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British Interventions in the Traditional Crafts of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), <I>c</I>. 1850–1930

This critically located article makes an innovative contribution to knowledge and understanding about the effect of British colonial policy on and European perceptions of local South Asian craft production during the nineteenth century. It contains new empirical findings on this subject and casts new light on British perceptions of South Asian traditional crafts. These perceptions are mainly examined through the prism of Ananda Coomaraswamy’s writings on South Asian Crafts, but the article highlights methodological problems with this source. The article also contributes to discussions on the role and re-presentation of the vernacular in relation to the production of South Asian national and cultural identity during the colonial period. The article also foregrounds and problematizes colonial narratives of authenticity in relation to local craft production and the colonizer’s essentialization of geographically specific forms of cultural production. More broadly, and in terms of approaches adopted in relation to the research material, the article contributes to transnational histories of design. Its significance at the present time in Sri Lanka, lies in its intervention in current notions of the authenticity of local craft production during the colonial period and the problematic revalorization of vernacular design and craft through their reappraisal by the colonizer.