Doctoral Dissertation Research: Opening Humanitarian Space in Sri Lanka

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

Although not widely publicized in the United States, children have been used in a variety of ways by protagonists in a broad range of armed conflicts around the world. In some cases, they have been trained to carry arms and engage in fighting. In other settings, they have been used to help supply and support armed troops, or they have been used as buffers to provide protection for military units. Furthermore, even if not directly involved in the fighting, children have been adversely affected by conflicts, as schools often cease to function and health risks increase dramatically. To address these problems, the United Nations and many other organizations have tried to implement policies and take actions that will reduce the risks of armed conflict to children. The doctoral dissertation research improvement project will investigate relationships between the category of childhood and the production of humanitarian space during the Sri Lankan civil war. Six humanitarian cease-fires established between 1995 and 2000 and an anticipated seventh cease-fire scheduled for September and October 2001 will be analyzed. This study will examine the specific qualities associated with children and childhood in the production of humanitarian space as well as the role of children in opening and stabilizing space in the violently contested territory of Sri Lanka. Using a variety of ethnographic techniques, such as participant observation, semi-structured interview, and document compilation, an archive will be constructed that includes a chronicle of events and sites related to the cease-fires, the identification of key actors, organizational interrelationships and decision-making structures, and an inventory of relevant policy texts. Analyses of this archive will include the identification and comparison of "geographs" (geopolitical descriptions involving children, policy strategies and events affecting the cease-fires) and consideration of how cease-fire policy is related to the specific case of contested territory in Sri Lanka. This research will contribute to the growing literature on state sovereignty and the continued interrogation of state-centric concepts found within political geographic and international relations discourses. By examining the political significance of conceptions of children in modern life and a spatial analysis of the child's role in geopolitical events, this project will contribute to scholarship on children and geography, and it will enhance understandings of children in cross-cultural perspective. The project will provide original material on the initial aspects of the construction of humanitarian space, particularly as a space of diverse organizational interrelations and the goals set by individual actors and in combination. The database established through this project will provide a basis from which to theorize about humanitarian space and address debates involving sovereignty and humanitarian actions, transnational relations, and complex emergencies from both a geographic and an international relations perspective. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.