Accepting Hardship, Excepting Hardship: Understandings of adversity and aid in life stories from a Tamil-Vedda village in Sri Lanka

This research interrogates understandings of hardship and help in the context of a Tamil-Vedda fishing village in east coast Sri Lanka. Enduring multiple adversities, including civil war, tsunami, and structural violence, has pushed people, particularly the indigenous population, into a precarious position. The region has also received significant aid. Based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, my findings suggest that for villagers, experiencing chronic crisis has normalized adversity, while aid givers view adversity as exceptional. I argue for the importance of mutual understandings in aid relationships, and suggest that this can be achieved by selecting and empowering appropriate aid intermediaries.