Dressing the Colonised Body : Politics, Clothing and Identity in Sri Lanka/Nira Wickramasinghe. New Delhi, Orient Longman, 2003, vi, 157 p., ills., $22. ISBN 81-250-2479-4.

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Independence and the national dress. 3. Dress and material culture. 4. Imagined authenticities: dress, colonial minds, colonised bodies. 5. Dress and memory: a draughtsman’s story. 6. Conclusion. Appendix: prescribed dress. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

"Dressing the Colonised Body explores popular, political and symbolic meanings assigned to dress in a variety of colonial contexts in Sri Lanka; thus it focusses on the politics of nationalism and identity under late colonialism.

"Proceeding from the understanding that self-representation is at its peak at the moment of political independence, the author examines the lineages that exist between that moment in Sri Lanka and the colonial past, as also the meaning of the commemorations that took place on Independence Day. She examines changes at the material level—in the production and consumption of cloth and the advent of the sewing machine—and the construction of ‘authenticity’ and ‘identity’ through the creation, by the colonial government, of official costumes. Simultaneously she attempts to recreate the life of one man through a study of his dress as revealed in photographs.

"Well researched and highly creative, this book is an important addition to the growing literature on the social history of South Asia." (jacket)

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