Maintaining Cultural Identity during redevelopment in Cities, Post Conflict

Jaffna, Sri Lanka is a city currently experiencing redevelopment on a massive scale after the Civil war ended with a victor´s peace in 2009. The paper examines cultural identity and heritage in cities post conflict, since this is discussed less than sustainability in redevelopment and begins by reviewing the literature on the concepts of resilience, heritage, identity and place attachment to explore how they relate in the context of development. Fieldwork was conducted in Jaffna using semi-structured interviews to investigate the role of cultural identity and heritage in cities post conflict, through themes of place identity and attachment in a built environment that is rapidly changing. The findings from the interviews revealed some of the themes evident from the literature review coupled with distinct feelings of powerlessness and distrust, the notion of “wrong development” and participants seeing the current development as exploitative. Though there were ideas for development felt to be both sustainable and based in the traditions on which Jaffna was based, these were not being prioritised. Links between the changes in community and in architectural space are evident, with growing alienation from physical places and each other with psychological boundaries becoming expressed as physical barriers. Resilience seemed to be reduced through both a loss of identity and connection to place. The diaspora role and their influence over Jaffna´s development and the people who still live there is complex, divisive and occasionally problematic. The interviews concluded that Jaffna could lose it´s identity, people and heritage while redeveloping and suggested that the lack of both a plan and community involvement in development must be addressed if Jaffna is going to maintain anything of it´s essence. This study hopes to add to the discussion around culture and heritage in cities while developing and argues for their importance, as without them we risk uniformity, boredom and a significant loss of identity because of standardisation and globalisation