Militarized Capitalism? The Apparel Industry's Role in Scripting a Post-War National Identity in Sri Lanka

This paper examines new garment factories in the former war zone of North and East Sri Lanka. This paper elucidates the role of the state–military–capital nexus in the Sri Lankan government's efforts to rebuild the nation following a longstanding ethnic war, a post-war development strategy that has emphasized investment and job creation. Drawing on fieldwork with numerous managers and more in-depth exploration in one such garment factory, the paper shows how garment industry managers deployed a Sinhala-Buddhist management ethos to produce an unmarked class of modern workers and, in doing so, played an active role in re-scripting narratives of the nation. Therefore, we argue that capital is imbricated in the government's militarized nation-building efforts, and we call for more attention to how the industrial capital–military–state nexus may be shaping and re-producing power relations in the North and East of Sri Lanka.