Ari Ariyaratne
Ari Ariyaratne is Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Heartland Community College, Bloomington, IL. He is also anthropology faculty at College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL. Before coming to HCC in 2005, Ariyaratne taught at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, IL, Eureka College at Eureka, IL, and Parkland College at Champaign, IL. He teaches courses on Cultural Anthropology, General Anthropology, Ancient Civilizations and Societies, and People and Cultures of the World. Professor Ariyaratne has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Sri Lanka. His doctoral dissertation is a comprehensive ethnography of the Sinhalese peasants in central Sri Lanka woven against the backdrop of a major dispute unraveled during the 1990s. It discusses the predicaments of the Sri Lankan state from a theoretical standpoint stemming mainly from Antonio Gramsci’s notion of Cultural Hegemony. Ari’s current research interests include critical pedagogy, globalization, nation-state, South Asia, and Sri Lanka. Professor Ariyaratne received his B. A. from University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, with First Class Honors. He received his M. A. and Ph. D. in cultural anthropology from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.Professor Ariyaratne is the author of the popular textbook of cultural anthropology titled Key Concepts of Cultural Anthropology (2020, Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company).
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Papers by Ari Ariyaratne
Doctoral Dissertation by Ari Ariyaratne
This Ph. D. Dissertation is a comprehensive ethnography of the Sinhalese peasants in central Sri Lanka woven against the backdrop of a major dispute unravelled during the 1990s. It discusses the predicaments of the Sri Lankan state from a theoretical standpoint stemming mainly from Antonio Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony. This work need to be published for the research purposes of the Sri Lankanists.
Books by Ari Ariyaratne
Mahir Saul
Professor of Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Conference Presentations by Ari Ariyaratne
national controversy unfolded in Sri Lanka’s recent past over the building of a tourist hotel on the bank of a reservoir located in the precincts of a major Buddhist temple and its impact on local
community. The paper is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the village of Kandalama, central Sri Lanka, during and after the dispute.
Inquiring into how the state invests ideological labor in cultivating the images and sentiments of the idyllic village community while also investing on dominant forms of development discourse
simultaneously, the paper underscores the point that the state has difficulty saturating the subjectivity of its citizens, in part, because it mediates global forces. The paper argues further, in
the quest for hegemony in Sri Lanka, the state’s strategy of promoting global, national, and statist discourses and practices of development on the one hand, and it’s attempt of incorporating
rural populous within the dominant cultural representations of the state on the other, is contradictory.
The paper looks into the way the dominant ideological representations of the village community leave traces on everyday life of the local people while also making the idea of village community something deeply sedimented in the local culture. In this regard, it concentrates on the persistence of the pervasive and unquestioned practices in which ‘the village’ remained as the central focus and a privileged site of the shared sense of interest and identity.
The paper illustrates the way, in the intra-village level, a narrowly defined village divided into smaller cultural and spatial enclaves on the basis of locally specific forms of social unity, order,
and loyalty came to surface. It further demonstrates how, within the intra-village level in which local realms of interests combined with local geography, everyday negotiations over boundaries
and membership of the village were being intensely fought out.
The paper illustrates how, in everyday negotiations of the local people, the discourses of community and concord, have become attached to antithetical themes of disunity and discord. In
doing so, the paper also demonstrates how the capillaries of social order where ideologies become entangled in mundane social practice have become the crucial places where the
limitations of the dominant social order are confronted, tested, and exposed."
Analyzing the ethnographic field data collected during the 1990s against the backdrop of a main dispute, I explore how the Buddhist monastic practice of the rain retreat has become a privileged site to construct, nurture, or contest conceptions of identity and community for monastic and lay communities in Sri Lanka. Specifically, I examine how the commencement of the rain retreat (vas) which begins with the formal invitation to retreat (vas aradhanaya), the religious ritual held during the retreat (vas pinkam), the termination of retreat (vas pavaranaya), and the ceremonial offering of rain robes (kathina pinkama) provide a useful space for the monks not only to intensify the links between them and the village laity but also, to set their egoistic projects and goals in motion within the context of lay expectations of monastic practice. I also pursue the ways with which the village laity respond to such pursuits within their own efforts of reproducing and redrawing boundaries on the level of the "village."
Honors by Ari Ariyaratne
This Ph. D. Dissertation is a comprehensive ethnography of the Sinhalese peasants in central Sri Lanka woven against the backdrop of a major dispute unravelled during the 1990s. It discusses the predicaments of the Sri Lankan state from a theoretical standpoint stemming mainly from Antonio Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony. This work need to be published for the research purposes of the Sri Lankanists.
Mahir Saul
Professor of Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
national controversy unfolded in Sri Lanka’s recent past over the building of a tourist hotel on the bank of a reservoir located in the precincts of a major Buddhist temple and its impact on local
community. The paper is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the village of Kandalama, central Sri Lanka, during and after the dispute.
Inquiring into how the state invests ideological labor in cultivating the images and sentiments of the idyllic village community while also investing on dominant forms of development discourse
simultaneously, the paper underscores the point that the state has difficulty saturating the subjectivity of its citizens, in part, because it mediates global forces. The paper argues further, in
the quest for hegemony in Sri Lanka, the state’s strategy of promoting global, national, and statist discourses and practices of development on the one hand, and it’s attempt of incorporating
rural populous within the dominant cultural representations of the state on the other, is contradictory.
The paper looks into the way the dominant ideological representations of the village community leave traces on everyday life of the local people while also making the idea of village community something deeply sedimented in the local culture. In this regard, it concentrates on the persistence of the pervasive and unquestioned practices in which ‘the village’ remained as the central focus and a privileged site of the shared sense of interest and identity.
The paper illustrates the way, in the intra-village level, a narrowly defined village divided into smaller cultural and spatial enclaves on the basis of locally specific forms of social unity, order,
and loyalty came to surface. It further demonstrates how, within the intra-village level in which local realms of interests combined with local geography, everyday negotiations over boundaries
and membership of the village were being intensely fought out.
The paper illustrates how, in everyday negotiations of the local people, the discourses of community and concord, have become attached to antithetical themes of disunity and discord. In
doing so, the paper also demonstrates how the capillaries of social order where ideologies become entangled in mundane social practice have become the crucial places where the
limitations of the dominant social order are confronted, tested, and exposed."
Analyzing the ethnographic field data collected during the 1990s against the backdrop of a main dispute, I explore how the Buddhist monastic practice of the rain retreat has become a privileged site to construct, nurture, or contest conceptions of identity and community for monastic and lay communities in Sri Lanka. Specifically, I examine how the commencement of the rain retreat (vas) which begins with the formal invitation to retreat (vas aradhanaya), the religious ritual held during the retreat (vas pinkam), the termination of retreat (vas pavaranaya), and the ceremonial offering of rain robes (kathina pinkama) provide a useful space for the monks not only to intensify the links between them and the village laity but also, to set their egoistic projects and goals in motion within the context of lay expectations of monastic practice. I also pursue the ways with which the village laity respond to such pursuits within their own efforts of reproducing and redrawing boundaries on the level of the "village."