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Contribution short abstract

The paper argues that post-war labour market inclusion reproduces economic and political marginality for youth in Mannar, northern Sri Lanka. Their chronic irrelevance to capital curtails job opportunities, and more tragically, youth’s aspirations and sense of future belonging at home.

Contribution long abstract

This paper problematizes established neoliberal and newer ‘green’ narratives of post-war inclusive development in Sri Lanka. Mannar District is historically peripheral to the Sinhala-majority state and also within the war-affected Tamil homelands. Politicians and policymakers explain youth underemployment in Mannar as the consequence of underdeveloped skills and natural resources. In the effort to integrate the region, the Sri Lankan state promotes skills training and public-private ventures to expand primary industry, including aquaculture, wind energy, and sand mining.

Drawing on ethnographic, economic, and archival data, this paper reveals that Mannar youth are being incorporated into capitalist production, yet paradoxically, their labour is rendered increasingly surplus to capital’s requirements. This is because emerging forms of production are more resource- than labour-intensive and actively erode existing rural livelihoods. Despite over a decade of post-war development integration, Mannar youth continue to experience limited relevance to capital, mirroring their marginalization in Sri Lanka’s political processes.

Manufactured irrelevance is approached not only as a structural condition but also as an everyday experience to be navigated. Through young people’s stories of school-to-work transitions, the study shows how irrelevance produces chronic economic insecurity, not visible in official statistics. More tragically, youth’s acknowledgement of irrelevance tends to dull their aspirations and make Mannar villages feel increasingly inhospitable as they age, leading to social breakdown and efforts to escape. The paper reveals how labour market interventions reproduce livelihood precarity for youth, particularly those living in sociopolitical and ecological margins. The data was collected and analyzed collaboratively with youth from Mannar.