On November 6, 2023, Mohamed Munas, working at the CEPA The Centre for Poverty Analysis, a Sri Lankan think-tank promoting a better understanding of poverty-related development issues, successfully defended his PhD thesis on “Reconnections”: Complexities of diaspora engagement in post-war Sri Lanka. If you click on the cover of his thesis you can download the full text.
During the civil war in Sri Lanka, many people left the country but supported and kept in close contact with their former communities, which sometimes represented a certain side of the conflict. After peace returned to the country, these relationships changed. Sometimes redirecting the support to other or less distinct communities and sometimes also reproducing breaks and divisions, both in the diaspora- as well as in the ‘home’ communities. This sparked the main research question of this PhD thesis: How does collective diasporic transnationalism influence the sustainability and stability of the recovery process in post-war Sri Lanka?
This research views diasporic transnational practices as a large social phenomenon and situates them in a broader practice theory framework, especially within the Schatzkian concept of site ontology, to understand the multi-sited transnational diaspora activity and the social connections between different sites of performance. This research contributes to both policy and academic discourses on spatial and temporal elements of diaspora engagement in post-war societies. The affection and belongingness that diasporas possess with communities in places of origin led to complex forms of interactions at multiple sites and also questioned and developed further the concept of diasporic communities. The research finds that transnational diaspora engagement practices are bundled with wider social, and contextual dynamics at play linked to multiple sites evaluated. They therefore contribute to multi-sited and transnational processes of ‘placemaking’.
Mohamed Munas was challenged by the opponents during the defence, but very sovereignly responded to, and in some cases also thoroughly deconstructed the questions posed. A great defence and a well-deserved degree.
Below, you get an impression of the typical PhD Defence procedures at Radboud University.
