Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times

"Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times" interprets contemporary fictions to unpack neoliberalism's entanglements with nationalism and racism during Sri Lanka's was. Perera-Rajasingham does so by theorizing ethnographic fictions, a form that has both internalized certain colonial Orientalist impulses and critically engages with categories of objective gazing, empiricism, and temporal distancing. The book explores colonial-era travel writings by Robert Knox (1681) and Leonard Woolf (1913); contemporary works by Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunasekera, Shobasakthi, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, and Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan; and cultural festivalsq and theater, including vernacular performances of Euripides's 'The Trojan Women' and women workers' theater.