Sasanka Perera

Sasanka Perera is trained as a cultural anthropologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara; at present he is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. His main interest is in contemporary social theory with an emphasis on the idea of culture and its politics. More specifically, his research interests include politics of education in multi-ethnic societies, rhetoric of 'development', politicization of religion, and politics of space with an emphasis on urban space.

He is the Chief Editor of the Sinhala language journal 'Patitha' and the 'South Asia Journal for Culture'. and also serve on the editorial board of the Tamil language journal, 'Panuwal'. He has been columnist for the Colombo based daily, the 'Island' and the Katmandu based magazine 'Himal South Asia'. He has written and published both in Sri Lanka and internationally in the English and Sinhala languages while some of his writings have also been published in Tamil, Japanese and Spanish.

Among his recent publications in English are the following: ‘Gated Communities as Packaged Fantasies: A Meeting of the Local and the Global and the Standardization of Taste’ (New Delhi, 2011), ‘Remembering and Contested Patriotism: Embodied Practices of the Sri Lankan Nation State (New Delhi, 2010), 'Alternate Space: Trivial Writings of an Academic' (Colombo, 2005), 'Sri Lankan Education System as a Reflection of Society’s Ruptures: A Conceptual and Theoretical Exploration' (Colombo, 2004), 'Spirit Possessions and Avenging Ghosts: Stories of Supernatural Activity as Narratives of Terror and Mechanisms of Coping and Remembering' (Berkeley, 2001), 'Stories of Survivors: The Socio-Political Contexts of Female Headed Households in Post Terror Southern Sri Lanka' (Delhi, 1999), 'The World According to Me: An Interpretation of the Mundane, the Ordinary and the Common' (Colombo, 1999), 'New Evangelical Movements and Conflict in South Asia: Sri Lanka and Nepal in Perspective' (Colombo, 1998).

In his spare time, he writes poetry and engages in photography.