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• I am conducting a long-term study on how Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India take their place and deal with space. • This paper examines the stages between refugeehood and citizenship. • The results suggest that refugeehood is about complex day-to-day living practices that shape identities. • The refugee camp is more than a humanitarian space of assistance, more than a space of exception and biopolitical control. This article looks at subjectivities and regimes of homing from a position of liminality and questions the placements dynamics displayed by Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu, India. Based on long-term and longitudinal fieldwork conducted in Keezhputhupattu refugee camp near Pondicherry between 2010 and 2023, this study analyses the experience of the refugees, which combines a "know-how" that they have developed due to a life in exile since 1983, which is linked, among other things, to a sometimes well-developed diasporic network; and a restrictive agency that has been granted to them by the Indian and Tamil Nadu authorities, which places them in a regime that is intended to be exceptional. The results of the study are significant and show how families spanning three generations may reproduce their new normalcy and negotiate their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at citizenship from a position of liminality – that of Sri Lankan Tamils in India. It is based on fieldwork conducted with different groups of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and repatriates in and around Keezhputhupattu camp (Tamil Nadu), in Ceylon Quarter (Pondicherry) and in Chennai. No matter what their legal status is, they all position themselves on the refugee-citizen spectrum and, by doing so, they find themselves standing in-between its two opposed poles. From there they build their political subjectivities by negotiating, appropriating and sometimes rejecting Indian citizenship and Sri Lankan refugeehood. It is through their relationship to this position of in-betweenness that, we argue, citizenship, but also refugeehood, acquire new meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee men face unique mental health stressors in the pre- and post-migratory periods. However, there has been little in-depth research on the mental health of refugee men in Canada. Given this situation, the overall aim of this study is to explore the psycho-social experience of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee men in Canada. Particular objectives include better understanding any inter-relationship between war-trauma, migration, concepts of masculinity and mental health. The study employed a two-phase participatory action research design based on the grounded theory approach. Phase 1 involved an 8-month ethnography conducted in Sri Lanka. Phase 2 consisted of qualitative interviews with 33 Sri Lankan Tamil refugee men living in Canada. Consistent with grounded theory, analysis was conducted inductively and iteratively. Four specific themes emerged from the data (i) gendered helplessness of war: participants commonly reported ongoing negative rumination regarding experiences where they were unable to adequately protect loved ones from physical suffering or death; (ii) reduced capacity: participants frequently felt unable to fulfill culturally sanctioned duties, such as supporting their family, due to ongoing pre- and post-migratory stress; (iii) redundancy: many participants felt that they were useless in Canada, as they could not fulfill typical masculine social roles (e.g. provider) due to factors such as unemployment and underemployment; (iv) intimate criticism: some participants reported that their spouses would often attempt to 'shame' them into greater achievement by constantly reminding them of their 'failures'. Many found this distressing. These various failures culminated in a state that we label "depleted masculinity", which participants linked to emotional and behavioural problems. Participants reported that they actively tried to rebuild their masculine identity, for example by adopting leadership roles in community organizations, which fostered resiliency. Results suggest a need to review and rebuild masculine identity to support the mental health of refugee men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to examine whether post-migration stressors mediate the relationship between pre-migration trauma and refugee psychological distress, regardless of host country status. Sri Lankan refugees living in Canada and India (n=83) were surveyed using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, the Post-Migration Living Difficulties Checklist, and the Symptoms Check List. Results indicate that the relationship between pre-migration trauma and psychological distress was partially mediated by post-migration stressors (b=1.03, 95% BCa CI (.18 2.5) and increased variance explained from 15.4% to 19.9% when included in the final model, while controlling for host country. The direct relationship between pre-migration trauma and psychological distress reduced, but remained significant (b=3.30, 95% BCa CI (.64, 5.95)). Implication for practice is that the failure to include post-migration stressors in explanatory models of distress will overestimate the predictive power of war exposure, and will overlook variance in refugee distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text and photo essay concerns a series of portraits made with a community of Tamil refugees living in Bangkok who refer to themselves as 'the Bachelors.' The project was initiated by refugee and one-time media figure, Sanjeev 'Alex' Kuhendrarajah who hoped his peers would tell their own stories to an 'international community.' With reference to Judith Butler's Frames of War (2009), I have sought to 'discursively frame' the images by considering the discrimination these young single men encounter living in the margins of this South Asian metropolis, awaiting the outcomes of their re-settlement applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India are being expected to repatriate to their home country. Although voluntary repatriation has long been seen as the most effective and durable response to forced displacement, it can only be carried out by obtaining informed consent from refugees. This study examined Sri Lankan Tamil refugees' readiness, support, concerns, resources, and strategies for repatriation. We found that participants were appreciative of the Indian Government's support, but the Sri Lankan Government's lack of a concrete repatriation plan was concerning. Lack of resources and infrastructure development, and lack of interventions to address intergenerational conflict are the main repatriation challenges identified by participants. Study implications for policy, practice, and research are also discussed. The study recommends an enhanced effort to restore the trust between State and citizens which is vital for a successful implementation of repatriation to Sri Lanka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which focuses on the narrative demands made via the Personal Information Form (PIF) on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who arrived in Canada between 1983 and 2009, at the height of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka. The aim is to draw attention to the ways in which it reinstated the refugee as a minoritized subject. It then discusses Shyam Selvadurai's novel "The Hungry Ghosts to explore the ways in which it can serve as a critical intervention in the hearing process.

