Graduate student, Mythri Jegathesan, under the supervision of Dr. E. Valentine Daniel, will undertake comparative research on how small minority communities persist under conditions of adversity. The research will be carried out among Hill Country Tamil tea estate workers in Sri Lanka. Hill Country Tamils comprise over three-quarters of Sri Lanka's estate workforce. Despite their economic importance, they have a history of disenfranchisement, social and legal discrimination, and institutional neglect, which makes maintenance of strong communities a challenge.
Jegathesan will focus specifically on two tea estates, one that receives support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and one that does not. Jegathesan will investigate the difference that this outside intervention, assessment, and programming makes for maintaining successful and effective community forms. She will employ a mixed-methods ethnographic apporach, conducting life history interviews, collecting accounts for event analysis, observing at rituals and other community defining events, and carrying on participant observation.
This research is important because it will help social scientists to understand how systematically and historically marginalized communities, whose livelihoods are grounded in an internationally traded commodity, are affected by outside interventions. This will contribute to more nuanced theory of globalization and development, which can be extended to other contexts. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.
