby derly in fact, never cease migrating as they through adopting Canadian cultural norms live for several months in various children’s was voiced. households, which could be scattered all over the globe, and also spend time in Sri Lanka. Most seem to prefer to return to Sri Lanka only if they are able to live in their homes Elderly, Depression and Suicide in the north, and few like the urban life in Colombo. In Jaffna, they are nested back into In Sri Lanka, a gerontocratic society, the elder the gerontocratic order, and are able to en- is the head of the household. In Canada this gage in a high level of activity. As one man order is turned upside down, and the Tamil aged 84 noted while commenting on Cana- elderly is isolated; having come from a hos- dian tomatoes: tile context in Sri Lanka, they all too often Look at these, they are much larger than the face another hostile one in Canada. As one regular varieties but they have no taste and woman aged 77 noted: they get larger because they absorb the arti- ficial manure—they are bad for health. My mother had 10 children—one sister— Nowadays people don’t grow gardens— one sister died at age 19—I was 17—she when I am there [in Jaffna] I grow vegeta- died of fever. I have two brothers, one in bles, plantains. It is good exercise and a Colombo, one in Canada. One in Canada pastime, but you can grow them to suit your receives a pension from his work...inSri taste. Nowadays, people are so lazy so they Lanka: 1000 rupees a month I think he said. buy them but they are buying sickness— People scattered in Canada, Europe, Austra- they don’t know it but they are buying lia...ourpeople cannot tolerate cold coun- sickness. tries. All they do is stay in all alone—no one to talk to, nothing to do, all alone, like Used to their Aruvedic practitioners who us. My father was born in Jaffna. My fathers’ had known them and their families for gener- father was born in Jaffna, my fathers’ father ations, these seniors find the biomedical sys- too. My father had...avery important and tem (whether with or without a Tamil doctor) respectable job. Those days he worked in Sinhalese areas, Badulla, etc. Those days alienating and ineffective. One woman, aged you could do that. We had to pack a few 82, indicated that in Canada her doctor gives things in a bag and run away so many times ‘one time a lotion, a gel one time, it doesn’t because of the war. Sinhalese have so many help at all and then he gives another one. I parties, JVP, and so on, and we have so am old so they think that “okay she is old, many like the Tigers, EPLF and so on. They and she must suffer and have pains” ’. Dur- kill each other—they fight, why can’t they ing one interview the same man mentioned get together? Now for 2–3 years it has been peace with the peace talks,...butafter Tsu- previously was preparing a cup of an ar- nami, government is doing nothing to help uvedic medicine used to reduce fever for his people and war will probably start again. wife. His son indicated that the same stuff

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came in pill form and that there was no need nomic and health infrastructure. Very to go through so much trouble, the man re- rapidly, they have developed their own plied: ‘it may come in pill form but this has no health infrastructure with numerous large side effects. Things in pill form do have side ef- clinics staffed by Tamil physicians, pre- and fects’. post-natal clinics with Tamil obstetricians As the adults leave home for work, these and pediatricians as well as establishing nu- and many elderly spend their days at home merous Tamil-led mental health projects that tending to their grandchildren. Suicide and aim to help people cope with the contradic- depression have also been discursively in- tions of being a minority in two contexts. voked as a severe problem in the community These are all modes of resistance that Tamils for elderly and young alike, although no sta- operationalise on a daily basis. Their insis- tistics are available to reinforce this claim as tence on resisting the ‘individuating’ forces yet (cf. Wadhwani 1999). Some noted that in of social space (Napolitano 2002: 48), for ex- the late 1980s and early 1990s, suicide was a ample, through retaining the matrilocal pro- common occurrence. Whether or not the hard tection offered to Jaffna women is one such data can or will ever be collected—given the effort. Another is by organizing frequent so- resistance by most states including Canada cial gatherings where food and community to recognize suicide as it represents a con- stories and gossip are shared and where the demnation of a society that had become unfit social conventions