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"Sri Lanka's conflict and peace processes have gained global attention during recent years. This book presents a comprehensive insight into the politics of reconstruction and development in Sri Lanka, focussing on the ceasefire which was negotiated between the Government of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2002 and which lasted until 2006. Based on extensive empirical fieldwork, the book provides a unique ethnographic account of this specific historical period of peace. It explains how development was shaped by interplay and cooperation, but also by the disparities and conflicts between a variety of local and intervening actors, including local organizations and civil society, LTTE, Government of Sri Lanka, international development cooperation and the Tamil diaspora. Starting from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, the author integrates findings from development sociology with new perspectives on transnationalization and the migration-development-nexus. This provides a fine grained analysis of the emerging development visions and perspectives in relation to transnationalization and global interconnectedness. Making an innovative contribution by linking the analysis of local reconstruction with contemporary phenomena of transnationalization, diasporization, and globalization, this book will appeal to those with an interest in Sociology, Social Anthropology and Political Science"--

Zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre war die Hoffnung groß, dass nach fast zwanzig Jahren Bürgerkrieg endlich Ruhe und Frieden einkehren würden. Der Friedensvertrag stellte in Aussicht, die Lebensbedingungen in der Region zu verbessern. Es kommt heute zwar selten zu offenen Konfrontationen, und es gibt lokale Mitbestimmung, doch die Lage bleibt schwierig. Konfliktlinien haben sich verschoben und die Dynamiken der ethnischen Grenzziehungen sind andere geworden. Der nachfolgende Text beleuchtet einige Hintergründe des Konflikts.

The interface approach is especially well suited to understanding the specific conditions and processes in development cooperation. Therefore, it has been mainly adopted in development studies, particularly in the field of development sociology. In order to gain an understanding of this approach and the theories behind it, the first part of this paper introduces the essential theoretical premises and their methodological significance. In the second part, a case from the author's fieldwork in Northern Sri Lanka is used to illustrate how a research design can be developed using the interface approach, and how one might analyse the collected data.

Taking the current situation characterised by the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Sri Lanka military forces in May 2009 as a starting point, this article looks into the potential prospects for peace. The main part is based on an empirical case study conducted in the northern peninsula of Jaffna, where the LTTE lost their stronghold in the mid-1990s. The subsequent occupation of Jaffna by the Sri Lankan military forms the point of departure for an analysis of reconstruction and development efforts after the ceasefire of 2002. Based on a detailed analysis of shifting gender relations this article argues first that the interrelatedness of gendered and ethnic relations with regard to the construction of local "culture" produces meaningful markers for demarcationl. The second focus relates to local perspectives on the state as an actor in development and reconstruction. The article highlights that local actors' negotiating of the potential role of both the state and the LTTE are ambivalent and embedded in constructions of sameness and difference. The article concludes by shedding light on recent developments and Sri Lanka's future perspectives.

Der erste Beitrag des Forschungsjournals 1/2019 mit dem Titel Hinschauen mit Verständnis. Methoden und Ethik der globalen Bewegungsforschung diskutiert unterschiedliche qualitative Zugänge der Protest und Bewegungsforschung und ihre spezifischen methodologischen und methodischen Herangehensweisen. Insbesondere werden der Aufbau von kooperativen Forschungsbeziehungen, der Umgang mit dem Eigenen und dem Fremden und die Schwierigkeiten des Verstehens in heterogenen sozialen Feldern thematisiert. Zu Beginn stellen Sandrine Gukelberger und Eva Gerharz den Mehrwert qualitativer Perspektiven in der Bewegungsforschung dar, um uns in einem nächsten Schritt mit den praktischen Herausforderungen des Datenerhebungsprozesses und der Problematik der Repräsentation zu befassen. Im Zentrum stehen die variierenden Machtbalancen zwischen Forschenden und Forschungspartner*innen und die Frage, wie diese Datenerhebung und Analyse strukturieren. Hierzu gehören auch ethische Fragen, die den Umgang mit den Daten und den Forschungsergebnissen betreffen. Der Artikel schließt mit einem Plädoyer für die Vorteile qualitativer Forschungsperspektiven auf Protest, Aktivismus und Bewegungen. Denn das Potenzial der qualitativen Perspektiven, die soziale Realität 'von unten' rekonstruieren, liegt gerade darin, die Rolle von sozialem und politischem Handeln inmitten komplexer ökonomischer, sozialer und politischer Transformationsprozesse herauszuarbeiten und besser zu verstehen.

Reconsidering the trend in anthropology to conceptualize the multifaceted nature of the state and to focus on the local social dynamics beneath the institutional framework of the state, we argue that "state" is not a single governing entity but rather a multilayered body of practices at various levels of the society. We configure "state" as constructed, imagined, and negotiated by people in their everyday life in four dimensions: zones of limited statehood depicted as "peripheries," "local state" by which the center governs locales, "public discourse" that represents dominant notions of "stateness," and ambivalent positioning of political elites who represents state in the margin. This argument is substantiated with the reference to the case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a southeastern part of Bangladesh.