Book Description

'The Fuglerud study is a prototype for any anthropologist or political scientist working on a politicised-radicalised Diaspora.' Ethnic Conflict Research Digest'This book about a recent immigrant group (Sri Lankan Tamils) in a European liberal democracy (Norway) is paradigmatic for how the anthropology of a displaced population ought to be done anywhere in the western world. ... Based on extensive field research in Norway and brief but insightful research in Sri Lanka, Life on the Outside is an elegant and effective blend of theory and ethnography. One of the very best in refugee studies to date.' E. Valentine Daniel, Columbia UniversityThis study of the Tamil diaspora is one of the first full ethnographic studies of a post-colonial migrant community, and a major contribution to the study of migration, globalisation, identity politics and 'long distance' nationalism from an anthropological perspective.Fuglerud's study traces the history of Tamil migration, from the arrival of the economic migrants of the 1960s to the 'asylum seekers' of the mid 1980s onwards. He draws unnerving parallels between the status of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, as a beleaguered and persecuted minority waging a war of liberation, and as a displaced, marginalised and excluded refugee community.Fuglerud argues that, in the process of displacement, particular aspects of Tamil culture - marriage, dowry, chastity and ritual - acquire a heightened significance. He examines the contradictions and inconsistencies which characterise the Tamil refugee communities, and the success of revolutionary Tamil nationalism in exile, highlighting the transnational nature of identity politics.