The politics of rural access and settler colonialism: Weli Oya and the tensions of a right to the rural

2025/06/09 by Thiruni Kelegama · 1 voice · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Migration and Labor Dynamics #Agriculture and Rural Development Research

paper · doi:10.1177/20438206251349276

openalex publication_date 2025/06/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

This commentary extends Van Sant and Fairbairn's right to the rural concept by examining how access claims operate in contested territories through the case of Weli Oya, Sri Lanka. Analysing this Sinhala settlement scheme at the edge of Tamil-claimed territories, I demonstrate how rural access claims transcend agricultural utility to serve territorial control projects and reinforce settler colonial dynamics. These tensions necessitate a more nuanced analytical approach to distinguish between emancipatory and oppressive rural access claims in contested landscapes.

Citations

• The lure of land: Peasant politics, frontier colonization and the cunning state in Sri Lanka
• Towards a right to the rural?

Cited by

• Rural movements within and against rentier capitalism

Discussions

• New Online 1st Commentary “The politics of rural access and settler colonialism: Weli Oya and the tensions of a right to the rural” by Thiruni Kelegama doi.org/10.1177/2043... [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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