Sri Lanka Research Network. Archaeology and Heritage in the North West.

We aim to create a research network between the UK and Sri Lanka to bring together archaeology and heritage academics and professionals, new researchers and graduate students, and representatives of NGOs, CSOs, and community groups, to develop dialogues that address challenges in the relevance and application of archaeology and heritage. This network will be a platform for building a new research project, allowing cross-disciplinary opportunities to co-create research that is relevant both to academics and to wider communities in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan heritage is currently heavily oriented towards World Heritage sites of the early historic period, and a major challenge for the network is to explore ways to diversify this agenda. Of special interest to the network are heritages of the everyday and the more recent past, and finding approaches that value and privilege these in addition to the authorised heritage is a significant challenge. We believe there is space to offer different and multiple understandings of heritage in Sri Lanka, and want to use the research network to think through the value of working in the later historical period (i.e. 1200-1948) and exploring, recording and presenting heritages of everyday lives/people and places. This network is an ideal forum in which to discuss potential research themes within this framework, such as issues of contact and trade, the impact of movements and migrations, human-environment relationships and the ways these can be understood through material culture.
As well as discussing these issues within an academic context, we will use the network to build contacts beyond academia and extend the dialogue on the relevance of archaeology and heritage to a wider community. We believe this is particularly important in areas such as the Northwest of Sri Lanka (which will be the spatial focus for the Network), where post-conflict communities are working to find a sense of place and belonging. Being able to network effectively with representatives from CSOs and NGOs that work locally means that the network will benefit from their ground-based knowledge and experience which will help shape approaches to understanding how archaeology and heritage could be important for communities, and support the creation of identity. This type of networking is also an excellent opportunity for non-academic groups to learn about what we do, and draw on it where useful to support and expand their own work. A good example of this from other contexts is work in London where psychologists have found that fine arts can be hugely helpful for recent refugees suffering trauma.
The network will hold two major meetings. The first in the UK to enable Sri Lankan participants to visit and experience venues that focus on everyday heritage of the more recent past and to meet heritage practitioners, teachers and academics. The second in Sri Lanka will extend the dialogue in an open forum meeting in Colombo and also spend time in the Northwest meeting local groups, sharing experiences and exploring potential research questions.
This network will include young researchers in discussions that have the potential to shape the ways in which archaeology and heritage are practiced in Sri Lanka. The Post Graduate Institute of Archaeological Research (PGIAR) is the only PG training institution in the discipline in Sri Lanka, and so has a pivotal role in training the university lecturers and practitioners of tomorrow. With the PGIAR as a partner in this network, their students will be able to join agenda-setting discussions with their primary partner, the Sri Lankan Department of Archaeological Survey, and help co-create an archaeology and heritage project that will put new principles and research aims into practice. Sri Lankan and UK researchers and students will also be able to participate in site visits and subsequent analyses in their respective countries, and network with senior academic and non-academic colleagues.

Beyond academic beneficiaries this network will bring together representatives of CSOs, NGOs, and community groups with links and interests in the North Western Province that are concerned with helping post-conflict communities in Sri Lanka. The North Western Province was deeply involved in the lengthy internal conflict in Sri Lanka (1983-2009), with segments of the population forced to leave their homes, and other communities being forcibly re-located in the region. This has resulted in significant challenges facing local and national government; NGOs, CSOs, and community groups offer ways of implementing change, and perhaps more importantly, pathways to working with communities to determine what changes are needed.
Archaeology and heritage have great potential in post-conflict contexts in two main ways. Firstly, the practice of archaeology (e.g. excavation, field survey, finds analysis) is primarily a team exercise and acts of working together with the common purpose of finding and exploring sites, cleaning and identifying finds, can offer ways for diverse elements of communities to work together (in e.g. Northern Ireland, see Horning and Breen 2017). This type of communal project can also help people develop a sense of belonging; by working within a specific place, or landscape, links to place are developed and strengthened, and the chronological depth that is integral to archaeology can give this an historical dimension. Secondly, archaeologically informed heritage can play a role in developing a sense of identity (individual or group), as identity can also be strongly linked to place and have an historical depth. When identity has been fractured and challenged by conflict, archaeology and heritage can offer powerful tools to help re-build inclusive and multiple identities, for example work in post-conflict Brazil (Funari XXX; Lima 2016). Involvement in developing multiple interpretations of material culture, being able to identify with heritage and recognise the heritage of others can help to re-build stable and confident communities.
We are bringing CSOs, NGOs, and community groups into this research network with two main aims. The first of these is to demonstrate the potential and power of archaeology and heritage in helping post-conflict communities, and we will do this through the discussions in the Sri Lankan workshops, which will include the presentation and analysis of selected case studies. We are confident that the value of archaeological and heritage work will be recognised, and with a greater understanding of both the practices and applications of these approaches, we hope these groups will also commit to the planned research project and contribute significantly to its co-creation. The second aim is to work with these groups to find effective ways of engaging with local communities. As community engagement is envisaged as a fundamental principle, activity, and outcome of the proposed research project that will be co-created through the network, it is vital that we work out effective methods for doing this. While many archaeology and heritage projects in regions such as the UK, North America, and Australia, for example, have impressive records of community engagement and participation, this is not something that has been widely practiced or effective in South Asia. Furthermore, the mechanisms and methods for engagement often remain either highly context specific or under-reported in project literature. Ultimately, we want post-conflict communities in the North Western Province to benefit by developing a sense of place and belonging and using multiple and inclusive interpretations of the past to move beyond divisive and hierarchical historical narratives that currently prevail.