Kumari Jayawardena


Kumari Jayawardena is a Sri Lankan feminist activist and academic. Her work is part of the canon of Third-world feminism which conceptualizes feminist philosophies as indigenous and unique to non-Western societies and nations rather than offshoots of Western feminism. She has taught at the University of Colombo and the International Institute of Social Studies.
In the 1980s Jayawardena published Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, which has become a classic work on non-Western women's movements. She has published other books including The White Woman's Other Burden and written many articles. She founded the Social Scientists' Association in the 1970s and plays an active role in Sri Lankan civil rights movements.

Early life

Jayawardena was born in Colombo in 1931, to a Sinhala father and a British mother, Eleanor Hutton. Her father, Agampodi Torontal Paulus de Zoysa, popularly known as A. P. de Zoysa, was a prominent social reformer and academic of Sri Lanka. She studied at the Ladies' College in Colombo and took a BA in Economics at the London School of Economics between 1952 and 1955. She was awarded the Certificat d'Etudes Politiques from the Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris in 1956. Having qualified as a barrister in 1958, she received a PhD from LSE in 1964 for her thesis on industrial relations.

Career

From 1969 until 1985, Jayawardena taught political science at the University of Colombo. She also taught a course on women and development as a visiting scholar at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. In the 1980s, as she travelled between Brussels and The Hague Jayawardena wrote what would become Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. It is a guide to women's movements in China, Egypt, Iran, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Vietnam.
Jayawardena wanted to address the "gap about our part of the world" and felt that in order to "discuss the knowledge and status of women today, it is important to know what they have gained and how." The book was selected for the Feminist Fortnight award in the United Kingdom in 1986. Ms. Magazine called it one of the twenty most important books of the feminist decades in 1992. This book is now regarded as a classic introduction to feminist movements and is widely used in Women's Studies programs around the world. Thirty years after its original publication, it was reissued by Verso Books.
The White Woman's Other Burden, published in 1995, analyzes the actions of white women who challenged the gender roles set by the British occupation of South Asia. Jayawardena specifically looks at the work of Annie Besant, Helena Blavatsky, Katherine Mayo, Mirra Richard and Madeleine Slade.
Jayawardena plays an active role in women's research organizations and civil rights movements in Sri Lanka. She founded the Social Scientists' Association in the 1970s and was still involved with it at the age of 85. It is a group of concerned scholars working on ethnic, gender and caste.

Selected works

Books

The Rise of the Labor Movement in Ceylon North Carolina: Duke University PressFeminism and Nationalism in the Third World London: Zed BooksThe White Woman's Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule New York: RoutledgeEmbodied Violence Communalising Women's Sexuality in South Asia London: Zed BooksFrom Nobodies to Somebodies: The Rise of the Bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka Colombo: Social Scientists' AssociationEthnic and Class Conflict in Sri Lanka: The Emergence of Sinhala-Buddhist Consciousness 1883-1983 Sri Lanka: Sanjiva BooksErasure of the Euro-Asian Colombo: Social Scientists' Association

Articles

  • "Annie Besant's Many Lives" in Frontline.
  • "The Women's Movement in Sri Lanka 1985-1995, A Glance Back Over Ten Years".
  • "Sinhala Buddhism and the 'Daughters of the Soil'" in Pravda 1.
  • "Some Thoughts on the Left and the 'Woman Question' in South Asia" in Promissory Notes S. Kruks, R. Rapp and M. Young..
  • "The National Question and the Left Movement in Sri Lanka" in Facets of Ethnicity C. Abeysekera and N. Gunasinghe..
  • "Feminist Consciousness in the Decade 1975-85" in UN Decades for Women—Progress and Achievements of Women in Sri Lanka.
  • "Bhikkus in Revolt" in Lanka Guardian.
  • "The Origins of the Left Movement in Sri Lanka" in Modern Ceylon Studies 2 : 195-221.
  • "Economic and Political Factors in the 1915 Riots" in Journal of Asian Studies 29.
  • "Pioneer Rebels among the Colombo Working Class" in Young Socialist.