How can anthropology, with its emphasis on local knowledge and local meaning, contribute to the understanding of policies in complex, modern societies? This book employs vivid ethnographic data from one village in an effort to understand broader problems in the troubled policies of Sri Lanka. In particular, it investigates two related phenomena which lie behind the growing crises of Sri Lankan democratic institutions: the high degree of political participation in rural areas and the tenacious hold of Sinhala Buddhist ...
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How can anthropology, with its emphasis on local knowledge and local meaning, contribute to the understanding of policies in complex, modern societies? This book employs vivid ethnographic data from one village in an effort to understand broader problems in the troubled policies of Sri Lanka. In particular, it investigates two related phenomena which lie behind the growing crises of Sri Lankan democratic institutions: the high degree of political participation in rural areas and the tenacious hold of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism among the country's majority population.
Read Less