familiar to them can be to live in for many—(Scott 1999) the social experienced and the alienating experiences memory of intense and horrific communal of daily work and life in a hostile Canadian suffering and self-immolation cannot be eas- social setting can be temporarily forgotten. ily forgotten. Discursive construction of the Tamil commu- nity in symbolic opposition to ‘them’ is also strongly evidenced in public gatherings, Resisting Marginalisation where the social deficiencies of ‘white’ Cana- dians, such as broken families, immorality, Although the industrial capitalist complex, lack of lifelong friends and the condition of in conjunction with the neo-liberal imagina- the elderly as living all alone or dumped tion, aims to divide and rule the Canadian in old-age homes are markers of negative into discrete manageable multicultural ghet- difference (cf. Napolitano 2002: 48; Shan- tos under the guise of ‘multiculturalism’,7 the klin 1994). many Jaffna Tamils have turned this on its An additional locus of resistance is in re- head by insisting that they be recognized as jecting entirely what is referred to as biomed- Canadians, not as hyphenated Canadians (cf. ical-profit pseudoscience and falling back Ward Gailey). These people, a well-educated onto the science that was learned in Sri and skilled labour force, while initially Lanka, and in numerous cases, Russia, where thrown to the bottom of the Canadian cul- many of the top university graduates re- tural mosaic, have, over the past two de- ceived scholarships in the 1960s and 1970s cades, worked their way up this hierarchy (cf. Wilson 2000). One such man, who nearly relatively faster than other immigrant died after taking a pill prescribed by a ‘Cana- groups. Their role as the bureaucratic crust dian’ doctor, told me how after consuming in the British colonial period allowed for the the pill, he swelled up, fell down from two development of, to refer to Bourdieu, social stories to the ground and nearly died. After and cultural capital that enabled them to de- that he did not take any more pills nor go velop very quickly a uniquely Tamil eco- to any biomedical doctors, instead relying on

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his own understandings of science. ‘I have My interest here has been to postulate that lived with diabetes for 23 years and a kidney the basic law of the land, the Canadian con- infection for several years but I never took stitution, depicts the Canadian people not as any medication for it. I drink lots of water, one, but as four (or more) separate groups water at 0 degrees decreases the weight be- defined in purposefully fuzzy ethno-racial cause of the energy the body needs to heat and nationalistic terms and that this odd the water for 37 degrees Celsius for digestion. scheme permeates popular thinking in con- No doctor will understand this or tell you temporary Canadian society. We are not, as this’. Gleaned from his education in the sci- the hegemonic discourses would assure us, ences in Russia in the 1960s, this man is also on a level playing field. Too many immi- very vocal, both verbally and on Tamil Web- grants exist on a wage too low to promote a sites about how different being a migrant in healthy lifestyle and are forced to eke out a Russia for seven years was compared to that living in unsafe working conditions, intrinsic in Canada. He emphasized such things as in an exploitative political economy that in- the empathy shown to him as a visitor with jures individuals from the minute of birth no relatives in the country, to providing nu- (cf. Daniel 1996). A pseudo-welfare political tritious meat alternatives to this lifelong veg- economy with strong liberal orientations etarian, to feeling at home in Russia because mirroring in too many ways the inhumane of the hospitality shown to him. Moreover, conditions of life in the United States, (cf. his ‘race’, his ‘dark skin’ and his Hindu reli- O’Connor 1998: 210; Olsen 1998), coupled gion (once referred to by a ‘white’ Canadian with ethno-racial legal classifications, consti- as ‘people who wear their laundry on their tute forms of structural violence in contem- heads’), was not discursively noted to him porary Canada (Scheper-Hughes 1993; Baer by Russians, whereas in Canada he has often et al. 2004; Farmer 2004). Structural violence, been reminded that he is located near the whereby people’s ‘...actual somatic and bottom on the Canadian ethno-racial hierar- mental realizations are below their potential chy by being referred to as a ‘paki’ and a ‘ter- realizations’ (Galtung 1969: 110–111), and are rorist’. not often conveyed in statistics and graphs (Farmer 2004: 5) does