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Divine Embodiment and Women's Resistance in Sri Lanka

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Divine Embodiment and Women's Resistance in Sri Lanka Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont 2017 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award Research Award 4-27-2017 Divine Embodiment and Women’s Resistance in Sri Lanka: Opposing the Ideologies of Nation and Empire Olivia Dure Pomona College Recommended Citation Dure, Olivia, "Divine Embodiment and Women’s Resistance in Sri Lanka: Opposing the Ideologies of Nation and Empire" (2017). 2017 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award. 6. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cclura_2017/6 This Senior Award Winner is brought to you for free and open access by the Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2017 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu. 2017 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award Senior Award Winner Olivia Dure Pomona College Reflective Essay Reflective Essay Throughout my time at Pomona, I’ve been able to gain so much from the process of research and writing. The classes I remember the most are the ones where I felt so passionate about my topic, and so full of wonder at the independence of expression possible through writing. However, it wasn’t until I began research on divine possession in Sri Lanka, a topic that would go on to consume most of my thoughts for the better part of a year, that I truly began to grasp the privilege of doing research and the responsibility that comes with having access to source material from so many spheres of life crossing through time and space. While studying abroad in Sri Lanka, I spent a month traveling to various religious sites interviewing practitioners and worshippers about divine possession, and while compiling my final research paper for the semester I started to feel the responsibility that comes with having these personal narratives entrusted to me. I felt the need to make visible stories that were being actively concealed by state-sanctioned terror and nationalism, and I felt like my other sources, the academic journals and books, began to hold a new significance as they were contextualized within the lived experiences of the present. Coming back from Sri Lanka, I started to utilize the library far more than before. Through ASPC I was heading up a subcommittee leading student focus groups on the library renovations, and through one of my classes I visited the library’s Special Collections section. I was surprised to feel the same sense of reverence I felt for the personal narratives in my research when paging through the colonial records of Sri Lanka. Visiting Special Collections encouraged me to seek out sources that could contextualize by research, and I still remember the first time I held Samuel Baker’s 8 Years in Ceylon, sitting on the second floor of the Mudd side of the library and just reveling in the magic of holding a book first penned centuries ago. This book, and the knowledge contained in its pages, held a life of its own that traversed oceans. The information relayed by Baker and other colonial-era travelers and administrators like Robert Knox or John D’Oyly began to hold a sense of urgency in my research—despite the years dividing their accounts and the present I feel the same sense of responsibility to them that I do the other facets of my research. For me, research makes time flexible, it bends the distance between past accounts and the 1 present, and the ability to see how the ongoing remnants of colonial rule or nationalist conflict forced me to think about how I center certain voices in my work, and how the predominant or hegemonic narratives can be countered by unearthing hidden histories within what remains. Because my thesis focuses on the voices and forms of resistance carried forth by women, my respect and reverence for colonial-era or state-centric sources is tempered by the lack of space accorded to women. Research, and the library sources that I’ve been able to utilize, has felt like a constant negotiation between sources born out of the same contexts with radically different intents and information. This negotiation, this space of ambiguity, has pushed me to examine my source material not only for what they offer, but also for what they conceal. Because of the breadth of the library (the Inter Library Loan program especially), I’ve been able to explore those moments of ambiguity and contestation in my thesis. I’ve been able to place works like Baker’s and Knox’s in conversation with critical scholars like James Duncan, whose work In the Shadows of the Tropics highlights the absence of women in colonial accounts except as victims of planter violence on tea plantations. Because of ILL I’ve been able to place nationalist speeches by former President Premadasa and former President Rajapaksa alongside the moving poems of Tamil scholar and activist Sumathy Sivamohan. Most importantly, I’ve been able to trace the regulation of women’s bodies and the contestation of physical space that has generated circumstances ripe for women’s resistance in ritual formations from the colonial era to the present. Through the books I’ve accessed at the library, tutorials by library staff on how to utilize Asian Studies databases and the ATLA Religious Studies database, and the repositories of invaluable texts and documents, the research process has pushed me to be more expansive, to be critical, and treat the sources I use, whether they are snippets of the Sri Lankan constitution, pictures of temples from the colonial era to the present, or academic narratives, with both an investigative outlook as well as the respect that should be accorded to them. My research has taken me from books on South Asian feminisms to the ruminations of British missionaries on temple space. It has vacillated between the ancient Sri Lankann epic the Mahavamsa to critical feminist theory on displacement and disappearance by Sri Lankan academics like Malathi de Alwis and Kumari Jayawardena. The privilege of access to these materials has allowed me to look at works born from moments, from snapshots of circumstance, and trace how those moments impact women and women’s resistance in the present. This 2 research project has completely changed my outlook on academia and research, and has propelled me toward research fellowships like Fulbright for post-graduate studies. Because of my research and the wealth of knowledge I’ve been able to access through library resources, I’m considering applying to graduate school to continue research on religion in South Asia. The research process has also encouraged me to balance criticality with reverence, to weigh understanding with contestation. I feel bound to my source material, bound to produce something that does my sources justice, but also compelled to challenge and complicate dominant narratives, even as I utilize those narratives within my 3 2017 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award Senior Award Winner Olivia Dure Pomona College Research Project “Divine Embodiment and Women’s Resistance in Sri Lanka: Opposing the Ideologies of Nation and Empire” Opposing the Ideologies of Nation and Empire: Divine Embodiment and Women’s Resistance in Sri Lanka by Olivia Dure A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies Pomona College Spring 2017 Professor Erin Runions Professor Arash Khazeni Professor Daniel Michon 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Erin Runions for four years of the most incredible mentorship, support, and kindness. Thank you for helping me work through this thesis and so many other crossroads, decisions, and challenges during my time here. You’ve pushed me to work harder, to think deeper, and to care more about my work both in the academic sphere and outside of it—words can’t describe how thankful I am to know you. To Arash Khazeni for being willing to advise me on my thesis in a very busy time. To Dan Michon for wonderful, thoughtful, and kind advice. I can’t thank you enough for taking on this thesis, even while you were a million miles away. To Kian, Kristen, and Tanvi for all of the laughter and love—it’s been amazing to be in classes, work on thesis, talk about buffy, and try to laugh through work/this institution with you all. Thank you (esp. to Kian) for showing me how colons/semicolons work. To Katie Page for putting up with my quirks about looking up the interior of restaurants on Yelp, for going to countless Contra dances with me, for keeping me motivated during real low points, and for being an amazing, amazing person. To Katie BC for living with my flurries of thesis papers, sharing your scrambled eggs, and being a great roommate. To Kit Lee for caring about people and for people, for inspiring generosity and compassion, and for being an amazing, kick-ass, supportive and wonderful friend. To Christina Tong for being a fierce advocate and friend-- thank you for having my back no matter what. To Esther, Kim, Aldair, and all the folks on Senate for all of the tireless work and support this past year, so thankful to have met you all. To Buffy the Vampire Slayer for being a beacon in difficult times and forever an inspiration. To the Coop Fountain for being the most wonderful and comforting space on this campus. I’ll never forget the endless chicken tenders, boba drinks, and wavy light fixtures that I’ve dozed off staring at hoping for a thread of thesis inspiration. To my family for everything—the support, love, and countless conversations. And to Poopa most of all, for teaching me what it means to care.
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