Erasing Tamil Eelam

De/Re Territorialisation in the Global War on Terror

Bibliographic Data

ID3948668
AuthorsAjay Parasram (0000-0002-9748-1060)
Year2012
Volume17
Issue4
Pages903-925
Publication date2012-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2012.654531
OpenAlexW2080807452
LanguageEN
Citations received9

This paper considers the Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam conflict with attention to how its dramatic end can be explained through postcolonial territorial politics. I argue discourses of postcolonial nationalism and global terrorism aligned along domestic, regional, and international political levels to enable a military victory for the government of Sri Lanka. At the domestic political level, there was a change in government along with a split and defection within the LTTE command. At the international level, there was a turn away from Western allies due to their perceived inability to understand the needs of the Asian front in the global war on terror (GWOT). This led to a geopolitical realignment with China, a state sympathetic to fighting terrorism and secession movements. The case is studied under a theoretical lens of “de/re territorialisation” from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. De/re territorialisation reveals simultaneous efforts to inscribe nationalist meaning into territory in a constant process of “becoming

Development economics · Economics · Geopolitics · Government (linguistics · International relations · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Secession · Sociology · State (computer science · Tamil · Terrorism · Victory · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Law

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