Will Brehm  0:00
Suren Ladd, welcome to FreshEd.

Suren Ladd  0:51
Will, thank you so much for having me today.

Will Brehm  0:53
So, for listeners who may not know too much about Sri Lanka, can you start by just sort of explaining the ongoing tension and some of the conflict that has existed in the country since its independence from British rule in 1948?

Suren Ladd  1:10
I believe a lot of our history in terms of tension and problems started from there. Sri Lanka had come back out of being a colony for about 400 years, from the Dutch, Portuguese, and finally the English. And at that time, we had a majority of, I guess, different ethnicities and diversities within the island in terms of religious diversity, etc. The majority is what is called Sinhalese ethnicity and for the minorities, we have Tamils, Muslims, Christians, as well. But since the independence period, the Sinhalese majority, which I guess took over the running of the country or governance of the country started enacting various -for political reasons, mainly to get into power and stay in power, different political parties with a nationalist kind of bent- started enacting policies in health, in education, and a variety of other matters. One of the standout policies was connecting a Sinhala only language policy. Now, Sinhalese is the majority language spoken by the Sinhala community. And this was in 1956, where largely overnight, all government institutions, health, education, various agencies that help the people started to do their business or their kind of operations in Sinhalese. And that gave a very limited time, or any kind of opportunity for ethnic minorities to be a part of the equation. So, that created grievances and lots of tensions, where a lot of minority politicians tried to get equal rights under the newer constitutions that were being made. So, that was not the only trigger, but the whole narrative of where the majority Sinhalese, Buddhist community tried to have dominance within the country, and still continue to do so. But that started this tension. And the various attempts by minorities to gain some sort of recognition were kind of knocked down. But I’m happy to share more as we sort of go along.

Will Brehm  3:22
It’s quite interesting to think about the sort of lingua franca of a nation changing overnight or being set overnight, because obviously, it would exclude quite a lot of people who might not speak that language. So, you said in the 50s, when that policy came in, did a lot of the ethnic minorities, not speak Sinhalese even as a second language? Or was it quite a common language that people were speaking?

Suren Ladd  3:45
So, at that time, English was the dominant language in terms of schooling and, I guess, the official government apparatus as a legacy of British rule. But Sinhalese, yes, was widely spoken in different parts of the country. In a Buddhist majority form about probably 70-75% in consecutive sentences. But the unique thing is that minorities trying to survive, trying to be able to conduct their business and have quote unquote, normal living had to learn Singhalese in terms of maybe not in formal schooling, but you find a minority, having large fluency in all the three languages being Sinhala, Tamil, which is our second official language, and English. For example, the majority of Muslim population were ethnic Tamil, and then they later converted a lot of them for various reasons. But most of them, I wouldn’t say all of them, but we can understand the language. So, the minorities have, from their point of view, the need to live and exist in that country, largely tried to understand Sinhala and speak Sinhala to some degree. But on the flip side, a Sinhala majority, no politician or no government agency invested in actually making Tamil or English accessible. So, the Sinhalese nationalism drive kind of didn’t allow them to reciprocate in terms of the minorities being able to learn and survive in Sinhalese.

Will Brehm  4:34
And today, are there disparities and sort of inequalities across the different ethnic groups. The minority groups, are they oppressed in certain ways and disadvantaged in certain ways in society?

Suren Ladd  5:38
The short answer is, yes. I believe the tensions that started in the 1950s, which ultimately led to the civil conflict in the mid 80’s, which then brutally ended in mid-2009, did never really address these historical kinds of grievances or any legacy. And ever since the war ended, in the post-conflict phase, which is almost 15 years now, none of them have been addressed, apart from just some cursory attempts to appease the international agencies from scrutiny or just playing sort of lip service. So, these legacies were never really addressed. Now, when we take an example of to say, one of these forms of oppression; during the conflict, there was this government law, which was called the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which basically enables the government to hold a suspected terrorist, or someone who might be against the government, for unlimited periods of time without any kind of judicial oversight. And some people have been there for like 25-30 years. So, this kind of reduced dissent, but also, if people in parties had at the local level grievances, they can go and report someone to the police station, and then that person would be taken away, and then might not see the person for a long time. If they are in a prison, that’s a positive outcome in the sense that their lives are not kind of being ended extrajudicially. So, there’s a lot of these kinds of conflicts, I’d say oppressions that are more serving the purpose of the government. And as time has progressed, ever since the conflict has ended, they have used it, refined it, used it more. For example, in Sri Lanka we recently had an economic crisis there in the last 12 months or so. So, at that time, there was a lot of protests, and people were out in the streets. So, every community felt the results of that specific law, where a lot of people from all communities were taken. So, it’s now permeating to the entire population. But still specific communities like the Tamil community, and some Muslim individuals as well have been taken without any kind of judicial recourse.

