Abstract

The article examines the tsunami in Sri Lanka through an analysis of the links between disaster and civil war. The argument builds upon the results of ethnographic research conducted in a Sinhala Buddhist province in the south of the country. By exploring the complex relations between truth and falsehood, the author shows how local discourses about the tsunami and conflict similarly revolve around the selective concealment and disclosure of specific categories of objects and subjects. Phenomena such as a controversial archaeological discovery, the ambiguity surrounding the name of a village, the disputes over a memorial monument and the mysterious disappearance of people in the jungle together represent the blurred fragments of a persistent mythical-historical struggle to define the ethnic and political geographies of the village and the nation.