Unequal Mobility in Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Civil War
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profit margins for rice. Villagers also grow turmeric, coconut, ginger, vegetables, maize, cowpea, cashew, and areca nut. Turmeric was profitable in the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, but increased competition and a fungus in the late 1990s pushed farmers to try other crops. The village economy also struggled after the tsunami because extensive rice donations drove down the market price. Some households, however, began producing and selling bricks to meet the demand created by post-tsunami housing reconstruction. In addition, several people are working in government jobs, including with the armed forces and police. An elderly woman who has moved out of poverty in Pothupana, for instance, explained that she was able to do this because her two sons secured jobs with the police and the navy, and together they are saving and also cultivating crops “so we can be well prepared for the future.” In addition, the village employs 30 home guards. About 25 young women commute daily to garment factories, and other women are receiving training in sewing and handicrafts. A focus group of women from Pothupana identified no fewer than six available credit sources: Sarvodaya (an NGO), the Samurdhi program, the local funeral group, a local group of paddy cultivators, private lenders, and agricultural unions. The men’s and women’s focus groups identified fertilizer subsidies and credit from Sarvodaya and from Ceylinco, a private firm, as the top factors helping Pothupana prosper. Nevertheless, the women said that default rates are high because there is so much credit available: “What happens is that people take loans from each and every place and they won’t bother to pay the money back and they cheat the company. Even the groups who provide the loans try to pull down the other group.” Villagers also said that credit for fertilizer and pesticides is usually not available from these programs, so farmers instead rely on costly loan sharks, causing them to fall into debt “one harvesting season after another.” When discussing the quality of local democracy and governance, villagers acknowledged that the government had improved the education of youth in the village and had provided opportunities based on merit, such as scholarships. But beyond this they had little favorable to report about government functioning. When asked about democracy and its future in the country, the women’s focus group in Pothupana replied that Sri Lanka is not a democratic country, and “if we bribe 50 rupees now, in 10 years we will have to bribe 100 rupees.” The women also reported that with the exception of Samurdhi, government schemes often had limited effectiveness and were tainted by their association with partisan politics: “When the parties change in the local government, then the policies and the people who are benefited change. So we don’t think that they contribute anything to economic opportunities. Last time they built a well near the house of a party supporter.” While elected