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Paper short abstract:

Working in the context of drought in Sri Lanka my PhD fieldwork sought to explore the relationship between water management, the social formation and Sinhalese Buddhism in Polonnaruwa district. In understanding this relationship, emerging manifestations of the state come to the fore.

Paper long abstract:

In times of resource scarcity, manifestations and intersections of power become highly visible. Polonnaruwa district provides a rich ethnographic background for exploring this premise. Polonnaruwa was once the centre of power for Sri Lanka during the early medieval period. Polonnaruwa's dry climatic context and vulnerability to drought produced a society dependent on a complex irrigation and water catchment system, still utilised today. The position and power of the ancient Buddhist kings of Polonnaruwa were invariably tied to providing water through building, expanding and maintaining the irrigation system. The power imbued through the provision of water is also reflected through Sinhalese Buddhist rituals and cosmology. The research highlights how modern articulations of state power manifest in water management and how these articulations utilise historical and cosmological symbolic constellations. These articulations of power were at their most visible through interventions by the state during the drought. During a year in the field these interventions played out in various ways and were experienced by consumers of irrigated water relative to their position in the social formation of the district. The provision of irrigated water within the context of scarcity also provided opportunities for state actors to reinvigorate and reactivate historical and cosmological symbols of power. By exploring the relationship between water use and management, the social formation and Sinhalese Buddhism, emerging manifestations of state power in Sri Lanka are brought to the fore. The contingency of state power on socio-culturally informed constellations of historical and cosmological symbolism take on particular potency in Sri Lanka's post-conflict setting.