Will Brehm  7:57
Wow! So, even though conflict is sort of technically over, you said, 2008-2009, it still sort of continues all the way to the present. And in a way, what you’re sort of saying is that different ethnic minorities have sort of found common ground because of that law of extrajudicial capture let’s say.

Suren Ladd  8:18
Yes. That’s definitely one way to accurately point that out. And I think there are other laws as well. Obviously, with the last sort of 10 years with the emergence of social media and where social media, spaces were limited for protests, or dissent, or voicing anyone’s opinion. Social media has become kind of a catalyst for various groups to express their opinion. But even that space, newspapers can get shut down. If a person makes a post on Facebook criticizing an official of the government, or the previous president, for example, you might have the police or Criminal Investigation Division coming to your house the next day to ask you about why you made that post and make life pretty much difficult for you. So, there’s a lot of harassment also, in that case. And there are various apparatuses that the government has been using. And I feel that the war and the history of that and the tension before that has driven successive governments to be more militaristic. Even though that Sri Lanka has never had a history of military rule, the military is being used and other security agencies are used to reduced -I guess, problems with governments are based in terms of their mismanagement, their corruption and things like that. Those agencies are being used to now stimey dissent, and rather not solve most of the problems that Sri Lanka is facing. So, it’s a strange mix actually. It started out as a division of nationalism which still is existing, but now  with all the other problems that have kind of accumulated over the decades. It’s a state of flux, I believe at the moment. So, it’s very hard to find out which direction it will go head.

Will Brehm  10:14
In that state of flux, as a PhD student in education, what were you sort of curious about? What were you going to study within that sort of very complex context that you just explained?

Suren Ladd  10:28
Yeah. That’s a really good question. I feel my personal interest stems from the education, learning, teaching, pedagogical kind of approach. Just to put some context around that; so, during these various phases of conflict and tensions, riots, uprising, etc. So, during these various tensions that have gone out throughout the decades, there’s been a strong influence and activism that has come out from the university and higher education kind of sector, where academics, students have really been at the forefront of a variety of causes, and also sometimes in violence as well. So, in terms of a response, in terms of what the government could be doing to bring about reconciliation, to build peace, to create a rather socially cohesive Sri Lanka; in the secondary school system, there has been a lot of international agencies and some governments kind of response in terms of changing curriculum, adding programs, etc. But within the university sector, where there is more agency, there is more individual contribution in terms of the student or the academic, there has been very limited official government response or kinds of programs implemented. The universities themselves have not taken initiative and steps to include programs like peace education programs or courses. But coming back to your question; so, I wanted to know what is happening in that space? Are we, in Sri Lanka, looking to work together in the future? And how are we doing it within the classroom context of higher education where the future decision makers in society? What direction are we trying to guide them to the future?

Will Brehm  12:11
It’s a really fascinating topic. And I would imagine your whole thesis, your dissertation is going to be looking at this. But what you wrote about recently in your new article is not that topic specifically, but about how you research that topic, and some of the challenges that you face doing so. And it’s really quite fascinating for you to sort of think through what it means to research students in higher education while being a student in higher education but living outside of Sri Lanka, but having a connection to Sri Lanka. It gets a bit messy. So, I guess to start to unpack some of this, in that study on higher education and how it’s contributing, or not, to some of the reconciliation and what it might mean for the future of the country; would you consider yourself an insider or an outsider? Which is usually a big distinction when we think of qualitative research methodology. But how would you sort of position yourself in that study?

Suren Ladd  13:14
Yeah, that’s a really interesting question, Will. This is something that I’ve always grappled with as well, myself in terms of research context. Especially when you are conducting research, you learn about insider, you learn about the outsider, and then you try to decide for yourself. I guess, if I applied that conceptually to myself, I probably exhibit a bit of both in terms of being an insider and an outsider. And I feel as an example, being born in Sri Lanka, speaking Sinhalese, going through the school system, and then migrating to Australia, where I live right now and I study higher education and sort of being a part of that lifestyle, and also that education system, and then trying to understand how it works back, quote, unquote, home again. So, there are elements within myself. And that’s some of the things that I tried to bring out in the article itself. Trying to point out my background, and also my current lived experience as a student. So, I feel that I would exhibit a bit of both in terms of being an insider and outsider and I think moments within the research journey, these insider, or outsider thoughts, or feelings, or situations or you yourself, as a researcher may identify much more closely. And I think that’s something that happens when maybe not necessarily when you’re doing the research interviews but when you are doing the data collection and the data analysis part itself, and trying to find out, how did you feel during that moment? How did you respond to that moment? So, these are some of the questions that I guess came up during that second phase of the analysis phase as well.

