Competitive sacralization and the remaking of public space in Sri Lanka (2000–2025)

Abstract

This study examines why, between 2000 and 2025, religious spaces in Sri Lanka have become increasingly prominent and visibly differentiated across the four major religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, and how this trend interacts with secular spaces and intergroup relations. Using process tracing, this study reconstructs a causal sequence linking colonial administrative categorisation and missionary spatial projects to post-independence constitutional privileging of Buddhism, to post-war (post-2009) territorial-symbolic competition, and finally to post-2019 security anxieties. It conceptualises a “competitive sacralisation spiral”, a feedback loop in which religious groups, responding to perceived insecurity and bounded opportunity structures (legal, political, and media), intensify identity signalling via architecture, soundscapes, festivals, and strategic siting (mountaintops, high grounds, skylines). This spiral is reinforced by state-led heritage regimes (notably archaeology-led heritage claims), differential registration rules, and post-conflict land politics that empower majority symbols while constraining minority expansion, thereby encouraging even more conspicuous religious visibility. By integrating primary sources (policy reports, legal updates, human-rights monitoring) and secondary scholarship (religion-space studies; Sri Lanka’s colonial and postcolonial identity formation), The study demonstrates (1) clearer demarcations between religious and secular spaces and between religions have intensified; (2) the number and scale of religious sites and festivals have increased in ways that map onto political competition; and (3) contemporary “social cohesion” initiatives often fail to engage the entanglement of religion, ethnicity, education, and territorial administration, and thus underestimate spatial-symbolic drivers of tension. Even if more general discourses assert continuous secularisation, Sri Lankan religious places have grown louder, bigger, and more strategically oriented beacons of religious identity. Furthermore, the majority of the research’s sources are publicly available, which may not fully capture each party’s unique objectives. Spatial reconciliation is necessary for a lasting peace. Therefore, important suggestions include establishing clear, community-negotiated rules for religious soundscapes and processions, ensuring equitable and transparent land and registration procedures for all religious communities, depoliticising heritage governance through independent, multiethnic oversight, and changing educational curricula to prioritise a history of interaction rather than division.