Vulnerable Sovereignty

Sovereign Deities and Tigers’ Politics in Sri Lanka

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2228004
AutoresSidharthan Maunaguru (0000-0002-5265-6808, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen61
Número6
Páginas686-712
Fecha de publicación2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/712003
OpenAlexW3110274268
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas71

Until its defeat in 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled numerous civil institutions in the north and east of Sri Lanka. However, the Hindu temples within these territories managed to maintain their autonomy. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Sri Lanka, I contend that central to this paradox was contestation over who had the power to govern the life and death of Tamil subjects. Revisiting the anthropology of sovereignty, I propose an alternative idiom of sovereignty: a vulnerable sovereignty emerging with Hindu deities and based on interdependency and coexistence. I stress that vulnerability does not necessarily make the deities powerless but is the point where the sovereign deity reasserts its power. Finally, I contend that, faced with this idiom of sovereignty, the LTTE learned to embody its logic in its relation with the deities. I argue, thus, that sovereigns can also be thought of outside the notion of absolute sovereign power, bare life, and biopower and instead as sites of vulnerability

Autonomy · Hinduism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Tamil · Theology · Vulnerability (computing · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty