This thesis provides an in-depth account of the Low-Country, ritual, drumming tradition of Sri Lanka. Low-Country drumming is characterized by its expressive and illusive sense of timing which makes it appear to be free of beat, pulse and metre. This makes it special in respect to other drumming cultures of the world. However, the drumming of the Low-Country is marginalized, unaccepted and unexposed. Drawing on original fieldwork from the Western province of Sri Lanka, this study analyses the drumming of three distinct rituals: devol maḍuva, Kalu Kumāra samayama and graha pūjāva of Raigama, the dominant sub-tradition of the Low-Country. The thesis reveals key features of the drumming tradition, some of which are hidden. These features include the musical structure that is beneath the surface of the drumming, timing, embellishment, improvisation and performance practice. It also documents the Low-Country drum, the yak beraya, its construction and relationship to the musician. The thesis addresses some of the changes that are occurring in the contemporary ritual and argues the need for the drumming to be brought out of its ritual context, for its survival in the future. It also documents a collaborative performance between Low-Country ritual performers and musicians from New Zealand.

University of Technology Sydney. Institute of Sustainable Futures. / Sanitation in rapidly growing cities of developing Asian countries is a complex problem that often appears intractable and unyielding to standard problem-solving approaches. In this thesis, I provide a conceptual foundation aligned with sustainability to provide fresh guidance towards resolving this problem. I frame urban sanitation in developing Asian countries as a ‘messy’ planning-related problem, characterised by associations with multiple perspectives, key uncertainties and conflicting interests. In recognition that ‘messy’ problems cannot be confined within traditional disciplinary boundaries, the research uses transdisciplinarity as a guiding principle and methodology. It explores how new processes and complex systems ideas relevant for ‘messy’ problems can be applied to resolving urban sanitation. To ground the work in a real context, much of this work is explicated with reference to Colombo, Sri Lanka. My research highlights the role of dominant perspectives and worldviews in the organisation of sanitation practice. A review of sanitation history exposes changing paradigms, and the potential for developing Asian countries to move to radically different practices aligned with sustainability. I demonstrate that conceptions of costs and cost recovery for sanitation depend on perspective, by comparing how neoclassical economics’, ecological economics’ and Buddhist economics’ perspectives indicate different approaches to these, with different alignments with sustainability. By arguing that these perspectives are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, I integrate them to propose necessary principles for sustainable sanitation, namely, that: arrangements for sanitation should emphasise cooperation between stakeholders; efficiency goals should include entropy considerations; society as a whole should live within its means; and ethics and ‘goodness’ should underpin decision processes and choices. The thesis proposes a framework for participation to support decision-makers in resolving problematic sanitation. This supports the principle of cooperation between stakeholders, and the sustainability discourse’s emphasis of democracy and participation in decisions that affect them. It is a learning process based on soft systems methodology, bringing participants with specialist knowledge, stakeholder interests and broader societal values into dialogue that is explicitly designed to be deliberative, that can lead to a path to resolving the problem. Finally, I explore how ethics and ‘goodness’ can be woven into the provision of sanitation services, particularly with private sector actors who can potentially play a key role. I propose that their representation as metaphorical persons within current legal structures be extended so their behaviour is guided by a moral framework like real people in society. I propose that Buddhist economics can provide such a framework, raising expectations of behaviour grounded in ethics and goodness.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of deregulation on financial market efficiency in Sri Lanka. The concept of efficiency used here is due to Fama (1970) who defines an efficient market as one in which prices fully reflect all available information. Given the significant expansion of Sri Lanka???s financial markets in the post deregulation period, efficiency is investigated in the context of these markets. To this end, the study employs a number of standard tests for market efficiency including; the expectations hypothesis of the term structure, the Fisher hypothesis, uncovered interest parity, speculative efficiency, real interest rate equalization and tests of capital mobility. Although the overall results presented in this study suggest that Sri Lanka???s financial markets are not fully efficient, the evidence provides significant insight to the performance of these markets. The main policy lesson to be learnt from this analysis is that financial deregulation will not automatically promote market efficiency unless accompanied by positive policy action to reinforce the impact of these reforms. In conclusion therefore, the study makes a number of recommendations which could help to reinforce the impact of financial deregulation on market efficiency.

Cancer pain is a serious problem that requires specialised nursing knowledge to manage. This ethnography study explored the experiences and practices of cancer pain management among nurses at the Cancer Hospital, Sri Lanka. Data were collected at the Cancer Hospital in Sri Lanka during October 2007 to January 2008. Data consisted of participant observation of nursing practice in a cancer ward, semistructured interviews with 10 participants and researcher diary. Analysis of data was undertaken with Richard’s (2005) method of handling qualitative data and consisted of coding data initially and an integrative process to develop categories. Findings identified Sri Lankan nurses have minimum cancer pain management practice because of a lack of resources, large number of patients to care for, shortage of nurses and unbearable workload in this hospital setting. Additionally the nurses are powerless as they have no autonomy in practice as well as no prospects of career promotion. They are stuck in a task oriented system that rarely acknowledges cancer patients’ pain management needs. It is anticipated that this study may lead to improve nursing pain management for cancer patients as well as curriculum change in nursing courses in Sri Lanka. Nursing curriculum change is required to include cancer pain management education as well as care of acute and palliative cancer patients. Additionally, the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka needs to acknowledge the importance of palliative care service as well as pain management service and a recommendation is made to implement policies at the Cancer Hospital addressing these areas.

Bibliography: leaves 318-325 / iv, 325 leaves : maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Discipline of Anthropology, 1991

The proposed study is to examine the contribution made by John D'Oyly, a British Civil Servant, to the British acquisition and control of the whole of Ceylon. It is also aimed to examine the history of this period (between 1805-1818) in Ceylon as a part of British colonial expansion in South Asia focusing on the policy of infiltration which was used by the British as a method of expanding and consolidating their power and influence. In The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, published in 1996, P.J. Marshall submitted that the British had become a major political force on the south east coast of the Indian subcontinent, and had become the real rulers of the wealthy province of Bengal by the end of the eighteenth century. He further submits that the success of the British was mainly due to their ability to infiltrate into the internal politics of local states and kingdoms, and thereby dominate some of these political entities rather than overcome and destroy them by the use of military force. This process of infiltration will be examined in detail in the study of British relations with the Kandyan Kingdom, which was situated in the centre of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and was the only local kingdom then in existence as an independent political entity. The primary documents to be studied are those that relate to the British relations with the Kandyan Kingdom between 1805 and 1818, which covers the career of John D'Oyly as a civil servant working in Ceylon. He was the principal figure used by the British in their dealings with the Kandyan Kingdom, due mainly to his proficiency in the Sinhalese language and his knowledge of the customs and manners of the local people. His official diary, covering between the periods of 1810 and 1815, is one of the major sources of this study, examining the methods of infiltration. What is attempted in this Thesis is to examine this new theoretical approach of infiltration (submitted by P.J. Marshall) to the history of British relations with the Kandyan Kingdom between the periods of 1805 to 1818. This study is associated therefore with giving a new dimension to D'Oyly's work as a civil servant, and also to give a deeper reason for British expansion in Ceylon (as much as in Asia) in the context of the broader British strategic objectives. It strives to give a new meaning to the primary documents available in studying British Kandyan relations, as a part of the successful political expansion of the British in India and Asia.

Zugl.: Giessen, Univ., Diss., 2005

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [298]-325).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-216).

Texte remanié de: Thèse--Sciences de l'éducation--Paris V, 1986. / Contient un choix de textes et documents. Bibliogr. p. 269-276.