Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Overcoming Hunger and Poverty as a Source of Insecurity and Conflict
Convener: Alice Kagoda, Uganda

The Dynamic of Tsunami-generated Change: Gender and Poverty in South-western Sri Lanka
Sunari Senaratne, Sri Lankan Federation of University Women

The focus of this paper is a fishing community on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka. In the last 20 years the technology of fishing, in this region, has changed dramatically through government initiatives. This community has embraced this change, and the new credit opportunities it provided and has achieved significant increases in household income.Women have played a major role in the family’s socio-economic development. They have managed the finances of the household, provided the security for loans and pursued secondary lines of income.

The tsunami destroyed the fishing fleet and with it the mode of income of this community. An immediate result was the inability to repay those loans on which the more successful fishermen had founded their enterprise. Thus, to the normal insecurities associated with a risky activity such as fishing, another element was added – debt repayment became virtually impossible. Many households were suddenly plunged into depths of poverty which they had not previously envisaged. In these new circumstances women have been forced into playing a more prominent role in the affairs of the community than in “normal” times.

Who has responded, in what way, to the post-tsunami dynamic? What challenge has this posed? In what way does this differ from the dynamic of the pre-tsunami period? These are the main issues that will be analyzed in the course of this paper

Sunari Chandrima Fernando Senaratne holds a BA Honours in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex and an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is currently Projects Coordinator of a Livelihoods Programme set up by the Coastal Fisheries and Industries Trust for implementation in a tsunami-devastated area in south-western Sri Lanka.