not entail overt physi- cal force, but rather policies that mask a wide Conclusions swath of social reality such that aspects of war can be made to like peace (McCutcheon 2006: 16). It is rooted in the macro level, in This special edition of Anthropology in Action the political economic organisation of a soci- focuses both on what ethnographic human- ety that imposes emotional and physical dis- ism can reveal about conceptions of health tress. In Canada, those who find themselves and well-being and how these in turn can defined outside of the white Anglo middle- tell us about why immigrants decide to stay class norm, and this includes not only ‘visible or leave a country. It is also about reinforcing minorities’ and ‘immigrants’, but also Ab- an ‘anthropology of the present’ (Fox 1991; original peoples, women, youth and working Shore and Wright 1997) that can be useful to poor people in Canada (cf. Mackey 1997), are the people under study, as well as to our the recipients of a structural violence that is own communities, many members of which not in the least bit conducive to ‘good health’. are themselves struggling for decent wages, Specifically for Tamils, the Victorian-era adequate nutrition, safe water and a sense constitution thus ensures that they will for- of health and well-being (Feinberg 2005: 298). ever be outsiders occupying the apartheid-

23 AiA Robin Oakley

like category of ‘visible minority’ (cf. Oakley Notes 2006b), and never ‘at home’ (Rapport and Dawson 1998). Many of these people have 1. Many northern came to already fled the horrors and traumas of civil dominate the bureaucratic structure in Sri war. Both in Sri Lanka,8 and its diaspora, Lanka, but the economy in the north was and they are a minority ever struggling to resist is essentially peasant-based. their racialisation and marginalisation and 2. The disruption occurred mainly after the communal riots in 1983; this will likely occur still seeking a place where they can feel at again as a result of the renewed violence in home. the summer of 2006. This argument hinges on the thesis that 3. The Yellow Peril was a game made in Canada the constitution is and ought to be the law during WWII. ‘The game that shows how a of the land of a modern state (cf. Skinner few brave defenders can withstand a very 2002). The vast majority of modern states great number of enemies’. There are fifty have modern constitutions, yet Canada is small yellow pawns inside and three big blue still operating under the rubric of Victorian- checker kings. To be yellow in the Yellow era sentiments and values, which both as- Peril game is to be weak and small. Yellow sumes and values ethic, racial and linguistic is to be chicken. I am not yellow. I will not difference. This is the basis of the iceberg of cry however much this nurse yanks at my discursive power (Korpi 1998) that has to be hair’ (Kogawa 1981). challenged. It is likely that until Canadians, 4. Canadian born Michael Ignatieff, former all Canadians, engage in a serious discourse head of Harvard’s Carr Centre for Human about what kind of country they want, and Rights Policy and a past Leadership candi- what specifically are the rights and duties of date for the national Liberal party in Canada, recently indicated that legitimate interroga- a Canadian polity, many immigrants who fall, tion could involve ‘isolation and some non- either phenotypically or culturally, outside physical stress’ (Guardian Unlimited Friday of what is defined as normative will continue January 20, 2006; www.guardian.co.uk/g2/ to feel ill at ease, and the white Anglo Chris- story/0,,1690636,00.html#article_continue). tian settler stock, will continue to be valued 5. Crewdson’s recent account of Dr. Robert at a higher premium by the discourses and Gallo’s fall from grace exposes the ways that practices of the state, media, policy and ev- science becomes pseudo-science through cap- eryday interactions. The values held dear by italist interest when combined with national- Canadians are very diverse and there is room ist sentiment. Gallo first claimed findings for them to express these values without fear from the Pasteur Institute as those of his own of persecution that their health and well- lab, to the US government’s complicity in being will be compromised. This points yet pushing the Gallo-sponsored AIDS test with again to the need for a political definition its high rate of false positive. of the citizenry, a thorough rejection of the 6. Indeed on the many attempts I have made, constitutional ethno-racial Victorian-era def- when entering ‘immigrants’ in Health Cana- initions and a call for the development of da’s search engine, the first dozen ‘hits’ bring up SARS, Tuberculosis and West Nile Virus, economic practices, modern laws, and mor- all framed as foreign threats rooted ‘else- als befitting 21st-century human societies. where’. 7. One recent example of the racist undertones Robin Oakley is Assistant Professor in the De- of multiculturalism policy is that at the 2006 partment of Sociology and Social Anthropol- Nova Scotia Multicultural festival, the ‘Code ogy, Dalhousie University Halifax. Her email of Conduct’ issued by the city prohibited ‘eth- is: [email protected]. nic’ vendors from selling products such as

