Impact of Tourism on the Lifestyle of the Kaffir Community in Sirambiadiya Village

Abstract

Sri Lankan culture has been a major attraction to the tourists who visit Sri Lanka. Sometimes, culture is also the main identity of a community. Ceylon Kaffir community is also a group of people with a unique cultural heritage and an identity. They are a modern-day community who are descending from the African people brought by the Portuguese. Today most of these Kaffir live in Sirambiadiya village. Among the heritage values they were endowed from their homeland, art is the only legacy that is remaining today. Today, many tourists visit here to experience the Kaffir culture in their village based on the Ceylon African Manja Group. Similar to how other cultural contexts were approached, tourist industry approached the Ceylon Kaffir culture as well, some time ago and was an influence in changing their lifestyles. The purpose of this research is to study how tourism affected their lifestyle. A qualitative research design was used to advance this research study. The data were gathered through interviews with Seven Ceylon kaffir people in Sirambiadiya, using the convenient sampling techniques. These data were then categorized under four parental themes. Those themes were life before tourism, involvement in tourism, life with tourism, and tourism in Sirambiadiya. Those themes were identified using a thematic analysis. Findings show that their past lives were difficult in comparison to what they are today and that they used their art to temporarily escape from their oppressive lives. Although many of them were employed in the government sector, in the past, they have been persecuted on many occasions due to past life story related to slavery. They turned to the tourism industry to preserve their traditional art. In doing so, the communities have been advised and guided by tourism experts. Their communities have had different opinions about tourism at the beginning. Although their art has been a tourist attraction, they have had issues about controlling tourist arrivals and inequality of the income distribution. However, with tourism they exposed their culture to outside and they could build new positive relationships with other cultures as they happily interacted with tourists. They all have ideas to develop the tourism in Sirambiadiya but there is lack of assurance as to whether the new generation will continue to engage in tourism. According to the results, tourism has affected positively as well as negatively over the lifestyle of the Kaffir community. The finding of this study can be applied to develop tourism in Sirambiadiya village while protecting the Ceylon Kaffir tradition by addressing the problems and issues faced by the community.