Contested Notions of Wellbeing: Peoples’ and Donors’ Perceptions in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

Since the mid 1990s, the number of humanitarian initiatives in Sri Lanka has been steadily mounting, especially after the tsunami in 2004. The overwhelming response by locals and international donors to help the people in need, problematises the very idea of humanitarian intervention and calls for deeper understandings of intervention programming in the context of conflict and post disaster situations. This study attempts to understand the very objective of intervention programming, ‘wellbeing’, since intervention programmes aim to improve the state of wellbeing of people. This study focuses on people’s and donor’s perceptions of the notion of wellbeing. Qualitative research methods have been used in data collection in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka and in The Hague, The Netherlands. Methods of analysis are discursive. The multiple conceptions of the notion of wellbeing as articulated in the voices of ordinary people challenges standard development interventions which make distinctions between objective and subjective dimensions and emphasise purely economic programs. The findings also illustrate fractures, contestations and silences in people’s notions of well being highlighting the intersection of gender, ethnicity and religion. The study also highlights the integral linkages between concepts and participatory research methodologies as crucial in identifying people’s perceptions. The study hopes to contribute to the literature on wellbeing and development in a conflict/post disaster context and argues for the importance of rethinking current forms of humanitarian intervention in Sri Lanka through further research sensitive to the context and the concepts and participation of ordinary people.