Youth and Identity Discourses in Post War Sri Lanka
Description
Since the war ended the youth populous of Sri Lanka – have expressed themselves through various mediums. The use of art in the conversation on peace in Sri Lanka predates the end of the war with multiple organisations and youth groups employing art to promote reconciliation at various stages of the conflict. On the digital/virtual space, the youth have a platform for wider engagement on post-war discourses.
This study attempts to understand the ‘silencing’ and ‘amplification’ processes that have been used by the ‘creating and enforcing a shared identity’ discourse, focusing on one social group: youth, and how youth in turn, have responded to, used, embodied, and transformed these processes to make their own voice(s) heard. It examines how the youth discourses in the public sphere has transformed into the digital media space, specifically focusing on the 2019 mural wave. It questions the majority and minority nationalist discourses portrayed and how it shapes youth’s ethnoreligious identities and its recreating in the digital space. This study is designed to analyse the degree to which discourse on social media vis-à-vis art as an instrument of fostering a national identity in post-war Sri Lanka has enabled youth participation in the conversation.