Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Brokering Marriages: War, Displacement, and the Production of Futures among Jaffna Tamils

博士论文改进补助金：婚姻中介：贾夫纳泰米尔人的战争、流离失所和未来的生产

• 批准号: 0613163
• 负责人: Veena Das
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Johns Hopkins University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-01 至 2007-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0613163&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Brokering

Graduate student Sidharthan Maunaguru, supervised by Dr. Veena Das, will undertake research on the growth of marriage brokers among Christian and Hindu Tamils on the Jaffna Peninsula of Sri Lanka, as an effect of thirty years of chronic civil conflict and violence. Families are employing marriage brokers to find Jaffna wives for sons who have migrated out of Sri Lanka to escape the violence. Based on preliminary research, Maunaguru hypothesizes that families are employing the marriage brokers for two primary reasons: to assure the short term safety of their children and to provide for the continuity of inheritance and social status when the situation becomes safer and children can return. Marriages of this type have become so common that the government and foreign embassies have set up new. Thus the contemporary Jaffna marriage broker not only has to contend with traditional concerns of caste, kinship, and status, but also must know the ins and outs of bureaucratic processes and cultures, and sometimes actively assists with marriage ceremonies. The research plan calls for: (1) two months of archival work to track changes in Sri Lanka's marriage policies since independence, as well as the changing immigration and marriage policies of the places to which Jaffna Tamils have migrated; (2) four months of survey work in Jaffna, collecting information on family, genealogies, marriage patterns, and marriage activities; (3) two months of survey to map marriage broker locations; and (4) four months doing participant observation in a marriage broker's office.The research is important as a contribution to the growing social science literature on the changing role of government in citizens' everyday lives; the new roles played by kinship and marriage in the contemporary world; and the role of cultural and social brokers in hierarchical relations (with the state) and horizontal relations (bridging spatial distances). It also will help social scientists understand how people cope with the subtle effects of long-term displacement and civil strife, a situation only too common throughout the world.

研究生Sidharthan Maunaguru在Veena Das博士的指导下，将对斯里兰卡贾夫纳半岛基督徒和印度教泰米尔人之间婚姻经纪人的增长进行研究，这是三十年来长期国内冲突和暴力的影响。一些家庭雇佣婚姻中介为逃离暴力而移居斯里兰卡的儿子寻找贾夫纳妻子。根据初步的研究，Maunaguru假设，家庭雇用婚姻经纪人有两个主要原因：确保其子女的短期安全，并在情况变得更安全，儿童可以返回时提供继承和社会地位的连续性。这种类型的婚姻已经变得如此普遍，以至于政府和外国大使馆都设立了新的婚姻。因此，当代贾夫纳的婚姻经纪人不仅要与种姓、亲属关系和地位等传统问题作斗争，还必须了解官僚程序和文化的来龙外脉，有时还要积极协助婚礼。研究计划要求：(1)进行两个月的档案工作，追踪斯里兰卡自独立以来婚姻政策的变化，以及贾夫纳泰米尔人迁移到的地方移民和婚姻政策的变化；(2)在贾夫纳进行为期四个月的调查工作，收集有关家庭、家谱、婚姻模式和婚姻活动的信息；(3)进行两个月的调查，绘制婚介所地点图；(4)在婚姻中介公司做四个月的参与观察。这项研究对越来越多的关于政府在公民日常生活中角色变化的社会科学文献做出了重要贡献；亲属关系与婚姻在当代社会中的新角色以及文化和社会中介在等级关系（与国家）和水平关系（弥合空间距离）中的作用。它还将帮助社会科学家了解人们如何应对长期流离失所和内乱的微妙影响，这种情况在全世界都很常见。