Will Brehm  14:50
So, what would be an example of that? When you’re in Sri Lanka or you’re doing these interviews online and you’re talking to people back in Sri Lanka. Talk me through an example where these two different identities of being an insider and an outsider sort of simultaneously, but also one more than the other at different times, and you having to sort of negotiate that identity. Walk me through that. How did you do it?

Suren Ladd  15:12
So, yeah, that’s really actually an interesting part of the research. So, COVID, obviously, kind of expanded the work for everyone in terms of research. So, it was mostly done virtually. My research was done all virtually. I was intending to go to the research country but if I can split, for example, the method itself or the process itself, this is a very operational kind of process, from the first point of actually looking at or selecting research participants, I used a sort of a snowball technique, but getting that first person’s consent or approval for them to be a part of my study, that was one of the first moments where for example, I didn’t speak in Sinhalese where I’m able to speak in Sinhalese. Where I know, if I spoke in Sinhalese there’s a quicker familiarity, but keeping that kind of officialness about speaking from a foreign country. But I spoke to the person, that person spoke to me in English when responded so, I just went accordingly. At the latter part, then we started -when you meet your own sort of country person,  countrymen or countrywomen, there’s always a bit of back and forth in terms of where you’re from, and things like that. And then you kind of negotiate speaking languages, family, or you might share a commonality. So, that’s one kind of example. And another maybe I can talk about which is in terms of the research interview itself, where, for example, if you speak to someone from, say, a Tamil background, whom I have plenty of friends and colleagues back home. But for a practitioner who has lived in other parts of the country, there is a slight difference in terms of the familiarity or the way you kind of approach and the questions we ask because there is a sensitivity in terms of their lived experience, and you don’t want to say, as a researcher, not to say, prod too much, because it can draw up for them various types of negative memories, or trauma, or stress. Which can be something mundane one might say, but living in the capital, at the time of us growing up, even though the war was apparent in the capital, in terms of bombings and violence, it was not the theater of war. So, therefore, that lived experience is different. So, that sensitivity has to be there in terms of who you speak with, where the person is coming from, and what stage of experience they are, and how flexible they are in their mannerisms as well.

Will Brehm  17:53
So, in the case of speaking to a Tamil who lives outside of the capital city, and has had more traumatic experience, most likely; in your experience, was it better to sort of play the role of being an outsider to sort of accommodate those sensitivities, or was it better to be sort of seen as an insider, like, I’m part of Sri Lanka, I know the history, I can sympathize with what was going on. Was that a better approach? Like, which one did you end up sort of using in that particular case?

Suren Ladd  18:25
So, that’s a good question. I think in that specific case, I felt I used more of my insider characteristic. Not in a conscious way that I approached it of, I will be dealing with this person in this manner, or dealing with this person in this manner. But more so, having the awareness of how the conversation was going and what sort of rapport that one can build, because these are some of the challenges that come up as a researcher, when we are doing a virtual visit. And I think, even though virtual research has been a part of research for some time now during COVID, it sort of amplified and there was no best practice that one can draw from immediately to go ahead. So, I guess, being aware, and using more of my insider in terms of questioning, finding some commonality. For example, if it’s a place where I may have visited, just talking about that location, and some of the historical sites and kind of tourism maybe related kind of places, so that creates a rapport to build a bit more engagement from the participant.

Will Brehm  19:41
It’s a tricky negotiation. And I would imagine that you had no formal training on that particular aspect of doing research because it’s such a lived sort of experience that you go through in the moment, and you have to learn to negotiate that relationship rather quickly. It also brings up an issue that you also write a about which is as a researcher thinking through some of these issues, and having these conversations with different people in Sri Lanka. Certain memories come up that sort of stir different emotions that you might not have wanted to sort of engage with. And so, it’s through the research process that the researcher yourself is negotiating some of these sorts of rather more difficult emotions that might have been repressed and not necessarily discussed. And so, did that happen to you? How did you manage and navigate that complex sort of reality that the research process itself created these difficult emotions?

