(In)security and storytelling in Sri Lanka: negotiating safe spaces to remember, reenact and reconcile violence

Storytelling, therefore, simultaneously generates security and insecurity, a paradox I explore with the term '(in)security.' I address four aspects of (in)security - emotional, physical, economic and cultural - through ethnographic analysis of four small, grassroots non-governmental organisations (NGOs) located across the island. Connected through their mutual affiliation with the Theatre of Friendship (ToF) network, each of these NGOs has uniquely adapted a common public storytelling practice to address the specific social concerns of their local communities.

I identify the processes of securitisation through which they negotiate and facilitate safe spaces for public storytelling, highlighting how they work within hegemonic structures, as well as how they subtly resist them. By enabling individuals to narrate their past experiences and then have them re-enacted as a means of remembrance and reconciliation, these NGOs attempt to interrupt intergenerational cycles of oppression, violence and silence, and thereby establish greater security for themselves and their communities.<br><br>