A kitchen of my own: The process of making food as a form of self-care
As an international student living in Australia, this essay reflects my struggle to find myself, find a way to ground myself, in a long period of transition. Transitioning from one country to another, from being employed to being a full-time student, from being a citizen to an immigrant, this narrative brings forth the concept of cooking and food preparation as a quintessential component of self-care for a South Asian immigrant student. Taking an autoethnographic approach, I explore the ways in which food and food preparation affect the personal, communal, collective, and institutional elements of existence as a doctoral student. This essay grapples with the idea of imagined homelands and the creation of a safe space within alien spaces and places.
2024. Navigating Tensions and Transitions in Higher Education. (Ed by Narelle Lemon & Kay Hammond). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781032701349-19/kitchen-minoli-wijetunga
Who made the yardstick? An Oppressed critique of the comparative and the international
..the field of ‘post-colonial’ discourse has been defined in ways which can still leave out indigenous peoples, our ways of knowing and our current concerns.
Smith, 2012
There are two main ways in which comparative research is done: the yardstick comparison and the Venn comparison (Sobe, 2018). Attempting comparative research with a yardstick in hand raises the problem of who created the yardstick; answer being America or a select European country, by the virtue of resource distribution. With Venn comparison, the researcher is often located outside the circles, thus holding a position of power. Comparative learning, of course, is essential. However, in the methodological approach that is commonly seen in the field, “apples and oranges can be easily compared provided that we see them both as ‘fruit.’” (Sobe, 2018, p. 333); yet, what about the tomatoes?
2021. Current Issues in Comparative and International Education (Special Issue). https://doi.org/10.52214/cice.v23i2.8539
“Baduwa in the Sheets? Ambuwa in the Streets? Representation of the Aryan Woman in Sinhala Lyrics
From the time it was ruled by an illustrious monarchy to its contemporary avatar as a democratic socialist republic – through an extended period under colonial occupation – the island nation of Sri Lanka has always had a significant role for its women. This role has, of course, evolved over time to become what it is today—a feminist movement that is being constructed and deconstructed on a regular basis (Thiruchandran 2012). The purpose of such movements is to ensure fair and just treatment of women within society, and one of the ways in which the extent to which this objective has been fulfilled is to examine the way in which women are depicted in popular culture. Popular culture, especially, music and song, provide an apt representation of the social ideologies prevalent at any given point in time (Gurusinghe 2016). They are forms of art which reflect the norms, values, attitudes, and psyche of the majority in a culture. In an era when women’s movements are making headway by leaps and bounds, it would be intersting to explore whether the portrayal of women in popular culture elements such as songs has changed over time, in order to determine the extent to which the progressive ideologies propagated by them have seeped into common consciousness and the socio-cultural value system.
2020. Bound by Culture: Essays on Cultural Production signifying Gender. Edited by Thiruchelvan, S. Women Unlimited, India.
Dominant patriarchal ideologies in a hegemonic framework: Pedagogical practices of a Sinhala Department
Gender being a topic of discussion at a local as well as a global level, attention is being drawn to gender in the field of higher education. The University Grants Commission has established a Gender Equity/Equality Cell that investigates pedagogy and gender, while the recently conducted Self-Evaluation Report has given gender in the curriculum a place of prominence. Therefore, each Department at a University would have to adhere to these requirements, albeit subject to socio-cultural boundaries within which they operate. This paper analysed the pedagogical practices of a Department of Sinhala, a culturally hegemonic pedagogical environment, via close readings of the course descriptions and interviews with the lecturers. The Department had a spectrum of practices in terms of gender in the classroom. The cultural aspect of the teaching environment played a strong role in shaping the teaching practice. There appears to be a significant linguistic challenge in making content accessible, which hinders the curriculum. However, the lecturers showed an awareness of these challenges and have created strategies to navigate these issues. The Department of Sinhala under the study provides rich grounds to understand the areas that policymaking should take into consideration when dealing with an issue such as gender in the field of education.
2018. Nivedini Journal of Gender Studies. Women’s Education and Research Centre Sri Lanka
Sexism in ESL textbooks in Sri Lanka: A case study of the G.C.E. O/L textbooks
As per the Sapir-Whorf theory, languages determine thought. Thus, whatever the atmosphere created by a language, be it first or second, determines the outlook of the learner towards the society. Textbooks are a key factor in exposing learners to a new language, especially in Sri Lanka, where the majority of the lesson time in English is allocated for studying the textbook. It then becomes imperative that the textbooks be analysed for their use of language as textbooks are often the only mode through which learners get to view the world associated with the English language. Textbooks prescribed by the Ministry of Education for grades 9, 10 and 11 were therefore analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The purpose was to determine whether the textbooks were partial to one gender or sex and if so, understand in what way it was biased. It was identified that there are clear demarcations of sexism in the texts analysed, with the males being given a dominating, powerful and central role while females were relegated to a secondary supportive role. It was also identified that representation of female role models was inadequate and severely out of date. The findings have considerable implications in that the female students studying these texts would not only be unable to relate to the content, leading to poorer performance in studies but also in that the females would be embedded with the incorrect notion that the role of a woman is secondary. This trend could have a grave impact in terms of creating the next generation of Sri Lanka as the exposure provided to the learners does not expose them to a more gender-sensitive society.
2017. OUSL Journal. DOI: http://doi.org/10.4038/ouslj.v12i1.7373
Minoli Wijetunga 