Suren Ladd  20:42
Yeah. That’s a really good question. And in the article, I kind of write about this in terms of the suppressed ideas or notions of feelings as residual embodiments where your experience, your history, and things that you go through as an individual, you might internalize them and normalize them as a part of your growing up. For example, violence and being if you go to school, your school bag will be checked. You only bring books and a lunch box. It’s checked every day, and you have to be in line to go into school to study. That’s generally for all schools at a certain period of time. So, these are some of the things that shaped my upbringing, or my kind of experience. Other people in other parts of the country have gone through much, much more in terms of violence and trauma and stress, and things like that, that are still not dealt with by themselves, or even in the national reconciliation process. So, there’s a lot of historical drama in the country. And a lot of these have been suppressed and not dealt with. So, that residual embodiment gets triggered  when you have to deal with -for example, I went to school in the western part of the country, which is the capital. Again, like I said earlier, it was not the theater of war, but there was violence and things that you can see that there is something happening in terms of the country. But in my school -I went to a Christian school which was mixed, and they had all different nationalities and religions. So, in that sense, I was able to normalize diversity and multicultural living in terms of that. But I studied in a singular stream, or the language of instruction was Sinhalese. I never spoke Tamil. We were never taught Tamil because it was taboo for any government school. Even though in my own school, we had a Tamil stream with Tamil students of the Hindu faith, no one ever really thought of maybe asking a teacher from the Tamil stream to come to the Sinhalese stream and teach a very spoken Tamil kind of class. No one ever thought of that. So, at that time, it was not a done thing. And that’s how we sort of grew up to there at that time, as well. So, as an example in the research, with virtual research, the opportunity arose to speak to different participants from all across the island. From places where they were less involved in the war to places where they were more involved. And that initial kind of switch was triggered, when should I speak to people from these places in the North and East which is where the war really took place for almost three decades. So, that’s one example. The opportunity is there, should I do that. Because if I went, to do in person research, that opportunity would have been much, much harder, because you’ve got to go through a lot more hoops and it depends on the person you speak to, whether they’ll grant you the permission, and then you have to go through the security clearances, meaning the checkpoints that could be there. Not to say that those locations are like a war zone today, but there was a lot of eyes and ears on the ground in terms of military and security, so then people could be putting increased risk to themselves. So, that was a big tension that I had to negotiate with them and consider. I feel a study of this method has not been heard of at the university level. I considered this more of a meta study. And it would have been a missed opportunity if I didn’t try that. The way I negotiated it was trying to find some participants. I joined various kinds of online university classes and presentations and then tried to seek one of those participants out and then managed to do that.

Will Brehm  24:43
It’s quite fascinating thinking about what online interviews can afford the researcher and sort of give you these opportunities that would have not been necessarily possible through face-to-face interviews, as you’ve just expressed. I guess I’m still interested in some of these residual embodiments that you talk about, because obviously you’re going through it, the participant is going through it. Do you think in this process, these residual embodiment as you reflected on them helped you understand your research topic in greater depth?

Suren Ladd  25:16
I think the answer is, yes. The more I think about it, it is a consideration where partially, to one extent, the study was more of a representative co-creation of new sort of knowledge in that sense. And I think if I dismissed the opportunity to engage with participants from a certain region, that would have not been the correct representative. And maybe there might be other opportunities in the future to do more research which I’m sure there will be but for a person that is on the ground to cover about 12 universities, that would take a long time. Even though I would consider there’s obviously a lot more that one can do to perfect the research. I think that would give it a starting point. And I think, finally, I would say maybe on the residual embodiment is that when you speak to certain participants, even though that person may not say this is because of the war, this is because of the trauma, they themselves, externalize it. For example, a participant might say, “In the classroom, I asked my students to do field research about local issues”. So, the students can do the field research but when they try to publish it or present it, then you might have security forces sending a message to the dean saying, you shouldn’t ask them to do that in the future, etc. So, that’s kind of the practicality that can’t be applied. So, that kind of knowledge won’t be able to be shared with the rest of the world, where academic freedom for example, is not equal in different parts of the country. So, there is something that was drawn out from the wider study which you have to consider through your residual embodiment and meeting that process.

Will Brehm  25:16
Yeah, and to do research ethically, and to not put any of your participants at risk in that heavily surveilled environment. So, how did you manage that? How did you, as a researcher, navigate such surveillance by the state of sort of knowledge production and dissemination, as you’re saying. Being both an outsider and an insider, it must be rather difficult to sort of figure out. You potentially have a lot of academic freedom but at the same time, the people with whom you’re co-creating this knowledge with do not, and so it becomes this really strange reality. So, how did you navigate some of those sorts of ethical complexities?

