Current Publications :: Refereed Journals

The Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture (Colombo Institute) was initiated as a group in August 2004. At present Colombo Institute is led by a number of individuals with interests in different academic disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, history, visual arts, theatre, languages, archeology, cultural studies and architecture. It was previously known as the Collective for Socio Cultural Inquiry (CSCI), and was first formed in 2001, but began its operations in the latter part of 2002. Structurally, the Colombo Institute can be best described as an organization without walls but with a vision.

Ideological Positions and Mission Objectives

The Colombo Institute believes that in Sri Lanka, which has been scarred by multiple forms of political violence, nationalist and religious conflict, dismantled democratic practices and the subversion of knowledge production, one of the most visible victims has been the society’s collective frame of mind. In that context, the Colombo Institute believes that all battles that need to be undertaken to revive this society must be initially made in the minds of the people. It is in this ideological context that all their previous activities and all their proposed activities have been conceived.

The primary objectives of the Colombo Institute are:

• To create an awareness of knowledge: That is, it believes that the critical capacity of the minds of the people, particularly that of the youth needs to be expanded in order to absorb practices, trends and knowledge that are produced locally, regionally and internationally. Such an end is essential to combat the kinds of multiple parochialisms that have become endemic in many segments of society, inclusive of Institutes of knowledge production, government structures, civil society and politics in general.
• To create and promote alternative and creative approaches in thinking and action instead of the presently prevailing didactic and technical approaches to the production of knowledge or politics of social action. In this context, as a fundamental principle of operation, it places a significant emphasis on the expansion of the collective intellect of Sri Lankan youth, which has been seriously compromised over the last twenty-five years or so in the context of the deteriorating public education and the consequences of war.
• To work across geographic, ethnic, cultural and national borders in generating and disseminating knowledge and ideas. Its primary focus is the Thamil and Sinhala speaking youth and their languages. More precisely, and in principle, the Colombo Institute is committed to producing and distributing knowledge in both Thamil and Sinhala languages, and publications focused for the local audience will generally be in these two languages. In addition, for dissemination of local knowledge to international and South Asian readers will be undertaken in English.

Past and ongoing activities of Colombo Institute

Over the last two years, the Colombo Institute (as CSCI) held regular monthly gatherings in the form of discussion forums at the Sapumal Foundation in Colombo and at other alternate venues in Colombo, Kandy and Belihuloya. At these meetings, issues of popular art, politics of local art, art practices, problems in the collective imagination in the country and other such issues have been discussed in detail with an expanding group of interested youth (Similar discussions with Institute members or those affiliated with it have also been aired over national radio and published via popular print media). Most of these youth have been drawn from the universities, high schools and cultural collectives in Colombo. These discussions have been mediated by the members of the Institute while ensuring that the young individuals interested in issues of culture and its politics are given a chance to form new ideas, debate with issues in an environment receptive to new ideas, and in general open their minds to new kinds of thinking in a society increasingly becoming parochial in many areas of cultural and knowledge production.

A major activity of Colombo Institute is publication of sustained knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. Colombo Institute’s publication program for creative writing is organized under the Yellow House Publications Program.

Rationale for Colombo Institute activities

To encourage socio-cultural knowledge production in the country, Colombo Institute believes that it is necessary to focus on three inter-related levels of activity simultaneously:

• The first is the university level where a certain degree of intellectual maturity is expected, and therefore more advanced theoretical and analytical scholarship and intervention is possible. It is at this level that the aforementioned journals are primarily directed.
• The second is the high school level whereby the provision of a strong and multi-disciplinary foundation in socio-cultural awareness, more versatile future scholarship and more creative citizenship is encouraged.
• The third is to connect with the general public to create a public interest for new ideas as well as to set the foundations for a more democratic and realistic understanding of Sri Lanka’s socio-cultural mosaic and traditions instead of the parochial and ethno-religiously based hegemonic understandings that hold sway today.

These are the levels at which the activities and interventions of Colombo Institute are focused.

Publication Information