Discursive Socio-cultural Identity: A Study of Cultural Discourse Trajectories in Shaping the Socio-Cultural Identity of Veddas in Sri Lanka

Abstract

It is a globally accepted phenomenon that different ethnic, racial and religious groups form abstract social strata in all the societies in the world. The differences in social strata are seen through different lenses such as ethnocentrism, xenocentrism, cultural relativism, etc. Though human civilization has kept less weight on ethnicity, especially with the expansion of liberal ideology in the 20th century, the class distinction is getting thicker day by day due to the unequal distribution of global capital. As class is an achieved status, the racial notion of cultural identity creates a parallel stratum based on the ethnic identity with a hierarchy in the vertical social strata. This compels the high-level racial notion in the parallel strata to look at out-groups through an ethnocentric lens. The Vedda people in Sri Lanka were considered as a distinct ethnic group until 1971- But thereafter they have not been identified as so. Once the distinct cultural identity is diluted, the identity becomes discursive. As society transforms within the modernization process, cultural discourses help shape the cultural identities owing to cultural lag or cultural lead. The shaping of the cultural identity of Vedda people in Sri Lanka is not owing to the gradual transformation of their culture but a creation to cater the western interests. Consequently, the Vedda peoples’ cultural identity has been hyper-realized with ‘savage’ & ‘barbaric’ notions. Nevertheless, some cultural discourses claim a ‘noble barbaric’ notion. However, the ‘savage’ and ‘barbaric’ notions have 82 overshadowed the “noble barbaric’ notion, thus creating an inferior cultural identity for the Vedda people. The purpose of this documentary research was to explore whether the perceptions created by the cultural discourses have made the socio-cultural identity of Vedda people discursive. The objective of this study is to understand how the discourses created can shape the small groups’ socio-cultural identities. This paper is based on secondary sources of data and the data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis method. The themes infer that Vedda people in Sri Lanka are entrenched in a hyperrealistsc hybrid cultural identity as a result of discursive links descried in cultural discourses.