Suren Ladd  27:56
Yeah, I think it’s a very, very interesting question. And I feel that it’s something that I didn’t stumble upon in terms of an answer straight away. I had to do a lot of reflection and also be able to conduct the research ethically. As I said earlier, there was no playbook written before COVID. And the ethical, I guess, committee or board, they have a certain way of setting the standard. Now, in terms of navigating that, I knew from the onset that, for example, I wouldn’t be sharing the participant names at all, or even their university name. So, maybe the location of the university, which I didn’t include in the ethical review application. So, that’s one way in terms of broadly anonymizing their kind of identity and where they work. So, that’s something I decided, even before I had made an application purely because of the subject matter that I was dealing with. Even though I didn’t ask the question, have you taken part in violence or things like that, it’s more. I try to focus on the teaching, the learning, that the university themselves have adopted and enacted. So, something within the sanction of that context. But one never knows as a researcher, things can lead into very sensitive topics which are dealt and taught in various classrooms, which I discuss in the study. So, that’s one of the things I decided early on and that part of my insider status, which I use, and I made it known. And also, in terms of the operational aspect of conducting the virtual research, choosing times that are convenient for the participants, technology that they are convenient with, more secure technology in terms of Zoom or where it’s recorded, how they sign the consent form. Even though I believe there are various ways of obtaining consent, the ethics committee wanted a signed approach which can be very restrictive, especially during COVID where people can’t access office computers, or printers, things like that there’s some logistical additional to the surveillance and other challenges they can face. So, trying to make the process for the participant as easy as it can be, and facilitate that process can take more time to listen and be aware. And in that period, I managed to speak to over 30 participants, which is something that may not have happened if I had done an in-person research, it could have been far less than that. Now, that’s not to say that it’s a win, but it’s more so one of the benefits of conducting virtual research with the right consent. So, I guess, to maybe summarize, it’s more so being aware of the situation and what sort of questions and even presenting them guideline questions where they can read about it and have an idea of what they might be getting themselves into. So, even that process being very open and transparent, and then they consent, and they have the go ahead, then sort of move on to the next stage. And even if after the interview, they feel that okay, it was not something that they prefer, and if they ask me to scrap it, I totally respect their opinions. There were a couple of occasions like that. So, here are some of the practical kinds of steps I took during that time.

Will Brehm  28:19
And in that experience, as a final question here, is there anything from that experience that you learned about the sort of ethical research process as articulated in the Australian context, which is rather bureaucratic, and there’s these committees, and they have a very particular conception of what research is and looks like. But then doing research in this context of Sri Lanka, and it’s so complex, and there’s so much. There’s issues of trauma, and conflict and, residual embodiments and all these sorts of really difficult questions that you’re raising here. Is there anything you learned in the process that you could reflect back on the Australian ethical research system that you would say, this needs to change in this way?

Suren Ladd  32:10
Yeah. I think that’s something that I really sort of grappled with. I feel they are at two different paces, and two different systems entirely. If we can term Sri Lanka as a part of the global South; they have a different set of standards and processes. Whereas in Australia, where one could say they are very robust and stringent or following strict guidelines. And as you mentioned, that version of research, which is good and has its benefits, I feel that there is limited allowance for the flexibility and a once in a millennia, events like COVID, maybe has not been programmed into ethical committee protocols. But I think there could be a degree of flexibility. Especially for example, getting consent. As long as the person is aware, then in virtual scenarios where maybe after going there may have improved it where you could get verbal consent or written consent in other ways to an email. Things like that may make it more easy where rather than to have to get a physical signature or an electronic signature, which may not be a problem for a person working at a university that is fairly well resourced. Whereas when there was no internet connection, limited kind of technological problems as well, and everyone was locked down, there was that kind of disparity. And I’m sure other researchers of that time who had gone to COVID would also have faced very similar issues. And I think, hopefully, moving forward, they would be able to enact some of those flexibilities where the researcher won’t have to think of these dilemmas and find ways to micromanage them in a certain way. You can find a way. The other thing also, I will say about the training in itself, how to conduct research training. The university does have lots of programs, but I think switching or pivoting from one version to another, which is not ideal, is something that maybe some more guidance could be something that could be afforded to researchers going forward.

Will Brehm  34:17
Well, Suren Ladd, thank you so much for joining FreshEd. I look forward to reading your dissertation when it is finally submitted and published. And if I was the University of Sydney, I would be asking you to help redesign some of those research courses. Thanks so much for joining.

Suren Ladd  34:31
Thank you, Will. I really appreciate the opportunity and thanks for having me.

Want to help translate this show? Please contact info@freshedpodcast.com

Related Author Publications/Projects

Virtual qualitative inquiry: Tensions of research in post-conflict Sri Lanka

The role of school curriculum in sustainable peace-building: The case of Sri Lanka

The role of pedagogy in peace building: Sri Lanka’s non-formal secondary education sector

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Have any useful resources related to this show? Please send them to info@freshedpodcast.com