The article looks at media coverage of a group of Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) refugees who arrived in Canada in 2010 on the MV Sun Sea. Particular focus is given to gendered and racialized discourses of care and identity used in media discussions of the refugees. According to the author, popular and state discourses surrounding the refugee children constructed and reinforced hegemonic notions of women as natural caregivers. Canadian nation-building is also discussed.

The article attempts to portray the traumatic outcome of the Sri Lankan Civil War that led to killings, human rights violations and mass assaults on many Ceylon Tamils by Sinhalese mobs resulting in huge civilian casualties. Consequently, there was a large exodus of Sri Lankan Tamils to other parts of the world, particularly the West which offered an asylum for persecuted Tamil refugees. Against this backdrop of escalating political tensions, Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy narrates a boy's evolution from the innocent games of childhood to sexual awakening in a country that is intolerant towards any deviation from the accepted mode of sexual orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees are often one of the most economically and socially excluded groups in host countries. The policy of integration attempts to address different elements of exclusion, yet relatively little research has considered what integration means to the refugees themselves. This paper explores one key area for supporting integration: employment. Understandings of integration are advanced by exploring how a group of twenty-six Tamil refugees and nineteen people who worked with refugees in the UK perceived an underlying rhetoric of anticipated gratitude within the policies around refugees. These perspectives are theorised within a framework of hospitality. The participants believed that refugees were expected to be grateful to the host society, and subsequently felt a debt for what the host society had given them: safety and education. However, they also identified frustration towards the host society where they felt marginalised or discrimination. It is possible to analyse employment as both an opportunity to give back, and something for which to be grateful. However, gratitude may not necessarily be felt towards the host society. If employment is found through the ethnic community, gratitude is likely to be concentrated there, rather than in the wider society. For the refugee participants in this research, asylum is a debt which can rarely be fully repaid, leaving them to seek acceptance and respect beyond the tolerance they are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the case of Tamil refugee "Alex" and the interpretation of his story by Australian journalists as of 2009. Special attention is paid to the attempt of Australian journalists Stephen Fitzpatrick and Tom Allard to portray the identity of the Tamil boy, described by the author as "failure." An instance of refugees rescued by a boat of shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen as of 2012 is addressed as well.

In this article the author discusses the bill titled "The Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act," which was introduced to the Canadian Parliament on October 15, 2011. He describes the systemic discrimination, harassment, and persecution of minority Tamils in Sri Lanka after the country's civil war ended in May 2009. He also calls for the withdrawal of the bill.

The immigration of Tamil refugees to the Netherlands resulted in a press `panic' which indicated the existence of a dominant consensus hostile to the Tamil `invasion'. A semantic analysis of the discourse of newspaper stories exposes this underlying consensus. Attention is focused on the reporting of Tamil immigration in five Dutch national dailies. The article examines the ways in which the press, using its own institutional and ideological strategies, also reproduces, and thus legitimizes, the views of those in the social and political power structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a response to an article which criticizes the Canadian bill titled "The Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act." It argues against the claim that minority Tamils in Sri Lanka continue to be subject to systemic discrimination, harassment and persecution. It also discusses the relevance of the bill.

El artículo discute la experiencia de ayuda de la comunidad de refugiados tamiles de Sri Lanka en el estado de Tamil Nadu en la India durante el tsunami de 2004. La autora ofrece una revisión de la historia de la diáspora Tamil, su asentamiento en el estado de Tamil Nadu y la movilización comunitaria de ayuda a los refugiados del tsunami.