Buddhist gaze and power in a post-war destination: case study of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Issue 5 (3rd September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Samarathunga, W. H. M. S.; Cheng, Li; Weerathunga, Prageeth
• Is Part Of: Journal of tourism and cultural change. Volume 19:Issue 5(2021)
• Page Start: 654
• Page End: 680
• Publication Date: 2021-09-03
• Subjects: Buddhist gaze -- Foucault -- post-war tourism -- Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism -- Sri Lanka tourism -- tourist gaze; Tourism -- Periodicals; Heritage tourism -- Periodicals; 306.481905
• DOI: 10.1080/14766825.2020.1849241
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-6825

Abstract

ABSTRACT : This study explores how Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism is constructed in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, a post-war reunified state, through post-war travels. Sri Lankan government and the military forces have recreated Buddhist temples and monuments that were destroyed in the war and have re-introduced Buddhist signs and symbols. Thus, Sinhalese Buddhists visiting Jaffna gaze upon the region with a sense of ownership fueled by the triumphalism. This study adopts Michel Foucault's discourse on power to reach its objectives and employs discourse analysis and ethnographic analysis to analyze the descriptive data. The study finds that the Sinhalese Buddhist Gaze in Jaffna is abstracted as omnipresent in a tripartite system extracted from ancient Sinhalese Buddhist notions: Rata (country), Jathiya (ethnicity), and Aagama (religion).