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• The Transformation of Veddha Identity into a Modern Myth in Sri Lanka

  91-100

  Lakni Prasanjali Kumarasiri

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  This article examines how the ethnic identity of the Veddha community in Sri Lanka has been transformed into a modern myth through dominant practices of representation. Based on Eriksen’s understanding of ethnic identity as dynamic and socially constructed and Barthes’s theory of modern mythology, the present study argues that Veddha identity is not inherently primitive or static but is actively reshaped through cultural, political, and symbolic processes. Tourism, media, and political discourse continue to portray the Veddha community as timeless forest dwellers belonging to the past, although they are integrated into the modern Sri Lankan society where they have access to formal education, wage labor, and everyday use of modern technologies. The article utilizes qualitative insights from fieldwork and textual analysis to show how political discourse uses Veddha identity as national heritage.  This hides the effects of development, conservation, and land dispossession. Similarly, media narratives depoliticize cultural change by framing it as a natural disappearance. Tourism promotes the staged performance and commercialization of specific cultural practices. These processes simplify history, erase power relations, and naturalize inequality. The article concludes that the Veddhas have become a modern myth not because of their lived realities, but because of how they are represented. It highlights the need to recognize them as a living ethnic community with agency, rights, and an ongoing place in contemporary Sri Lankan society.