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brand name drinks, snacks. ‘Ethnics’ where Crewdson, J. 2003. Science Fictions: A Scientific only permitted to peddle their ethnic foods. Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy 8. In Sri Lanka, the subtext is that the Sinhalese of Robert Gallo, Boston: Little & Brown. derive from Aryan stock, and the Tamils, Daniel, V. 1996. Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an from the Dravidian, themselves in turn de- Anthropology of Violence, Princeton, NJ: scended from the Indus Valley Harappa cul- Princeton University Press. ture whose land and livelihood were altered Donnan, H. and T. Wilson 2000. Borders: Frontiers forever with the Persian horse-riding nomads of Identity, Nation and State, Oxford, UK: Berg. who entered India in millennia past (see Dan- Erasmus, Z. 2001. Coloured by History Shaped by iel 1996). Place: New Perspectives on Coloured Identities in Cape Town, Cape Town: Kwela Books. Farmer, P. 2004. Pathologies of Power: Health, Hu- man Rights and the New War on the Poor, Berke- References ley, CA: University of California Press. Fee, L. 2002. ‘The Political and Economic Margin- Amit, R. N. V. and N. Rapport 2002. The Trouble alisation of Tamils in Malaysia’, Asian Studies with Community: Anthropological Reflections on Review 26 (3): 309–329. Movement, Identity and Collectivity, London: Feinberg, R. 2005. ‘Reflections on the Value of Pluto Press. Ethnography’, Anthropological Forum 15 (3): Anderson, K. 1991. ’s Chinatown: Racial 297–306. Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980, : Fleras, A. and J. Lock Kunz 2001. Media and Minor- McGill-Queen’s University Press. ities: Representing Diversity in Multicultural Can- Appadurai, A. 1996. The Cultural Dimensions of ada, : Thompson Educational Globalisation, Minneapolis, MN: University of Publishing. Minnesota Press. Foucault, M. 1990. The History of Sexuality, New Baer, H., M. Singer and I. Susser 2004. Medical York: Vintage. Anthropology and the World System, Westport, Fuglerud, Ø. 1999. Life on the Outside: The Tamil CT: Praeger Press. Diaspora and Long Distance Nationalism, Lon- Bashford, A. 2004. Imperial Hygiene: A Critical His- don: Pluto Press. Galtung, J. 1969. ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Re- tory of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public search’, Journal of Peace Research 6 (3): 167–191. Health, New York: Palgrave, Macmillan. Giroux, H. 2005. The Terror of Neo-Liberalism, Au- Bass, D. 2004. A Place on the Plantations: Up-Coun- rora, Canada: Garamond Press. try Ethnicity in Sri Lanka, Ann Arbor, MI: Uni- Gledhill, J. 2005. ‘Citizenship and the Social Geog- versity of Michigan Press. raphy of Deep Neo-liberalization’. Anthropo- Brutti, L. 2005. ‘Where Anthropologists Fear to logica 47: 81–100. Tread: Notes and Queries on Anthropology Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch and B. Szanton 1995. and Consultancy, Inspired by a Fieldwork Ex- ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing perience’, in P. Stewart and A. Strathern (eds) Transnational Migration’, Anthropology Quar- Anthropology and Consultancy: Issues and De- terly 68 (1): 48–63. bates, New York: Berghahn Books, 106–123. Grenwal, I. 2003. ‘Transnational America: Race, Calliste, A. 1989. ‘Canada’s immigration policy Gender and Citizenship after 9/11’, Social Iden- and domestics from the Caribbean: The second tities; Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and domestic scheme’, Socialist Studies 5: 133–65. Culture 9 (4): 535–561. Chase, R. 2002. ‘The mental health of war affected Grønseth, A. 2003. ‘In Search of Community: A children: A community-based rehabilitation Quest for Well-Being among Tamil Refugees and reconciliation program in Sri Lanka’s east- in Northern Norway’, Medical Anthropology ern province’, http://wwwhumanitiesmc Quarterly 15 (4): 493–514. masterca/peace-health/Conf2001/ Hellman-Rajanayagam, D. 2005. ‘And Heroes chasbushpdf, accessed 9 July, 2005. Die: Poetry of the Tamil Liberation Movement

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