Conclusion

Abstract

Chapter 7 discusses the processes by which language-based models of ethnic identity in Sri Lanka spread across institutional and noninstitutional settings. Tamil and Muslim students’ identity as ethnic minorities was foregrounded in their schooling experience, but it was in the public sphere that ethnic differences around language were the most consequential. Tamil-speaking girls’ imagining of a cosmopolitan Kandy enabled them to cope with the ethnic conflict as well as to aim for a comfortable future and be open to opportunities. This chapter concludes by discussing Sri Lanka’s political landscape since the end of the war in May 2009 and the importance of language rights to the reconciliation process. It argues that despite the fluidity of Sri Lankans’ sociolinguistic identifications, the very act of speaking Tamil, Sinhala, or English in public spaces enacts and preserves power relations and historically produced inequalities.