Devaka Gunawardena

Contact: devakagunawardena(at)gmail.com

Research Fellow, Social Scientists Association, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Devaka Gunawardena is Research Fellow at the Social Scientists’ Association in Sri Lanka. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He writes regularly for the DailyFT and Polity Magazine in Sri Lanka, in addition to publishing in regional fora such as The Wire and Economic and Political Weekly . His research interests include political economy, development economics, and social movements.

State Power after the Great Revolt: Sri Lanka in an Age of Upheaval

My project examines the major shifts that have occurred in Sri Lanka’s polity since the great revolt of 9th July 2022 that ousted the President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The people’s movement responsible for Rajapaksa’s expulsion coalesced under the vague slogan of ”system change.“ But the real significance of the revolt can only be clarified through exploration of the counterrevolutionary dynamics that led to its subsequent repression. Since then, regime consolidation has tended towards implementation of an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-led solution to Sri Lanka’s underlying economic crisis that catalyzed the initial wave of resistance to Rajapaksa rule. The resulting austerity, however, continues to engender social and class tensions, with the potential for a more dramatic transformation of relations between State and society, either in an inegalitarian or redistributive direction. Drawing from comparative work on (counter)revolution by critical scholars such as Arno Mayer and Enzo Traverso, I ask whether the political trajectory in Sri Lanka will exacerbate or transcend the breakdown of neoliberalism triggered by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.