Routledge/Edinburgh South Asian Studies Series. London; New York: Routledge, 2014. xi, 188 pp. US$145.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-58229-2.
The Politics of Reconstruction and Development in Sri Lanka provides a perceptive and astute insight into the fascinating universe of Jaffna peninsula during the 2002 to 2006 interlude of the island’s ethno-separatist war. The ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) opened up the long-besieged and isolated peninsula, and cleared the way for some innovative development brokerage. It is indeed a well-chosen site for studying the politics of development.
Gerharz uses the German government aid agency German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) as an initial vantage point. This is in itself worthwhile, given that this significant and somewhat atypical development actor is largely invisible in the English-language literature. I hasten to add, though, that Gerharz’s book is not the umpteenth upgraded policy report that managed to turn itself into a book. The author managed to release herself from the institutional and discursive trappings of the aid industry. Her interviews, observations, and anecdotes will provide readers unfamiliar with war-time Sri Lanka with a well-illustrated insight into the absurdities and normalities of everyday life during crisis. Those with first-hand experience will probably nod, sigh, or chuckle in recognition of some of Gerharz’s observations.
Following two contextual chapters—one on the ethno-political conflict, the other specifically on Jaffna—the empirical core of the book comprises four loosely structured chapters. Chapter 4 discusses the intended and unintended outcomes of GTZ’s repositioning after the 2002 ceasefire. Gerharz places these in the context of the convoluted political order, where Sri Lankan state institutions and the LTTE’s attempt at de facto sovereign rule elbow for legitimacy. She carefully navigates the ambivalent stance of her respondents with regard to insurgent governance. Coercion, brutality, and forced recruitment stand side by side with the preservation of order and public morale: low crime and corruption, efficient coordination, and honouring of traditions. This then sets the stage for some of the later contentions around development, order, change, and moral anxiety.
Chapter 5 introduces the red thread in Gerharz’s scholarship: transnationalism, more specifically the Tamil diaspora and its role in development efforts. She discusses diaspora projects and contrasts them with Jaffna-based religious initiatives, resulting in some critical reflections around local knowledge, ownership, and progress. Diaspora Tamils make a particularly useful contribution through their computer skills and their mastery of English-language development paradigms, we learn in chapter 6. This not only benefits Jaffna’s somewhat archaic NGO scene, but the LTTE as well. Gerharz sheds light on the conundrums around the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), a registered international NGO, but effectively an LTTE outreach mechanism. Chapter 7 engages with some of the cultural clashes and moral panic associated with diaspora return to Jaffna. Grandmothers find themselves astounded at the lifestyle of their family members from Western countries, the girls in particular. The book usefully juxtaposes contentions around governance and development with wider anxieties about cultural purity and tradition. This yields a nuanced multi-layered analysis of community, moral order, gender, and othering in a society undergoing rapid transition.
The final two chapters seek to transform this fascinating narrative into some conclusions about the politics of development and reconstruction. The author introduces four conceptual takes on development (external service delivery, spirituality and secularism, social (in)equality, and autonomy) and discusses knowledge struggles over development. The final chapter comprises a postwar epilogue, with a nutshell overview of the resumption of war, the defeat of the LTTE, and the militarized postwar developments. Gerharz concludes that the international peace-building agenda disintegrated as Sri Lanka’s new government embraced the war on terror and “home-grown solutions.”
The book’s strengths do not lie in the overall argument. Gerharz aspires to unravel how development is negotiated between local communities, aid workers, state agencies, rebels, and diaspora groups. And she does so quite well. But her observations do not result in a larger conceptual move or theoretical claim, other than underlining the complicated, multi-layered, contextualized nature of development. Gerharz adopts an actor-oriented approach to take issue with simplistic policy paradigms: overly instrumental perspectives on the migration-development nexus (diaspora are not one homogeneous actor that can be deployed), the so-called “global peace-building consensus” (peace and development do not simply go hand in hand) and its Sri Lankan variant, the “Kilinochchi consensus” (the idea that development efforts and peace dividends will transform the LTTE is ill-founded). In itself, these are valid points, but they are well established and could have been better embedded in existing scholarship. Engagement with authors such as Mark Duffield, Oliver Richmond, Rajesh Venugopal, and Benedikt Korf, to name some authors that remain uncited, would have made sense.
Moreover, the book’s criticism of wider policy agendas lacks the nuance and insight that characterizes the empirical parts of the book. The eye for detail and multiple perspectives, which allows us to see the many layers and dimensions of Jaffna society, seems to fail Gerharz when she reviews the policy landscape. After all, it is highly doubtful that there ever was much of a real consensus in Sri Lanka (or globally) about development and peace-building. Donors struggled all along to close ranks around the peace process: views, interest, and positions were rather divergent and this became abundantly clear when the going got tough. Capturing the diversity of actors and perspectives under the label of a global peace-building consensus, only to argue that this outlook is too simplistic, leaves readers with a straw-man argument.
The book’s nuanced empirical chapters deserve better, and it is these chapters that make the book worth the read. Gerharz skilfully weaves together a wide variety of interesting characters into a coherent and readable narrative without forcing them into pre-conceived roles: Christian priests, Australian Tamil idealists, and tourists, insurgent bureaucrats, puritan grandmothers, German administrators, and innovative refugees. And in doing so, she gives us a skilful glimpse of how development is brokered in the globalized socio-cultural market place that is Jaffna.
Bart Klem
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia