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SUMMARY:Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture\, 2015-16: Three scenes from rura
 l life: Cambridge to Colombo and back again\, 1954 to 2016 - Professor Jon
 athan Spencer\, University of Edinburgh
DTSTART:20160427T160000Z
DTEND:20160427T170000Z
UID:TALK64969@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Barbara Roe
DESCRIPTION:I start from a moment in the 1950s when a small group of Cambr
 idge researchers – Edmund Leach\, Ben Farmer and Nur Yalman\, followed s
 oon after by Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere  - initiated a conve
 rsation\, fuelled by bouts of intense fieldwork\, about land\, kinship and
  social order in rural Sri Lanka. In my second scene\, from the early 1980
 s\, a new generation of researchers returned to the same questions\, but i
 n a landscape increasingly shaped by nationalist imaginings of the rural. 
 In my final scene\, the rural has become synonymous with poverty and its p
 athological consequences – self-harm and suicide\, alcohol abuse and vio
 lence. What links these scenes\, and what will become the subject-matter f
 or this lecture is\, in Raymond Williams’ words\, “a problem of perspe
 ctive”. 
LOCATION:The Winstanley Lecture Hall\, Trinity College\, Cambridge
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