Flying below the Radar

For more than a quarter of a century, Sri Lanka was plagued by violent conflict between militants fighting for a separate Tamil state in the country's north and east and forces loyal to the (Sinhala-majority) Sri Lankan state. ¹ While factors such as skewed development, state repression and violence, and socio-political marginalization of the country's peripheries have played important roles in shaping the conflict (Goodhand and Klem 2005), it is undeniable that ethnicity dominates interpretations and representations of the Sri Lankan conflict (Frerks, Chapter 2 this volume).