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Sri Lankan Tamil refugees (SLTRs) have lived in the United Kingdom in substantial numbers for about three decades. However, they remain under‐represented in academic and public discourse, and little is known about their migration experiences. This study examined first‐hand accounts of such experiences, with special attention paid to identity and acculturation. Data were collected through four semi‐structured interviews and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results suggest that SLTRs' experience of conflict as an imposed life disruption continues to shape their adaptation, identity, and meaning‐making ("Afflicted life"). Changing social identities mediate protection from, as well as risk of, trauma. SLTRs try to remedy the socio‐economic and emotional losses suffered in the conflict, but achieve only a partial compensation. Consequently their repair efforts are a source not only of positive emotions but also of dissatisfaction ("Living past"). Finally, participants' sense of belonging and quest for home represent a challenging socio‐emotional process in which they continue to engage even decades after migration ("Continuing quest for home"). This nuanced analysis of how the past continues to shape lived experience, contributes to the under‐developed literature on qualitative psychological investigations of acculturation, research on forced migration, and the establishment of IPA in social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which focuses on the narrative demands made via the Personal Information Form (PIF) on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who arrived in Canada between 1983 and 2009, at the height of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka. The aim is to draw attention to the ways in which it reinstated the refugee as a minoritized subject. It then discusses Shyam Selvadurai's novel "The Hungry Ghosts to explore the ways in which it can serve as a critical intervention in the hearing process.

This article explains the impact of substate nationalism on the political dynamic surrounding ethnic kin migration through a case study of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Examples drawn from the migration studies literature identify ethnic kinship between refugees and host as an indicator of favorable reception and assistance. While this expectation is borne out to an extent in the Tamil Nadu case, it is tempered by a period of hostility following the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber, when the refugees were figured as a disruptive and dangerous presence by Tamil Nadu's political elites. A version of the “triadic nexus” model of kin state relations, reconfigured to accommodate the larger political unit within which the substate nationalism is incorporated, is proposed as a framework of analysis for these events. This can better account for Tamil Nadu's substate ethnonationalist elite's movement between expressions of coethnic solidarity with the refugees and the more hostile, security-focused response postassassination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay answers the call for intersectional examinations of difference constitution/negotiation. I outline a dialogic framework of difference, actively accomplished via communication in conjunction with material conditions of object, site and body. The essay draws from an ethnography with Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. It finds that the refugees use dialogic domains of segregation-assimilation, safety-risk, and agency-passivity to make sense of their tenuous social position as outsiders within. The project adds to our understanding of difference as multi-layered, simultaneously straddling agency/structure, and discourse/materiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To explore the salience of pre- and postmigration stresses as risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to identify resilience factors and explore their mental health salience. Methods: We conducted a mental health survey of 1603 Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto, incorporating the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview for PTSD. Results: According to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, criteria, lifetime prevalence for PTSD was 12%; according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria it was 5.8%. Female sex and the number of stresses of passage increased the probability of PTSD, whereas satisfaction with life and the availability of nonfamily social relations reduced it. Conclusions: Consideration of pre- and postmigration stresses of passage and of the nature of resilience contributes to an improved understanding of PTSD among refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En su determinación por tomar el control de un futuro incierto, los refugiados de Sri Lanka que viven en los campamentos de Tamil Nadu, India, le han dado prioridad a la educación. La historia de cómo lo hicieron, y el papel crucial del gobierno de acogida para apoyarlos, pueden inspirar a otras comunidades de refugiados que esperan en la incertidumbre una solución duradera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the humanitarian group known as the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation is promoting the use of solar energy in refugee camps located within the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The aim of this project is to encourage Sri Lankan refugees to return to their homeland with not only knowledge of solar technology but also a commitment to using renewable energy sources. The organisation is working to install solar lights in communal places, provide hand-held lanterns for women and children, and increase awareness of environmental issues.

The article presents the views of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu, India. The focus of the article is a one-month long research project in which refugees from three waves of forced migration were interviewed, including groups from 1984, 1990, and 2006. Topics include an overview of the results of the study and how they challenge the assumptions that the promotion of repatriation is the most desirable and durable solution to protracted displacement. Also presented is a discussion on how the length of time in refugee camps changed some individuals' expectations regarding repatriation and quotes from some of the refugees, including individuals born in exile.